AT&T DSL Ad

I feel sorry for the poor folks at AT&T's marketing department. They are really trying hard to show how much better than Cable Internet they are...but they're failing. Here's my rebuttal!


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I must say that despite ridiculing their advertising, I've actually improved my opinion of them in the last couple months. I installed DSL at a friend's house and she was quite happy with it.

Basically, I've always said that cable is better because DSL makes you sign a year contract. And if you're Darrell, contracts=bad. But now, they've lifted that and don't require it any more. I do like that. They still make you buy the modem at $49.99 and then give you a mail in rebate though - good luck getting that!

But for the price ($14.99 per month for 768 Kb) it's a pretty good deal. If you have AOL dialup and are paying $21.95 per month, this is really the way to go. Really, if you have any dialup, anything better is the way to go.

Writing about that, I was wondering how many people actually have dialup still. According to a
Pew Internet & American Life Project study, of the 70 Million adults online at the end of 2004, 60 Million had a fast connection at home. I don't think I really believe that. Other stuff I found says that it is between 45 and 55 percent of households. That's a bit more believable, I think.

Even that 45% of homes have it is really telling for the state of the Internet. YouTube probably wouldn't exist if we all still had dialup. I sure wouldn't be on it. My poor mother can't even watch the videos that I put up because she has stinky 26.4 kb (average speed) dialup. She's too far away from town for anything faster except satellite net and that is cost prohibitive at $99 per month. Oh well.

Interesting stuff. I'll be sticking with Cable Internet, thanks. It's Earthlink or Roadrunner for me!