Tue 19 Jun 2007
AT&T Offers $10 DSL
Posted by Jesse under News
That's no misprint: as part of the conditions for buying out BellSouth, AT&T is offering up DSL for the price of dial-up. The service weighs in at a featherweight 768K down, 128K up and will be $5/mo more expensive in states not formerly served by BellSouth. AT&T will be chipping in a modem and will require a one-year commitment for service.
Naturally, AT&T hasn't exactly been shouting from the rooftops about this fire sale on broadband. Consumers have complained that they've had a hard time finding a link on their website to the plan which is limiting subscriptions. Not exactly complying in good faith, is it?
(See full articles here, here, here, here and here.)
June 20th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Unable to find anything about the $10 dollar a month service on AT&T's web site and only passing mention of it on the BellSouth web page I decided to give AT&T a call. They are my local phone provider here in Pennsylvania and I also have their cell phone service (my wife got me stuck in some 2 year plan.) After being passed around and given multiple numbers to call I was finally given 1-800-967-5363. This will allow you to talk directly to the DSL department with any questions regarding this matter. I should note that all representatives I spoke with were obviously outsourced, probably Indian, so it made communications difficult and frustrating. My first go resulted in the representative saying that the $10 offer was not available to me so I asked to speak with the manager. The manager said the "special offer" was only available in 22 states. I asked him to list them and he gave me the following: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. I asked him why it is only available in those states. He didn't know. I then told him that I had family in California who would be interested in this DSL price, how do I directly access the AT&T web page that details this "special offer." He directed me to att.net which uncovered nothing, then to att.com/localhelp which also uncovered nothing, finally he told me to go to newatt.com which redirects you to attfashion.net a site selling shoes. At this point he was getting frustrated and said he would connect me to one of his "DSL specialists" to resolve the matter. Can you guess what happened? He redirected me back to the main menu of 1-800-967-5363. *sigh* I waited on hold again for another outsourced Indian representative. This lady was armed with a lot of information. She was obviously reading a printed statement and basically said that the $10 offer is only available where BellSouth owns the land lines. Because Verizon owns the land lines in Pennsylvania the service is not available. I asked when the offer would be available to Pennsylvania and she said she did not have that information. She then tried to sell on the 19.99 DSL offer. No thanks. Much faster than the $10 offer! No thanks. How about AT&T dial up? No thanks. Its very fast with an accelerator! No thanks. Would you like AT&T wireless? I have it already, it sucks and is overpriced. How about adding another line? *CLICK* That was my experience. I say to hell with AT&T.
June 20th, 2007 at 8:08 am
That sounds typical of the complaints I read on Consumerist. Maybe you should file a complaint both with the FTC and FCC since it sounds like they're doing a poor job complying with the terms of the merger.