If they had decent price scaling they might stand a chance, but with only a $5 difference between some of those plans they arent going to be able to cover their promises. I doubt anyone is going to get anywhere near their max speed unfortunately.
AT&T is the biggest half-assed attempt at fiber optic to the consumer fail I think we have ever seen, well besides Qwest pretending it has a "To The Home" fiber optic network when it advertises its service to customers through advertising. Wow what a run on sentence. I am done here.
There are only TWO reasons you need a speed greater than 3mbit (up and down). The first one is if you download a lot of porno movies (or any large files but that usually gets attention lol). The other reason is if you host any type of server (gaming, file, web) but usually this is against your ISP's terms of service so it's a bit pointless. For the average user that just checks E-mail or chats, this is already overkill (unless you're on Skype or some other video chat site then it's perfect). When I had 3mbit DSL, YouTube videos still worked fine.
So for $75 as an AT&T customer I would get 24 Mbit/s. Fail.
I have FIOS, for $45 I get 20 Mbit/s. Fiber to my house, and if you through in what I pay verizon for my smart phone data plan, I still pay less than $75 per month.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, I have the option to tethered modem too.
Huh, 24mbit for video conferencing? What is the upload bandwidth...a 3mbit connection can handle skype just fine, as long as the upload is decent (~512mbit). The best policy is to educate yourself against false advertising, at&t remind me of a used car salesman with this.
Maybe what they are really saying (and coming from AT&T and their limited unlimited data strategy I wouldn't doubt it) is they are restricting these features on those plans. So unless you get the 3mb plan you are restricted from all social networks... LOL
Is broadband that expensive in the usa?
I've ordered a 50/50Mbit flatrate connection to be installed in january, and it'll only cost me the equivalent of $71,25 according to the current dollar price.
The funny thing is this is slower than some Australian connections of the same speed and significantly lower price (around $43USD/month). But we generally don't have imposed speed limits on DSL (specifically ADSL2+), you get whatever your line get attain regardless of how much you pay.
Er... I meant this is slower than some Australian connections while also more expensive (my connection is about 43USD/month, but it's among the best in the country, many are on ADSL1).