Author: KathrynV |
Just because it can
Coming on the heels of an outage in AT&T's 3G and Edge network that affected many Midwestern states, the Chicago Tribune is reporting that the telco will be tacking on an additional $5 a month for its DSL service:
Most customers with AT&T's high-speed DSL Internet service will be charged an additional $5 a month, the company said Friday. The increase affects DSL plans, each with a different connection speed, that now have monthly charges of about $15, $20 and $25.
Apparently, customers paying for the highest-speed elite plan will not see an increase nor will those who have long-term contracts. Additionally, people who don't now have DSL can still sign up for service at $10 a month if they order online from AT&T's Web site. That price was a concession required by government authorities to approve AT&T's takeover of BellSouth last year.
AT&T is claiming in a statement that popularity of video and music downloads as well as photo sharing and online gaming are behind the increase, citing the "billions of dollars [AT&T invests] each year to stay ahead of these trends" plus the current "market conditions".
However, DSLprime.com's Dave Burstein points out that
"Total cost to the company for the bandwidth it delivers is about $1 a month per customer. AT&T is raising its rates because it can. It has the market power to do so. Increased costs aren't the reason.
In December AT&T hiked the price of its dial-up Internet connections by $6 for existing customers. It also set a price of nearly $23 a month for new dial-up customers in a bid to nudge dial-up customers to take up DSL. For more info go to http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-To-Raise-DSL-Prices-91538 Article from DSLReports.com |
AT&T To Raise DSL Prices