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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
 ·Comcast
| I'd buy... With all AT&T's overhead, they must be losing money on this one. But hey, as a second connection in addition to something more speedy, 3/512 (or, rather, 2.5/450) at $15 isn't bad AT ALL...and the price is low enough that I'd have no problem having it sit there as a backup connection. Oh, and it's faster than my parents' current 1.5/384 DSL (they'd have 7.1/768 if it was available).
Will this tier gain customers? Yep. Will it gain customers from cable companies that have folks tucked neatly into triple play deals? Probably not. Also, as said before I'm sure that a $15 per month DSL plan is costing AT&T money...unless it ends up being $20-$25 after taxes and fees, in which case they're breaking even. | |
|  | | Re: I'd buy... said by iansltx:~snip~ I'm sure that a $15 per month DSL plan is costing AT&T money ~snip~ I don't know about that. The per-port cost to t continues to decline, and that copper loop is just sitting there, with nothing on it now. I'm sure that even at $15, t is making money. Maybe not a ton, but that copper has been paid for dozens of times, so anything on it is pure profit. Plus if they charge for an install, that about mitigates the technician cost, and most of the provisioning systems are automated. Just need 15 min or so for the CO work, or if an RT, again paid for in the cost of the install.
In other words, I doubt t is crying over this. | |
| | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
| Re: I'd buy... It's AT&T. They have PLENTY of overhead above just sending a tech out to provision the line. Also, some lines (not all, but some) have to be groomed to get DSL to work well. There's also billing overhead and such. I agree costs are low, but I'm not sure if they're *that* low. | |
| | | | | Re: I'd buy... I'm sure it's at least a break-even at a year's time. The day to day costs are low, so long as they don't have a lot of problems with legacy lines in some areas (my area is horrible for DSL, I switched to cable. It's still bad, but at least it doesn't lose sync every 2-5 hours for a few minutes (not to mention packet loss). | |
| | | | | said by iansltx:It's AT&T. They have PLENTY of overhead above just sending a tech out to provision the line. Also, some lines (not all, but some) have to be groomed to get DSL to work well. There's also billing overhead and such. I agree costs are low, but I'm not sure if they're *that* low. Hmmm... "groomed", as in eliminating legacy crap like bridge taps, faulty insulation on "noisy" lines, replacing their decades-old defective copper cables when necessary, etc.? Don't get your hopes up. AT&T provides "best effort" service, and their best effort seldom is... Pay for one service level, get an inferior one at no additional charge... with no recourse, except cancellation. Oops, watch out for the ETF!
AT&T's overhead on ADSL shrinks daily. AT&T's billing costs would normalize and decline, if AT&T would just eliminate all its "smoke and mirrors" discriminatory pricing tiers. Providing expected levels of service without all the obfuscation, excuses, denials of responsibility and outright lying would cut down on customer churn, as well.
Then, there is the cost of their constant aggressive lobbying to remain in the last century technologically, and to regain their oligarchic monopoly status of old, the public weal be damned! Classic... | |
| | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: I'd buy... Doesn't matter if they're losing money because the CEO gets a 90% cut of all incoming promotions...the service would still be a loss leader  | |
| | | | cramer
join:2007-04-10
Raleigh, NC
kudos:5 Reviews:
 ·AT&T Southeast
| Most bridge taps should've been removed long ago. As for bad lines, they will not bother replacing trunks. If they cannot find a clean pair, you're just SOL.
Installation costs are next to zero these days. A tech somewhere bridges the DSL signal onto your existing phone line (not necessarily at the CO, btw.) A modem is fedex'd to you from a warehouse in Texas. No one comes out to your house -- unless it completely doesn't work. 99% of the time, he doesn't need to.
The infrastructure was paid for long ago. The only thing they have to buy is your modem (which is dirt cheap.) | |
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| | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: I'd buy... I'll believe that when I see a bill. Not impossible, granted (my Comcast bill has no taxes or fees other than modem sales tax) however I'm not sure exactly what happens with AT&T. | |
| | | | | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
| Re: I'd buy... Interesting. I know that my Verizon DSL + Phone bill is more than phone plus $29.99 for DSL, which is why I asked. Maybe the rate schedule is different if you aren't buying phone service at all (i.e. taxes on DSL-with-phone but none on DSL-without-phone). | |
| | | | | | | | | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: I'd buy... The Verizon DSL service is actually in TX, which I believe has a sales tax on internet service above a certain dollar amount. So that may all this is. | |
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Reviews:
·AT&T Southeast
| And then the cable companies will gain customers like me who are still paying the higher rates. Those of us in the old Bellsouth territories are getting rammed even worse because we're paying higher rates than the other AT&T areas. I have a choice here, cable with 10mbs down or DSL with 3mbs. | |
| | | After they get people locked on this lower price they may think as they roll out u-verse in more areas that they can eventually lock these people on triple play u-verse bundles. I think that may be one reason why they are doing this plus they were losing a lot of traditional dsl customers to other providers. | |
| | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: I'd buy... I think the main thing here is to get people to stop switching to cable. That and to pad net adds  | |
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