IP Democracy: AT&T's New Bundle -- No Home Line Required

In an interesting experiment, AT&T is offering customers in seven cities a bundle of services that don't require the customer to buy landline home phone service. For $60/month, consumers can purchase wireless voice service and high-speed Internet access.

The wireless service features 450 wireless minutes for use anytime and 5,000 for nights and weekends, plus free calls to other AT&T mobile customers, with the ability to roll over unused minutes to the next month. The DSL option is a 1.5 Mbps/download service.

The $60 price reflects some savings over the stand-alone prices. In former SBC territories, the price of the same DSL tier is $19.99, and is usually only available at that price in conjunction with home landline service, which typically runs at least $25 per month. The wireless plan typically costs $39.99.

More importantly, it's a signal that AT&T is now targeting a growing group of consumers, those who no longer want or need landline home phone service. On top of that, cable operators don't yet have the widespread ability to offer a package of services that target this set of consumers. Although cable operators offer wireless voice service in a limited number of markets through a pact with Sprint-Nextel, for the most part cable's voice options are restricted to landline VoIP.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on September 12, 2007 4:00 PM to IP Democracy