Companies quiet about DSL sans phone
Want a high-speed DSL connection without the landline phone service? It's available, but don't expect the phone company to advertise it. Katie Macpherson reports.
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Kai Ryssdal: Used to be that you could get a DSL connection -- that's a phone-based Internet hook-up -- only if you bought residential phone service as well.
Somewhere near 32 million Americans only use their cell phones -- no landline -- but they want to get online too, which has made stripped down high-speed Internet a hot commodity.
Katie Macpherson reports.
Katie Macpherson: Do you have an urge to get naked?
Frank from "Old School": We're going streaking!
Not that kind of naked. I'm talking about high speed Internet that comes through a phone line. If you take just that service and not phone service, you've got "naked" DSL.
Teresa Mastrangelo: I still can't believe we even use that phrase.
Teresa Mastrangelo is an analyst with market research company Broadband Trends. She says until recently telephone companies kept naked DSL under wraps.
Mastrangelo: They didn't want a customer to stop paying for their telephone service and just take the broadband connection.
Analysts say there is a high demand for naked DSL, especially among young college grads who are dumping landlines in favor of cell phone service. A recently released federal survey says nearly one out of every six American homes had only cell phone service in 2007, up significantly from the year before and that means the demand for naked DSL is growing.
But providing just Internet scares phone companies who fear that customers could end up switching more easily to other providers.
Mastrangelo: As customers turn off their fixed-line telephone and go directly to a mobile telephone, there's obviously a loss of revenue associated with that.
They may not like it, but phone companies are coming up with ways to compromise with their phone-free consumers. AT&T has a sneaky solution: Distract customers from opting for their $20 per month DSL service by advertising an attractive package that includes cell phone service.
[AT&T Commercial]: Welcome to getting together, where you bundle and win!
Thirty percent of AT&T's new DSL subscribers in 2008 got naked DSL and about half of those customers swallowed the bait and took packages with cell phone service.
But what about customers who don't want to get cell service from their DSL provider? They could drop as much as $60 a month on just the DSL connection, depending on the company. Research firm TechDirt's CEO Mike Masnik says telcos aren't going to make it very cheap or easy to get just naked DSL.
Mike Masnik: They're never gonna make it appealing in any way and they're always gonna try and hide it and try and make all sorts of other packages a lot more appealing.
So don't expect to see telephone companies letting it all hang out anytime soon.
In Washington, I'm Katie Macpherson for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Richmond, VA, 07/29/2008
What a great opportunity to get an unbiased sense of clarity about this issue! I have pkged cell, home, internet & DSL in an effort to lower expenses; but the pkg appears to have increased my expenses, rather than to have decreased them as expected. How does one go "naked"?
From Round Hill, VT, 07/28/2008
At least you have the option...! 'Out here' (60 miles from the capital of the western world) we can't get DSL any how. Is that because there is no cable to compete with the phone company?
From Baltimore, MD, 07/28/2008
I've found the misinformation about naked DSL goes further than the phone company not wanting to inform the customer. Verizon's customer service has, on multiple occasions, flat-out told me that naked DSL is "not possible", and DSL service from a third-party ISP "isn't allowed." Neither of these statements is true, but Verizon is perfectly willing to lie to keep hold of their dwindling land-line customers.
Thankfully, I'm a well-informed consumer, and thus have happily received excellent DSL service from Speakeasy for the past three years. I've been land-line free since '02. If you ever do a follow-up story to this, you may want to let your listeners know that "the phone company" isn't their only option for naked DSL.
From Abilene, TX, 07/26/2008
Marketplace missed a crucial point about DSL service: Until a couple of years ago, the phone companies, which are monopolies, were required to make the wire connections available to competing ISPs. However, since the FCC decided that you can choose between abysmal service from the phone company and abysmal service from the cable company, there was now "competition" for broadband Internet access and dropped the requirement.
To no one's surprise, the phone companies immediately told their competitors to get lost... and the price moved just like you'd expect.
While I'm in favor of the free market, saying that you have competition because two monopolies are both offering a service is absurd. Either regulate the Internet offerings (e.g., net neutrality) or require the cable and phone monopolies to allow competitors access to the physical wiring.
From new york, NY, 07/25/2008
I don't understand how it works. Cell phone usage is not inexpensive. And, if you're on the web a few hours a day - and free time is only during limited evening hours and on weekends - that could come to a small fortiune.
From Beverly Hills, CA, 07/24/2008
At $60 month for DSL "naked" it would be CHEAPER to take the lowest local land line (
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