AT&T is offering a dirt-cheap $10 DSL package, but consumers have found that it nearly impossible to order the service. You effectively have to beg customer service for the privilege of signing up.

The introduction of the the package was a condition of SBC's December 2006 acquisition of BellSouth. But that didn't mean that AT&T, as the new company was called, put much effort in to the offering.

Customers visiting Bellsouth.com are only offered a "Fastaccess" DSL package priced at $19.99, and the provider tries to upsell customers to more expensive plans.

04 Aug 2007

The $10 monthly plan looks suspiciously like the $19.99 plan in that it offers the same connection speed. But the bargain rate is limited to new customers only, and requires that they sign a one-year contract. Just don't try looking for it on the website: it isn't there.

"Why is the plan impossible to find?" the Atlanta Journal Constitution asked AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson (pictured on the left).

"We haven't made it difficult to find," he said in a first effort to cover up the obvious stain. Oh no, wait, let's recover.

"To be honest with you, that's not a product that our customers have clamored for. We still have $15 offers out there in the marketplace, even $20 offers, for 1.5 megabit speeds. Those are really kind of the minimum speeds that give a good user experience. So I don't want to necessarily offer up a product where the user experience is not what I would consider really state of the art. That $10 product is kind of in that mode."

The newspaper itself had a different experience. It's reporting about the mysterious $10 DSL plan sparked a record number of reader comments. But in AT&T's dictionary, that is just further proof of the lack of user interest.