SBC Offers $15 Per Month Broadband

SBC Communications significantly lowered the prices of its DSL service on Wednesday, cutting the monthly fee by 25 percent. Subscribers will now be able to get broadband Internet for $14.95 per month, which is $5 lower than prior fees. The new pricing structure now makes SBC competitive with dial-up services, and one of the lowest prices for broadband in the country.

Why is SBC doing this? Company executives have said they only have another two or three years before cable companies will be able to offer similar services that could essentially replace phone companies for voice, video and data.

SBC has found through internal research that once a customer has a DSL line, the chances of churn decrease significantly. The company has done well, adding 500,000 new DSL subscribers in the first quarter of this year alone.

Currently, cable companies provide about 60 percent of the broadband access in the United States. This is primarily due to the fact that cable was intitally able to deploy itself much faster than DSL. However, in recent months, DSL has made a comeback through aggressive pricing.

For example, in the Philadelphia area, a consumer can get high-speed Internet through their cable line for a $42.95 monthly fee. However, that same customer can get broadband at the same speed through Verizon DSL for only $29.95 per month.

"It's about market share," SBC CEO Edward Whitacre told Reuters. "The sooner we get there and the bigger piece of market we get, the better off we are. It's essentially us and the cable companies vying for that."