Light Reading explores some of the competitive VoIP pricing going on between AT&T and Charter. Charter last week started offering unlimited local and long distance VoIP service for $20 for one year. In response, AT&T offered basic local phone line service (with no long-distance) for $13 a month, permanently, and then 1.5Mbps DSL for $15 for one year. But the article explores whether such intro-offers are good for the companies:

"You're attracting the wrong kind of customers," Bill Cron, a marketing professor at TCU's Neeley School of Business, says of these bottom-feeding bundles. "And that's potentially destroying the industry." While cable and phone companies scour the Earth for deal-hunters, the barons of bundling aren't rewarding existing customers for years of loyalty. "Everybody expects something extra for being loyal," says Cron. "Yet, in some of these programs, all you get for loyalty is that you're charged more."

The latter is something our regulars frequently complain about: discount offers aimed at new customers, with little reward for loyal regulars (with the occasional re-rate exception).