Surprise: AT&T Wants Slower Internet

I’m sure you won’t believe this, but AT&T is lobbying against faster Internet for folks. Just kidding. Not kidding about what they are lobbying for, but kidding that you won’t believe it. Anyway, here’s an article I just saw.

Here’s what AT&T has said they want:

Reading the whole article – included here in case it disappears from the ARS site.

The rest of the ARS Technica article

An AT&T Experience

A friend of mine has had AT&T DSL [Digital Subscriber Line] Internet in San Jose, CA for a few years – Yep. Silicon Valley. DSL as you may know, is carried over standard phone lines. Recently my friends Internet has been so bad with drop-outs and interruptions while she was trying to play video games that she finally gave up and called Xfinity and now has fast and reliable internet. Of course it has been so long since the TV cable, which is how Xfinity provides Internet, was strung under the yard to the house that they are going to have to dig up the yard to replace it [ at no additional installation cost] but so far the internet is about 10 times the speed for the same price and it will be about 960mbps down /200mbps up when the cable is replaced. She has seen this speed after the installation.

So for years, in spite of complaints AT&T, was quite happy providing lousy DSL with frequent drop-outs and interruptions. DSL has a problem going much faster than 25/5 at any distance from the DSLAM box [ remote box in a neighborhood usually wired with Fibre.] Business DSL lines can go faster, but for much higher costs and much shorter runs from the DSLAM.

Let’s Not Get Carried Away with Upgrades…

Sure. And the Rural Electrification Program should only have provided 10 volts rather than 120 volts to rural homes and farms across our nation. I’m sure 10 volts is good enough.

I’m still waiting on that phone call from Ziply Fibre in my area so I can have 1Gbps fibre. I now have cable internet at about 500/100, which is fine, but the price has creeped up from $60/mo to about $100/mo, so I’m ready for faster speed at lower cost any time now.

:ww