AT&T has quietly rolled out a $10 per month broadband Internet plan. The digital subscriber line (DSL) plan launched Saturday and is available to customers in the 22-state AT&T service region. The offer is part of the concessions made to the Federal Communications Commission by AT&T to receive approval of its 86 billion dollar acquisition of BellSouth Corp. last December. The FCC required AT&T to offer inexpensive DSL without conditions, so other stripped-down offerings could be in the works.
The $10 service includes download speeds up to 768 Kbps with upload speeds up to 128 kbps and a free modem. To obtain this rate and price, a customer must have a one-year DSL contract and local phone service.
Other concessions AT&T agreed in order to get the FCC's approval on the Bell South acquisition include a neutral network in its wireline broadband Internet service - where Internet traffic is not given priority on the basis of pricing plans or other criteria. The company also gave up rights to the 2.5GHz spectrum, and agreed to bring back 3,000 jobs that Bell South had been outsourcing.