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So what's the hack this time chaps? How do we get free wifi without an iphone?

Ok, this is a somewhat tricky hack so pay attention.

1. Buy a Starbucks Card

2. Register the Card

3. Now here's the really tricky part. Go into your nearest Starbucks and attempt to access the Wifi. When you are prompted for user/pass, enter the username and password you registered the card with.

Voila! Free Wifi! Make sure you charge or refill the card at least once a month or this hack will stop working.

You're welcome.

Really? I am sure there will still be COCOTS.

Or maybe you would just be wrong?

http://www02.sbc.com/Products_Services/Residential/1,,68--1-3-3,00.html

The unlimited internet promise appears to be made outside the US more than what I see here. I just don't see those claims made much, if at all in the US. A search on google for unlimted internet for me (mostly because google gives geography related search results) gives results for unlimited internet, but by that they mean an unlimited number of dialup internet minutes via 56k modem. Most of the large US ISPs will not show up in the first couple pages of google search results when one searches for the term "unlimited internet"--mostly dialup companies show up. Here are some of the main internet providers in the US--cable and phone companies:

ATT

Charter Communications

Time Warner

Verizon

Cox Cable

Qwest

And even evil Comcast

Find any claims of unlimited internet bandwidth from any major US ISP? Keep looking...you'll even find dislaimers saying explicitly that speed and bandwidth is not in any way guaranteed. Certainly those disclaimers are not front and center, but many have their disclaimers asterisk'd with notes on the main service description pages, so the disclaimers are not hard to find. The US has fairly clear and well enforced truth in advertising laws. Doesn't the UK?

I don't think anyone has any right to unlimited internet if I make no such claims, guarantees, or promises and especially if I specifically disclaim any such guarantee. The vast majority of US companies wouldn't make such a claim for fear of losing a class action lawsuit. It seems companies can make untrue claims about their products in the UK and not get sued? I certainly cannot in the US. That's a problem with your consumer rights laws, if they even exist.

Go to https://swot.sbc.com/swot/dslMassMarketCatalog.do? do=dslProductPage&offerId=17&serviceType=DYNAMICIP and click on "terms and conditions" at the bottom.

Note the very last line "Price expires on 12/29/09."

Full text of Ts&Cs here:
T&T YAHOO! HIGH-SPEED INTERNET:

Residential AT&T Yahoo! High-Speed Internet customers only. Basic speed ($10.00) available for new customers only. New customer is defined as not having AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet or Bell South High Speed Internet in the past 12-months. Purchase of local service from the applicable AT&T incumbent local exchange carrier required. This is a limited time offer and is only available for AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet. Static IP products not included. Speed references based on maximum downstream DSL synch rates and may vary. $150-$200 additional charge will apply if technician install is required or desired. Charge for modem ($49.99) or Wireless Gateway ($79.99) will appear on the first bill. $49.99 equipment rebate available for new customers. Equipment rebate postcard, with rebate terms and conditions, will be included with equipment if self-installed or by mail, if technician installs. Rebate request must be postmarked within 90 days of AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet service activation. Mail-in equipment rebate offer is valid in the following states: AR,CA,CT,IL,IN,KS,MI,MO,NV,OH,OK,TX,WI. Rebate void where prohibited, taxed or restricted by law. Rebate may not be assigned, transferred or sold. One equipment rebate allowed per high-speed Internet line. High-speed Internet account must be in service for a minimum of 60 days to be eligible for rebate. Customers are not eligible to receive a rebate that would exceed total purchase price of equipment and account must not be in delinquent status. Rebate check will be mailed to the customer's billing address within 10-12 weeks of receipt of the rebate postcard. We are not responsible for late, lost, misdirected, or postage due mail or mail damaged by the U.S. Post Office. Rebate is offered by AT&T Internet Services and cannot be applied to your AT&T local exchange carrier bill. Some customers may need to purchase additional equipment (i.e. Ethernet card and/or cables). Billing begins on the date service is provisioned by AT&T, even if customer has not yet registered. Service not available in all areas. Subject to change without notice. Maximum speed achieved depends on customer location. Acceptance of Terms of Service required. Taxes and additional fees extra. Other restrictions, including credit restrictions and qualification, apply. Price expires on 12/29/09.

Checking AT&T web site They seem par with our company after currency conversion. I guess the only I have on you is 50% company discount and the ability to download what ever I want because it's technically legal to take. just not share. Our competitor ussially has 2.0 mb more for about $5 more but it's cable, and ussually much more heavily saturated. Some of our resellers sell the same service at a $5 discount or sometimes a bit more.

http://www.sbc.com/gen/general?pid=6431

Ronald Reagan breaking up AT&T had so much more impact on this here Internet than anything Algore ever did.

