AT&T begins offering DSL without the landline
Are you among the almost 14 percent of households to have abandoned landlines in favor of cell phones, but still want to get DSL broadband Internet? If so, AT&T has finally begun offering so-called "naked" DSL. Naked DSL was framed as a concession to consumer groups and the FCC when AT&T acquired BellSouth. But it's actually just good business.
AT&T is seeing pressure from cable providers in providing broadband Internet access. And while young singles were the first to abandon landlines for cell-phone-only lives, increasingly families, lured by free mobile-to-mobile calls, are doing so, too. When households go unwired, they rarely switch back. Naked DSL may not be the phone company's favorite way to make money off its copper wires. But it's far better than nothing.