Released: January 03, 2007

AT&T naked DSL: just for show?

Source: Clint Swett, Sacramento Bee

AT&T customers hoping to ditch their phone lines while still keeping their DSL broadband connections got a bit of positive news last week. As a condition of federal approval of its $86 billion merger with BellSouth Corp., AT&T Inc. agreed Thursday to offer stand-alone or “naked” DSL service for $20 a month, down from the $50 it currently charges in California.

The new pricing will be available sometime in the next 12 months and will be offered for a minimum of 30 months.

With naked DSL service, customers who prefer using cellular phones can jettison their standard phone service without paying an exorbitant rate for their DSL-only connections.

And the decision could spur more consumers to use their Internet connections to make phone calls via such technologies as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service from Vonage or other Internet-based services like Skype.

Indeed, Jupiter Research estimates that nearly 16 percent of U.S. households will drop their telephone landlines by 2011, and 25 percent will be using VoIP for calling by that year.

But some experts question whether customers will flock to AT&T’s naked DSL service when the company begins offering it sometime in the next 12 months. In particular they point toward the relatively low download speed of 768 kilobits per second that AT&T will be offering at the $20 monthly rate.

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