And interestingly, AT&T is coming back together during Bush Jr's watch;

SBC companies serve consumers in 13 states: California, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Connecticut. About one-third of the U.S. population lives in these 13 states. (http://sbc.merger-news.com/company/cb_sbc.html)

We're the new AT&T, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. (http://att.sbc.com/gen/careers?pid=1)

So now one company serves 1/3 of the population of the U.S. with local phone service (or at the minimum, the copper the service is carried upon) and also owns the nation's largest long distance carrier. I mean how many years has it been since we split up Ma Bell? Soon, we're going to have to do it again.

It affects about 19,000 customers "who purchased DSL equipment through the company's online Web store." The attack occurred during the weekend, and included access to credit card information. AT&T is notifying affected customers and "quicly notified the major credit card companies."

"still in debt"? Are you kidding me? Check out AT&T's income statement from the last quarter ended June 30, 2006. They earned 1.808 Billion for that quater alone!

These "Privacy Policies", pack-in "licences" and other arbitrary contracts corporations try to cram down your throat have no REAL legal weight at all and quickly collapse when challenged in court, which is almost never because the lawyers who write these things KNOW how meaningless they are. These agreements DO NOT allow corporations to break federal, state, and local laws which is what AT&T has done. They're just intimidation, pure in simple.

So what can we do?

The answer is pretty simple. Corporations are obliged to follow the law, not arbitrary policies they assign to themselves. The answer to stop these shenanigans is to lobby Congress to pass a comprehensive Privacy Act, and then lobby the White House to enforce it. Private lawsuits like EFF's help too, give them money.

Or, for a more practical solution, consider assassinating AT&T's Board of Directors. Here's a list: http://att.sbc.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=5629

The new AT&T privacy policy is here. Under "Scope", it states that, "Additional privacy policies apply to certain AT&T services, including AT&T Yahoo! Dial, High Speed Internet and Small Business[...]". The linked privacy policy for DSL is here, where the language hasn't been changed since 2004; it looks similar to the old language people here are quoting.

That said, having just renewed my DSL contract, I'm not pleased with the way things are looking for AT&T's privacy policies. Still, not having AT&T as your ISP is no guarantee that your data/phone connection/etc won't travel over their lines. It's still unclear exactly what major telecoms are providing to the NSA, but the idea of the NSA going against its own tradition and monitoring US citizens' communications is very unsettling.

I've looked at AT+T's site (ok, att.sbc.com) to see the Privacy Policy, going to this link for the full text of the policy, and unless they changed something because of the article, I can't find any of the language that is quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle report. Specifically, I can't find this quote:
"to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."
I can't find the word "legitimate" in the policy at all. Am I looking at the wrong policy?

Please, be gentle. Thanks.

Here are links to the new policy and the current policy.

Reminding you once again that any privacy policy that includes the clause that it can be changed at any time with minimal notification and no consent is no privacy policy at all.

(To be fair, the linked policy does have a nod towards "materially different" changes to the privacy policy. But guess who decides what "materially different" is...?)

After reading over my phone company's privacy policy, http://att.sbc.com/gen/privacy-policy?pid=2506#4 it seems that they have violated said policy. According to AT&T, "We must disclose information, when requested, to comply with court orders or subpoenas," but there clearly weren't any court orders involved with them turning the information over to the NSA, according to this article: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/38 59829.html.

AT&T says that the data is "Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI), http://att.sbc.com/gen/privacy-policy?pid=2566, and that "Protecting the privacy of your service and usage records is your right and our duty under federal law," although "our local SBC telephone company may also be required to disclose CPNI for legal and regulatory reasons such as a court order," but again there was clearly no court orders involved according to the article about Qwest's refusal to cooperate.

If they didn't break any laws (which I doubt, but is a possibility) they certainly have broken their promise to their customers. That might be grounds for legal action, false advertising perhaps?

After reading over my phone company's privacy policy, http://att.sbc.com/gen/privacy-policy?pid=2506#4 it seems that they have violated said policy. According to AT&T, "We must disclose information, when requested, to comply with court orders or subpoenas," but there clearly weren't any court orders involved with them turning the information over to the NSA, according to this article: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/38 59829.html.

AT&T says that the data is "Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI), http://att.sbc.com/gen/privacy-policy?pid=2566, and that "Protecting the privacy of your service and usage records is your right and our duty under federal law," although "our local SBC telephone company may also be required to disclose CPNI for legal and regulatory reasons such as a court order," but again there was clearly no court orders involved according to the article about Qwest's refusal to cooperate.

If they didn't break any laws (which I doubt, but is a possibility) they certainly have broken their promise to their customers. That might be grounds for legal action, false advertising perhaps?

