I just noticed today (well, not today, but recently) that I’m paying a premium cost for my DSL through Earthlink. My current rate is $49.95 (not including a little USF fee of a buck and some change) for 1.5 Mbps service. This was cheap when I got it about almost five years ago, but it is now ridiculously overpriced. Earthlink currently offers the same service 1.5 Mbps service for $39.95. And, if I’m willing to lose my e-mail address (which is more of a burden for Michelle than for me), then I can choose Bellsouth, whose service only costs $32.95 a month.

So, I finally got off my duff and asked Earthlink (via their “support e-mail page”) to match Bellsouth or say goodbye to a customer in who has remained in good standing for 9 years. Let’s see what they do.

While I’m on the subject of DSL service, I’d like to point out that, according to Robert X. Cringley, the future of DSL looks pretty bright. I mean, it’s all good and fine that cable modems can now go up to 8 Mbps, but that’s not dedicated bandwidth. If Bellsouth is planning to offer ADSL2+ with 8 Mbps speeds within the next year for competitive rates, then plain old vanilla ADSL will most likely go the way of the dodo.