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AT&T Will Give Poor People 1.5 Mbps DSL for $10 if US Allows DirecTV Merger

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday July 08 2015, @11:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the too-big-to-fail dept.

AnonTechie writes:

AT&T is promising to offer cheaper Internet service to poor people if it's allowed to buy DirecTV. This is similar to a promise that helped Comcast gain government approval of its 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal.

Qualifying residents in areas where AT&T's top speeds are below 5 Mbps (that's not a typo) will be offered DSL service of "up to 1.5 Mbps, where available" for $10 a month, AT&T said in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission last week. It'll be $5 a month for the first year before rising to $10 for the next three years. AT&T is proposing a four-year commitment in total.

In areas where AT&T's top speeds are higher, the company said it "will offer a broadband wireline DSL service at speeds up to 5 Mbps to households in AT&T's wireline footprint for $10 per month for the first 12 months of service (rising to $20 per month for the remainder of the term of the commitment)."

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/07/att-will-give-poor-people-1-5mbps-dsl-for-10-if-us-allows-directv-merger/

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  • (Score: 2) by kaganar on Thursday July 09 2015, @03:11AM

    by kaganar (605) on Thursday July 09 2015, @03:11AM (#206752)
    Whoa now, let's be careful when using the term "ISP". AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, DirecTV -- these are not ISPs, these are much much larger than dedicated ISPs. Back when the mere mortal had a phone line to connect to the internet, ISPs were those people just beyond the last mile that competed for your business -- there were literally hundreds of them in the larger cities. Not with today's duopoly in most regions. What I want to know is... where'd all the apparent choices for DSL ISPs go? It seems like a lot of DSL ISPs still exist, but it's quite hard to find out how to use them instead of, say, AT&T's terribleness.
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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday July 09 2015, @05:09AM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday July 09 2015, @05:09AM (#206801) Journal

    where'd all the apparent choices for DSL ISPs go?

    There never really were any DSL choices beyond your local phone company.

    When people were on dial-up, they could dial into any ISP they wanted. There could be a dozen in a large city.
    But DSL requires short runs of dedicated lines - to the nearest central office or local office where it could jump to fiber or whatever. It was very range limited.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.