Yet another sour deal: In 2007 I was offered high speed DSL from AT&T Yahoo! for $24.99. At the time I said, “That is too low, they are going to raise the price in a year.” I was a little bit off. Almost two years later, and sure enough they raised the price five dollars. Of course I am not sure about the price because the phone company consolidates all costs (hides them) in one grand total on the bill. They must have gotten that idea from congress.
Just after seeing the price increase I was notified that AT&T will be dropping Usenet. Tom said this is a decision made solely to gain bandwidth. He is right (only because he is always right…just ask him.)
I feel like I am back in 1999 with Internet companies raising prices and dropping services. (At least the constant, unexplained communication outages are not still a problem for me.) Anticipating AT&T pulling another stunt in two or four days, I must look at my options. The only big problem with switching providers is changing my e-mail address. Whoop! Time to register a personal domain, select a permanent e-mail address, and update all of my contacts for the final time. I wonder if “tomslesserbusinesspartner” is taken? In any case, a personal domain can stay with a person forever. This is something I should have done ten years ago.
Registering a domain name is in the ten dollar range. Additionally, if one is already hosting a web site (joroto.com for example), they may be able to use the same hosting service for the new domain (tomslesserbusinesspartner.com). That means the additonal domain’s yearly cost is limisted to the registration fee, which is quite a bargain.
If you are not tech savvy, you should be warned that there is more effort associated with managing your own domain. This is only moderately difficult, but if I can do it, you can do it faster and better.
Now I am seriously considering the personal domain option. Once I have an e-mail address established on my own registered domain, I can switch to any Internet provider, at any time, without having to worry about updating all of my contacts (hi mom!)
Just a thought for the day for the millions of you who just got jacked by AT&T.
Time to surf for a good responsive newsgroup server before AT&T cuts off Usenet on July 15th. Ideas?
JB
Look goober, AT&T HAAAASSSSS to make money from someone. They completely underestimated (as did the entire industry) the Apple factor with their iPhone. AT&T has a lock on the iPhone, although Congress is stepping in of course, but it is not making a lot of money from Apple’s success.
Remember that Apple gets a cut of the monthly revenue that AT&T charges. A first in the industry, and AT&T thought it would not be as successful as it ended up being. Look for all AT&T prices to increase and services to decrease.
Only in America does a company do this.