Thank you for calling at&t; how may I annoy you today?

Disclaimer: all rates mentioned in this entry are rounded up. Years ago, some Marketing Fool was led to believe that the Great Huddled Masses (consumers) will flock to a $17.99 price, yet bypass the same item for $18. That doesn't work on me, so .. deal with it.

I've had DSL service for several years, the last few with SBC. Now that they've changed their name to "at&t" they're starting to annoy me more. I'm sure it's just coincidence, because the old AT&T (all caps) used to annoy me with a passion.

The "DSL Pro" package* I'm on offers reasonable speed (~2.5 Mbps up / ~512 Kbps down). The Full List Price has been $35 a month for quite some time, but promotions are available to reduce that to $22 a month. The problem is that when the promotional period ends (6 months in the recent case) the discounts are no longer applied and -- surprise -- your next bill rises accordingly.

* renamed "AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Pro Package" just because it rolls off the tongue better

So, today I called to complain about this defacto price increase. After being put on hold for 8 minutes - twice - total 16 minutes - the human advised: "We don't have the $22/month plan for 6 months anymore, but we are offering a $20/month plan for 12 months." Okay, fine.

After the call was over, I moseyed over to their website to investigate the various calling plans available - perhaps one of those packages would be a good fit? While there, I noticed that the DSL package could've been had for $18 a month if I'd just signed up online. They never mentioned that during the call, so the $2 must go to staff the call center, huh?

Downside: now I can't move to Minot until after 15 June 2007, when this plan expires and at&t silently raises my rate back to $35/month.