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AT&T Promised To Offer $10 DSL; It Didn't Promise To Tell Anyone About It

At the end of December, AT&T proposed a bunch of “concessions” to the FCC in order to get approval for its merger with BellSouth. While there was a last minute protest, as a few people noticed that the fine print contained a few surprising nuggets, the FCC wasted no time (literally, it was just a few hours) approving the merger on those concessions. One of the concessions was that within 6 months of the merger, the company would offer customers in certain “buildout areas” 768k (downstream) DSL for $10/month. This offer would last for at least 30 months and only be for new customers. On Friday, AT&T announced that new customers in exactly those areas could get discounted DSL… but for $19.95/month and it requires a phone line as well. That seems a bit odd. So, Karl over at Broadband Reports did some sleuthing and found out that AT&T also did start offering the $10/month DSL plan… it’s just not telling anyone about it. Again, you have to read the fine print on the AT&T concessions. The company promised to offer the cheap DSL, not that it would let anyone know that it existed. (via Jason’s shared items in Google Reader)