AfterDawn: News

AT&T raises prices on broadband plans

Starting March 1st, AT&T has announced that it will be raising the price of its three most common broadband Internet plans in most of the states in which it operates.

The new price hike, $5 USD a month, will apply to all states except for those that were acquired with the buyout of BellSouth. The hike will apply only to the three slowest broadband plans offered, the 768 Kpbs, 1.5 Mbps and 3 Mbps services. The new move should affect most of AT&T's current 14.2 million broadband customers.



Michael Coe, a company spokesperson, went to to say that "customers who signed up under special package promotional deals also avoid the price hike, at least for the term of their promotional deal."

Coe also said that the company decided on the price raise "to better reflect the value of our broadband service" especially as demand for broadband increases.


Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 5 Feb 2008 15:37

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• 17 comments

• OhCrap

  I love paying more for the same product I've had for years. DirecTv raised all their freaking prices too by 5 bucks on all their channel packages. I guess AT&T owns them too.

  5.2.2008 17:23 #1

• ken9771

  5 bucks a month more; no big deal, I pay more than that for
  one fast food meal. I've had ATT DSL for over 3 years and have never had any problems, no outages, service has always been great.
  Before that I had nothing but trouble with my Time Warner Road Runner
  service. I now have the 768 Kpbs service for under 15 bucks per month, I see download speeds almost at a constant 500 K plus rate,
  with fast response, fast webpage accesses. I'd call it a good deal even with a small 5 buck increase.
  
  Time Warner charged about 32 bucks a month for their 768 Kpbs service
  and being a shared ethernet, download speeds varried all over the
  place as your actual cable internet speed depends greatly
  upon how many others are active at any time on your zone.

  5.2.2008 18:37 #2

• silk42

  Sounds like AT&T is trying to get everyone to move up to their higher package. In reality, they're probably just pushing more and more people to move to cable.

  5.2.2008 18:53 #3

• drach

  Companies involved in acquisitions always say mergers lower prices and increase efficiency, but once again, the opposite is true. so much for economy of scale.

  5.2.2008 19:20 #4

• ChiknLitl

  Quote:the company decided on the price raise "to better reflect the value of our broadband service"What? How does raising a price reflect value? I have also had at&t DSL service for over two years at 1.5Mb/s. I have outages ALL the time, almost everymorning at 8 a.m. for about 2-3 minutes. Their customer service and tech support are all robots in some undisclosed country other than the U.S. They give you no answers only the standard wrote answer; "I understand you are having a problem connecting to the internet, is that correct? I will assist you to connect to the internet...." and on, and on , and on. The only reason I stick with them is because they were $25/month. This may push me to Comcast, but they have their own problems...

  5.2.2008 22:20 #5

• ripxrush

  Originally posted by OhCrap: I love paying more for the same product I've had for years. DirecTv raised all their freaking prices too by 5 bucks on all their channel packages. I guess AT&T owns them too.
  u where probobly being sarcastic bu ti was unsure but AT&T does not own DirectTv. they did have a partnership with them that didn't go far but they just released there own t.v. "cable" recently at least in my area they did & it had NOTHING to do with a dish!, it is more of a streaming idea than anything!.

  6.2.2008 02:32 #6

• LeeFields

  My word, I had a knew that the US had a worse deal than the UK but up until now, I had no idea the scope. Is it down to monopolisation (lack of competition) in the US because I dont get why you guys pay so much for what you get. I'm sure this has been done to death elsewhere, but I get 20mb/s on Virgin (soon to be upgraded for free to 50mb/s)for £30 a month. Even the standard here is 4mg/s-8mg/s for about £10-15 on non cable services. A price hike without service increase would have customers leaving/not signing up in their droves.

  6.2.2008 03:59 #7

• empulse

  In case some of our foreign friends are unaware, in America we have certain beliefs:
  
  1. The corporations know whats best for us. If we don't regulate them they will do what is best for the consumer, and if they are regulated @ all, our economy will collapse.
  
  2. Guns, God, Gays, and Abortion are the only things we can focus on, we don't worry about corporate greed/corruption, oil prices, global peace and prosperity.... just whether 2 poofters can marry.
  
  3. We constantly crave tax cuts, that ultimately take away from our educational system. This has lead to the complete and utter removal of any clear thought other than is "Brit-Brit OK?" and "When is American Idol on?". Oh and we constantly vote for the above #'s 1 and 2.
  
  4. We portray anyone who suggests Universal Health Care as "kooks", "Commies", "America Haters".
  
  So now that you understand our "logic", you can understand why people won't fight something like this, and why we allow AT&T to tap our phone calls and emails for the US Government. If you imagine all of us over here overweight, bent over on all fours, all lubed up... You are mostly right.

  6.2.2008 08:52 #8

• OhCrap

  Quote:Originally posted by OhCrap: I love paying more for the same product I've had for years. DirecTv raised all their freaking prices too by 5 bucks on all their channel packages. I guess AT&T owns them too.
  u where probobly being sarcastic bu ti was unsure but AT&T does not own DirectTv. they did have a partnership with them that didn't go far but they just released there own t.v. "cable" recently at least in my area they did & it had NOTHING to do with a dish!, it is more of a streaming idea than anything!.Yeah I was being sarcastic. Anyways, I know they're in some sort of cohorts due to the fact that I have that Bellsouth Answers Bundle. By using their dsl and phone services I receive a $5 discount on my DirecTv bill. I guess that's going out the window. But I do agree with ken9771 I've had zero problems with my dsl for the last 4 years, I use the 6mbps "EXTREME DSL". Before when I used Mediacom cable internet it was constantly off and on. Then they'd come out, the technician would take out his knife and scrape the corosion off the coaxial cable on the outside of my house and say there you go. Real high tech stuff there.