First couple of hops taken out to hide the originator: 8 qwest-gw.cgcil.ip.att.net (192.205.32.97) 23.034 ms 29.478 ms 24.981 ms 9 tbr1-p032501.cgcil.ip.att.net (12.123.6.30) 32.666 ms 41.991 ms 44.869 ms MPLS Label=32458 CoS=5 TTL=1 S=0 10 tbr1-cl14.n54ny.ip.att.net (12.122.10.1) 44.957 ms 48.719 ms 41.727 ms MPLS Label=32538 CoS=5 TTL=1 S=0 11 gbr5-p30.n54ny.ip.att.net (12.122.11.10) 46.586 ms 40.296 ms 37.793 ms MPLS Label=34 CoS=5 TTL=1 S=0 12 12.123.214.57 (12.123.214.57) 37.662 ms 46.947 ms 48.176 ms 13 12.126.221.94 (12.126.221.94) 68.314 ms 63.227 ms 54.721 ms 14 12.110.110.132 (12.110.110.132) 68.426 ms 46.873 ms 35.525 ms 15 * * * If all this is true att violated their own privacy policy: http://att.sbc.com/privacy_policy http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/

Well, for $39.94 (not including taxes of course, but i doubt that there are $36.40 worth of taxes) you can get unlimited nationwide long distance and unlimited local calls. I'm not sure what your point is, but a 10 second visit to SBC shows that you paid almost twice as much for a smaller calling area.

https://swot.sbc.com/swot/telcoProductDetail.do?pr oductOfferId=26

I hate the Baby Bells as much as the next guy (and in fact do not purchase any services from them), but you can't possibly argue that phone service isn't cheaper now (adjusted for inflation) than what you were paying before the breakup.

The new SBC, ATT, Bellsouth, Cingular, whatever will run fiber to my house like Verizon is doing.

Their current Project Lightspeed is dead before arrival.

After this "introdutory price," it's probably around $40-$50 per month.

That DSL modem probably ain't free and must be bought or rented for at least a buck per month.

Saying it's only $13-$15 per month is a little misleading when the rate will probably double (at least) after a year.

I haven't seen significant price cuts to "regular" broadband rates in the same way I've seen cuts to "introductory rates."

Or perhaps Google could punish these money-grubbing jerks in some other way?

- Cisco buys SA (Scientific Atlanta)
- Cisco recently bought danish company Kiss Technology - now part of the linksys division (Some of you might remember them as the first company coming out with a Mpeg4/Divx set top DVD player)
(http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2005/corp_072205.h tml)
- Kiss has a long standing relationship with chip maker Sigma Designs, Inc.
(http://www.google.com/search?q=Kiss+Sigma+Designs )
- Sigma and Microsoft are working together to enable Windows Media CE product, including Kiss products
(http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/nov 04/11-30sigmadesignspr.mspx)
- Sigma is working with Microsoft on their MSTV IPTV platform.
(http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/sep 05/09-08SigmaIBCPR.mspx)
- SBC plans to release IPTV service using the MSTV platform.
(http://www.microsoft.com/tv/content/PressReleases /SBC04_IPTV.mspx)
SBC will use Motorola and SA set top boxes for this (service.http://www.sbc.com/gen/press-room?pid=480 0&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=21772)

Obviously Cisco wants to be a player in the IPTV space.

This article is interresting also, cisco was not named, so they must have realized that their were getting out of the loop. Not anymore with the SA acquisition: http://www.forbes.com/facesinthenews/2005/09/09/tv -broadcasting-microsoft-cx_dl_0909autofacescan06.h tml?partner=yahootix

1) Contacts tends to rust on the positive side.

2) Lower voltage means bigger current for the same power. This would require thicker, more expensive cables

3) DC-DC voltage conversion is, somewhat less efficient...

4) No insulation between systems. That way, systems get more prone to ground loops...

According to the SBC press release, they will introduce a new logo. "...the new company will unveil a fresh, new logo."

Guess no more "Death Star."

Ma Bell's daughter grew up, and she's no dammyankee. Bye bye New Jersey, hello Texas.

I then asked what it would cost to get a line that does not allow outgoing calls, and she said they also do not offer this either. She said their lines absolutely must allow incoming and outgoing calls at a minimum, which then allows me to dial 911.

I asked "Mary" if she knew of any other landline service providers in CT that would allow this, and she said she wasn't aware of any that did.

