$10 DSL From AT&T

AT&T joins Internet price cuts $10 fast-access plan to begin Saturday

By NAOMI SNYDER Staff Writer

AT&T will start selling $10-per-month broadband Internet starting Saturday, a pledge the company made when it bought fellow tele communications giant BellSouth late last year.

Although the deal is restricted to certain customers, it continues a trend of price cuts in the broadband Internet market over the past year.

San Antonio-based AT&T also said it is tripling the speed of its slowest broadband Internet service, which includes the $10 deal.

"That would be attractive to any casual user," said Jerry Dunlap, the president and chief executive officer of Internet service provider ISDN-NET, a competitor to AT&T. "It may certainly give people an alternative to cable."

The deal has some fine print. For instance, it will be sold online only, at fastaccess.com, to people who buy AT&T's phone service and are new to AT&T or BellSouth's broadband services. The deal will be offered for 2½ years and requires a one-year contract.

Laura Krakowiak of Franklin said she's been waiting almost six months for the $10 offer, scouring the company's Web site and calling salespeople frequently. She bought a new computer more than a month ago and has been waiting to upgrade from dial-up to broadband Internet speeds before using it.

"It takes forever to get anything to load (with dial-up),'' she said.

The $10 price will give customers speeds up to 768 kilobits per second on the download. That's 13 times faster than dial-up and should be fine for Web surfing, e-mail and some music downloads, Dunlap said. It probably would be too slow for online gamers or heavy downloading of music and videos.

Little promotion seen

Avondale Partners analyst John Bright said the $10 price could attract price-sensitive customers. He doesn't think AT&T will promote it very heavily, though.

"It's a regulatory requirement they will meet to the letter and not promote any more than they're required,'' he said.

As one alternative AT&T will be pushing a $20-per-month broadband Internet service in several Southeastern states, including Tennessee, with 768K speeds. That offer doesn't require a contract and adds a $75 cash back offer for new subscribers.

"This is an opportunity for people out there who haven't examined (broadband),'' said AT&T spokeswoman Cathy Lewan dowski. "We're making it more affordable."

But AT&T also has been lowering prices in a bid to compete with cable companies, which have their own deals. Comcast in Nashville has been nabbing customers away from AT&T with its phone service delivered via a broadband Internet connection.

Comcast's basic Internet service in Nashville is up to 6 megabits per second for $42.95 a month for cable TV customers. But it has been pushing a "triple play" deal within the past year, allowing customers to buy all three services — TV, Internet and phone — and pay $33 per month for each new service they add.

Comcast area Vice President John Gauder said AT&T's $10 Internet offer doesn't compare with Comcast's. "To get the full-on Internet, you'll need services faster than 768K to get gaming features, music downloads, video,'' he said.

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