  6.2.2008 09:14 #9

• ken9771

  I called ATT and was told my price is being raised; an email notification would be sent on the 8th. Effective date for me would be
  20 Feb, not Mar 1st. I checked their current plans and I will be
  upgrading to the 1.5Mbs for under 20 bucks (current 768 is under $15),
  and I'll lock that price in for a year (no big deal) and receive a
  "free" month also.
  
  Bottom line for me, I love the ATT DSL service that
  I have been getting, do not mind the extra 5 bucks a month, and at least as a "bonus if you call it" I'll double my speed as part of paying that extra 5 bucks, and then the "free" month also brings
  average down a little bit.
  
  Quote:
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Before when I used Mediacom cable internet it was constantly off and on. Then they'd come out, the technician would take out his knife and scrape the corosion off the coaxial cable on the outside of my house and say there you go. Real high tech stuff there.
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  The Road Runner so called "techs" would do one better, they would go down the street and cut off and replace all connectors trying that as
  a way to solve a probem that they did not understand the source of.

  6.2.2008 10:01 #10

• snowlock

  that sounds like a bunch of crap, but if i even had their dsl it wouldn't affect me because we were a bellsouth state. comcast raises basic cable tv rates every single year while (in recent years) simultaneously taking channels away from the service and moving them to digital packages. i guess this is just how the businesses operate.
  
  Originally posted by LeeFields: My word, I had a knew that the US had a worse deal than the UK but up until now, I had no idea the scope. Is it down to monopolisation (lack of competition) in the US because I dont get why you guys pay so much for what you get. I'm sure this has been done to death elsewhere, but I get 20mb/s on Virgin (soon to be upgraded for free to 50mb/s)for £30 a month. Even the standard here is 4mg/s-8mg/s for about £10-15 on non cable services. A price hike without service increase would have customers leaving/not signing up in their droves.that makes it sound like the we in the US have a seriously raw deal, and maybe we do. i pay $50 per month for comcast internet, and it is my only option for broadband (too far out for dsl.) the truth is the lack of competition is probably because of the same reasons i can't get dsl; urban sprawl from relatively small densely populated areas. the rural nature of much of the US probably makes it hard for smaller companies to spread their service areas. i know people that live in the same city/municipality as me that get better deals, but they're with other companies that don't offer any service where i live.

  6.2.2008 16:40 #11

• H0bbes

  Originally posted by silk42: Sounds like AT&T is trying to get everyone to move up to their higher package. In reality, they're probably just pushing more and more people to move to cable.Move to cable? HELL no! Cable blows worse than any of them! Screw DOCSIS 2.0!!

  6.2.2008 18:41 #12

• ZippyDSM

  whats the frist thing they do when the finish absorbing the baby bells.....price hike....what fcking hacks.....

  7.2.2008 07:53 #13

• ZippyDSM

  Quote:Originally posted by silk42: Sounds like AT&T is trying to get everyone to move up to their higher package. In reality, they're probably just pushing more and more people to move to cable.Move to cable? HELL no! Cable blows worse than any of them! Screw DOCSIS 2.0!!
  From most of the bandwith testing I have done cable tends to be better, sometimes its BS and chips....

  7.2.2008 07:58 #14

• rev_camus

  Originally posted by OhCrap: I love paying more for the same product I've had for years. DirecTv raised all their freaking prices too by 5 bucks on all their channel packages. I guess AT&T owns them too.
  I think that ATT own Dish network but all the same, yes it nice to pay more for a service that doesn't improve and in fact doesn't always deliver the speed advertised on the plan.

  11.2.2008 14:20 #15

• kubapolak

  Originally posted by empulse: In case some of our foreign friends are unaware, in America we have certain beliefs:
  
  1. The corporations know whats best for us. If we don't regulate them they will do what is best for the consumer, and if they are regulated @ all, our economy will collapse.
  
  2. Guns, God, Gays, and Abortion are the only things we can focus on, we don't worry about corporate greed/corruption, oil prices, global peace and prosperity.... just whether 2 poofters can marry.
  
  3. We constantly crave tax cuts, that ultimately take away from our educational system. This has lead to the complete and utter removal of any clear thought other than is "Brit-Brit OK?" and "When is American Idol on?". Oh and we constantly vote for the above #'s 1 and 2.
  
  4. We portray anyone who suggests Universal Health Care as "kooks", "Commies", "America Haters".
  
  So now that you understand our "logic", you can understand why people won't fight something like this, and why we allow AT&T to tap our phone calls and emails for the US Government. If you imagine all of us over here overweight, bent over on all fours, all lubed up... You are mostly right.I love this comment!!! and I couldn't agree with you more!!!
  
  All ATT did was offer real cheap internet access to whoever subscribed, now since they have lots of users the only thing they can do is to raise prices and for the giant it equals big $$$$$$.
  I have the 700k connection, I enjoyed the service for a year now but $5 sounds a little too much!
  I'll be looking for some other options!!!

  11.2.2008 21:24 #16

• borhan9

  Quote:Coe also said that the company decided on the price raise "to better reflect the value of our broadband service" especially as demand for broadband increases.Who comes up and decides on what is the best price that is best suited.

  2.3.2008 06:49 #17