Since they own the poles here, our landline services have to be provided by them (or they get the costs anyway, and can enforce anyone leasing space on their poles to use the same policies). So I guess I'm out of luck anyway... but I know the cost of 911 is a surcharge on our regular monthly bill. Here's how it breaks down in our case:

Other fees
Connecticut E9-1-1 Surcharge - 1 line: 0.74
Connecticut Service Fund: 0.05
Universal Service Fund - Local(1@$.58): 0.58
1 Federal Subscriber Line Charge: 5.73

Total Other Fees: 6.73

The "tax" portion of our bill last month was $19.88, which was just under 50% of the total bill amount of $39.91.

Trust me, we're getting raped. If they did allow a line with just 9-1-1 on it, it would probably be about $15.00/month, if I made zero calls on it and never received any calls on it.

For the lastest merger news. I believe is the public site for merger info.

AT&T and SBC Merger is not yet complete, so the companies are suppose to proceed as still two companies.

However, the time frame for this is after the merger SHOULD be complete - End of 05 or early 06. Though, this would seemly play very nicely with SBC IPTV plans for Project Lightspeed. Lightspeed PR

All information in this post is based on public information released by SBC.

sbc yahoo have been providing dsl for under 30 bucks for quite a while. Go nuts here.

...with VoIP and cell phones, SBC can have the type of monopoly that AT&T once dreamed of...

Quite. Especially as it's featured fairly prominantly on SBC's home page.

Keeping it quiet? sbc.com has a box on the front page with the SBC and AT&T logos, linking to sbc.merger-news.com.

Is this the way that Gengis Khan kept his real estate aquisitions quiet?

Too late; they already own Cingular.

Cingular is a joint venture of SBC and BellSouth. I.E. they are owned by SBC and BellSouth. Don't believe me? Read the first line of this SBC financial report.

Personally, I think the image commented out above it is more interesting. But that's just me.

Also, the image commented out along with the alternate text.

ALT="To all AT&T customers: we're here to stay" WIDTH="426" HEIGHT="60" BORDER="0" HSPACE="14" VSPACE="6"

Heck, I might even report this to the Register and get quoted as an "eagle eyed reader" like this guy did.

You can check for availability of DSL via the telco in your area at this link:
SBC DSL AVAILABILITY

But neither Verizon or SBC will be specific thus far about what they'll offer right out of the starting gate.

Hmmm... perhaps the reporter didn't go to the SBC homepage and click "Project Lightspeed". Lots of information there, including a nifty flash demo of what they are planning for IP television service.

But neither Verizon or SBC will be specific thus far about what they'll offer right out of the starting gate.

Hmmm... perhaps the reporter didn't go to the SBC homepage and click "Project Lightspeed". Lots of information there, including a nifty flash demo of what they are planning for IP television service.

It's not like Cingular has anything except cellphone service Cingular is actually a joint-venture between BellSouth Corp and SBC Communications, Inc. If you have both Cingular mobile phone service and SBC telephone service, you can combine the Cingular and SBC bills into one statement.

And, of course, google has plenty more:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=microso ft+sbc+iptv&btnG=Search+News

Not too much as long as people who have SBC DSL keep moving out of thier service area and then get hit with that $200 early disconnection fee (SBC won't provide service over another Bell's line)

RTFP before you digitally sign. (note the * at the bottom of the page)

This means that I'm stuck with being required to have a POTS line, unless I want to dump DSL and go back to cable where the service is so bad the administrators can't manage to keep DHCP servers online (and have been having trouble with them for two years running). So much for the utility of VOIP for me.

or did you think SBC's new supercoolfast DSL was gonna be $50

No.
They currently offer faster than average service for less than that.
I just signed up for 1.5-3.0Mbps downstream/384Kbps upstream for $36.99 a month.

Now I'm paying less than I paid my cable company, and my upstream is 3 times faster....

From the SBC press release:

The recent decision by the Bush Administration to allow unlawful telephone wholesale rules to lapse and let stand the FCC's decision not to unbundle broadband is a positive step

As much as I disagree with the administration on many issues, last year's decision by the FCC to deregulate fiber networks was a positive step in the right direction. Loosening broadband rules will restore some competition in the industry; and we may see lowering prices for telephone and internet services.

However, although I look forward to fiber-to-the-curb, it'll be awhile, at least in my subdivision.

SBC's DSL prices here

Your basic DSL for $26.95 for 384kbps - 1.5Mbps. I was getting 1.2Mbps. Now I have the "pro" package for $36.99 a month and am getting 2.5Mbps download. I used to have some service outages because their PPPoE server would be down and not authenicate me, but it been quite reliable so far this year.

You might start here, assuming you'd be working w/ SBC: CLEC Handbook

first, they charged consumers for the service (which eventually became free)

No...I care about the 100,000 workers who did all the work that made SBC over 8.5 Billion dollars in profit last year (check page 34 of the SBC 2003 Annual Report). Not the ones who did little to nothing to actually serve the customers and yet get all the benefits and kudos.