Performance: 2 ½ Stars
Further disappointing customers, the price-to-performance ratio is staggering, topping out at over $16 per 1 Mb/s for basic Internet purchased by itself, explaining the 2 ¼-star price rating and 2 ½- star performance grade, with some of our surveyed readers describing the service as "low-speed and high-priced compared to competition," and having "exorbitant pricing for low DSL speeds." If that’s not bad enough, AT&T caps every plan at 250GB of data each month, with no clear documentation on the pricing of overage fees.
However, if you are lucky enough to have access to AT&T's Power 45 Internet service, the 45 Mb/s for $65 per month rate brings that ratio to a much more reasonable $1.44 cents per Mb/s, per month. Unfortunately, not many surveyed readers indicated they had access to this service, but it should be noted those users generally rated the price and performance of AT&T’s best offering above three stars.
Pricing for these DSL offerings are only slightly lower than the average cable Internet deals, with speeds nowhere in the ballpark of a cable connection. Why are so many people paying so much for less?
It's all about availability. AT&T is more accessible where some mainstream cable and fiber services aren't. Most of our surveyed readers who rated pricing at three stars or lower complained that it was the best they could get, with one respondent explaining, "It is just an average ISP [out of] very few available in my area." It should be no surprise that performance was rated the least-important factor when choosing an ISP by our surveyed AT&T users, as most seem complacent to pay for these services when there aren't many other options.
On a positive note, the promotional rates are the same length as the contract. Customers can choose to cancel their service after the promotion expires without getting slammed with a termination fee or being forced to pay higher prices for the same services for another year (like many ISPs).
