In what has to be a sign of desperation, SBC has dropped the price of its entry level DSL service to $14.95 a month. Claiming that the online registration "lowers costs," the telco is also giving customers a $99 credit towards home networking gear like wireless access points.
Nationally, DSL only has about 15% of the broadband marketplace, with cable a near monopoly with around 75%. Wireless and fiber offerings make up the other 10%. The biggest problem with DSL is that the ability of the phone company to deliver it to any particular home or business depends on the distance from the telephone switch, the quality of the copper cable plant, the phase of the moon, and local service techs who may or may not be able to fiddle with the line to make it work.
Cable modem service does not have those problems because the cable companies took on enormouse debt to rewire their service areas (and the debt is another issue). The phone companies tell political leaders that they are providing broadband almost everywhere by using the fictional device of counting an area as having DSL if they can provide the service to just one home in a zip code area, which is often huge. They usually know full well that many homes and businesses will never be able to get DSL with the current cable and equipment plant, but count the entire zip code as "having DSL."
So SBC has to do something to attract customers. The one thing the phone companies have going for them is bundling--they can offer local phone service, long distance, and broadband on the same bill, and not all cable companies are ready to do that. Dropping the price on broadband may bring a few people back to the phone company, and SBC will probably make a small profit by selling multiple services.