How AT&T and Verizon Rip Off DSL Customers (arstechnica.com)

A new white paper written by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance finds that AT&T and Verizon are selling slow DSL internet to tens of millions of customers for the same price as fiber customers. These customers have no choice but to pay the rate AT&T and Verizon give them because no other service is offered in their area. Ars Technica reports: AT&T has been charging $60 a month to DSL customers for service between 6 and 10Mbps downstream and 0.6Mbps to 1Mbps upstream, the white paper notes, citing AT&T's advertised prices from July 2018. AT&T also charges $60 a month for 50Mbps and 75Mbps download tiers and even for fiber service with symmetrical upload and download speeds of 100Mbps. These are the regular rates after first-year discounts end, before any extra fees and taxes. Verizon similarly charges $65 a month for 100Mbps fiber service (including a $10 router charge), and $63 or $64 a month for DSL service that provides download speeds between 1.5Mbps and 15Mbps, the white paper says. The price is this high partly "because Verizon ADSL service at any speed requires paying separately for a landline telephone account." [...] The NDIA calls the practice of charging identical prices for wildly different speeds "tier flattening." It affects both urban and rural customers who live in areas where AT&T and Verizon haven't upgraded networks because they face no competition, because the upgrades wouldn't result in higher profits, or both. These customers end up using "the oldest, slowest legacy infrastructure," while paying much higher per-megabit prices than other Internet users.

Comments

This article doesnâ(TM)t make sense

[theophilosophilus]

If these providers were really treating me so incredibly unfairly, why wouldnâ(TM)t another option naturally emerge? Hasnt that always been the cycle of technology? Someone does something poorly and then someone else can do it better and make lots of money. This article is really about pricing of broadband service to rural areas. Being from a rural area, I can difinitively state that we are happy to have something- please donâ(TM)t take that away by getting government involved and depriving providers of an incentive to deliver services to agricultural towns with low population densities. While I appreciate these authorsâ(TM) concern for fly over country, it is misguided.