Back in January, we leaked word that AT&T would be starting 2010 off with a suite of rate hikes for both their regular DSL and U-Verse VDSL customers. Users write in to tell us they're now officially getting the announcement from AT&T that starting with their March bill, the monthly rate for their Express (1.5 Mbps), Pro (3 Mbps) or Elite (6 Mbps) plans will be increased $3 per month. Right now AT&T is offering all three tiers for twelve months at $25, after which the prices revert to $33, $38, or $43, respectively. Note these price increases only impact new customers or customers whose contracts are expiring.

"We're adjusting our pricing for AT&T High Speed Internet service in an effort to better align our pricing structure across our entire service territory, and to better reflect the value of our broadband service," says AT&T to subscribers. "But don't worry, even with this adjustment, our pricing is still competitive across the industry."

AT&T's definition of competitive is tepid at best. It's precisely a lack of competition in most of their markets that allows a carrier like AT&T to raise prices during a sour economy, at the same time that bandwidth and DSL hardware continues to get cheaper.

AT&T's busily also "competing" on the U-Verse front, where they've raised the price on the service's lowest three tiers by about $5, while lowering the price on their Max (up to 12 Mbps) and Max Plus (up to 18 Mbps) tiers by $10. AT&T tells Broadband Reports the move reflects "the greater demand and interest we're seeing for higher bandwidth packages among our U-verse customers." Of course it also nudges users on cheaper plans toward more expensive ones.