This really is a dirty move by AT&T folks
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071231-att-offers-20-naked-dsl-if-you-know-where-to-look.htmlAT&T agreed earlier this year, as part of its conditions for acquiring BellSouth, that it would intro a standalone DSL option by the end of 2007.
That day has already come and gone without much fanfare from AT&T. The company began offering its $19.95 DSL-only service on December 20, which apparently comes without contract and no landline. However, some digging around AT&T's site yields—to no one's surprise—confusing and conflicting options.
The service is referred to as DSL Lite, but the only mention of DSL Lite I could find on AT&T's site is in a press release about the service's introduction in the Southwest in June. There is, however, a similarly-priced $19.99 DSL option that does require a landline, but has no contract (that's clearly not it). Finally, was able to find an AT&T Yahoo! High-Speed Internet "Basic" option for $19.95 per month with a downstream speed of up to 768kbps—it has no landline requirement but it does apparently require a one-year contract. The next tier up, "Express," appears to be the closest to this mythical, contract-less $20 deal I can get where I live—it goes for $23.99 with no landline, no contract, and offers 1.5Mbps down. That's not a bad deal, but if we're picking nits, it's clear that AT&T is making this $19.95 option difficult to find and relatively undesirable.
That should come as no surprise, though. In June, AT&T (also quietly) introduced a $10 DSL option as part of its merger agreement. The 768Kbps down, 128Kbps up service came with a landline, came with a one-year contract, and was limited to new customers only. It was slightly more buried in the company's website than the new naked DSL option, too, leading critics to blast the company for not doing enough to advertise the new service.
It seems that they hope to mislead their customers by hiding and providing virtually no information on any new services that dont bring in as much profit as the "locked in" contracts they offer do, what a shabby company this must be to do such things, I,m sure the merger lawyers get
full information on the services that AT&T have offered but its likely they are the only ones who do.
Can I suggest folks take advantage of this cheaper no strings service while it lasts.
