We touched on this briefly yesterday; while telcos are grabbing dial-up converts en masse with discount slower DSL tiers, all of the telcos are reporting that this year, the majority of their customers are opting for faster speeds. AT&T claims that 42% of its DSL lines are faster than 1.5Mbps, up from 22% a year ago. BellSouth says that 31% of their customers have connections of 3Mbps or faster, up from 16% a year ago. Qwest too says the majority of their customers are on connections that are 3Mbps or faster.

Dave Burstein discusses this in his latest newsletter with BellSouth execs. "At the end of the third quarter, more than 30% of the DSL customer base subscribed to 3 or 6 megabit services, almost double the mix this time last year, and our monthly mix of net adds has consistently been above 80% for 3 or 6 megabits all year, reflecting strong and steady migrations from lower speed services," says BellSouth CFO Pat Shannon.