NewsAT&T’s $10 DSL: A Great Backup Option, and AT&T May Actually Like It
Over Christmas, the wireless ISP link at my vacation home failed. It took 2.5 days to get the rural ISP to fix the relay point upstream… and I had to “re-educate” technicians about the problem several times.
Looking at the lost productivity, even factoring out Christmas as a day off (despite my plan to give myself the gift of scrubbing my email inboxes of messages that I’ve read, then marked as unread), I’ve lost a ton of productivity. It’s a big setback considering the deadlines and timetables I’m working on.
So, I’ve decided to have AT&T’s $10 the-FCC-made-us-offer-it service installed (which runs crawls at 768 kbps down/128 kbps up). Already 1.5 years into their 2.5 years of the forced offering, I think that AT&T might actually wise up and keep offering the plan after they don’t have to anymore… especially in this economy.
With home offices becoming more and more mission-critical (again, especially in this economy), a couple of days of lost productivity can justify a year’s worth of $10/month DSL service as a backup plan.
Plus, there is some indications that AT&T does actually now appreciate the offering that they so much resisted offering. For example, AT&T now offers Wi-Fi roaming, even on the $10/month plan. Why offer Wi-Fi to customers that AT&T thinks are barely profitable? I suspect AT&T wants to keep the plan, just doesn’t want to tell investors that they like offering it. Then, at the end of the FCC-mandated 2.5 years, they can showcase to investors that they have tons of customers on it, and that it wound up being a profitable venture.
Over the past eight years, the FCC has surprised me quite a bit… we’ve gotten net neutrality, national broadband mandates, and broadband for dial-up speeds. That’s a track record that I hope carries over to the next administration.
What are the criteria to qualify for $10/month DSL from at&t?
Looking at their site, it appears that 768/128 is $14.95/month? But at the bottom of the page, it says “DSL for as low as $10 per month, for qualifying customers. Enter your number to see if you qualify.” Then it asks for a whole bunch of personal information I don’t want to provide at this time. (This is for my father. He has had DSL from at&t before, but gave it up several months ago.)
Or, is anyone, current or new to at&t, allowed to have this plan and at&t is just being ornery about it?
The requirements are:
* You must have not had an AT&T DSL account within the past 12 months.
* You must have AT&T local phone service.
* You must agree to a one-year commitment with a $50 early termination fee (if you cancel in the first year)
I have tried multiple times to ’see if I qualify’ for the $10 DSL (I happen to know I do), as it ONLY available online and not over the phone. Their address verification system refuses to recognize my address even when I pick it out of the list of possible matches – the next screen always ignores the choice and says they couldn’t find the address I just chose from the choices they offered me…
Very frustrating and their customer service refuses to help witht he issue, apparently they don’t even have the ability to offer the $10 service at all – over the phone.
I’ve tried with my parents and grandparents addresses as well – no luck.
Rick, I would strongly encourage you to head over to fcc.gov and file an FCC complaint. The FCC wants to hear from people in your situation, they want to force AT&T to make good on their agreement.
I would also file a BBB complaint and a complaint with your state’s public utilities commission.