As part of its obligations as the acquirer of BellSouth, at&t was required to offer naked DSL--DSL sold without the requirement to buy a phone line--before the end of 2007. It appears to have done so, offering $19.95 DSL-only service on December 20.
The service is referred to as DSL Lite, and must be made available for the next 2.5 years. The company probably will not go out of its way to let consumers know it is available, or how to get it. And there are no assurances the product still will be availabe when the 2.5 year period is over.
Given the likely state of broadband access penetration by that point, at&t will have to keep doing so. In a couple of years, about the only way any service provider is going to get a broadband access customer is to take one away from another provider.
In Europe, where stand-alone DSL services are more readily available, penetration ranges as high as 30 percent.
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