Cable Fans Cheer SBC Broadband Shift

SBC Communications (SBC Quote) ended a low-price promotion for its DSL service this weekend, prompting a suggestion that pricing for high-speed Internet service has bottomed out.

Closing out a promotion that began last October, SBC raised the lowest monthly price that most customers can pay for digital subscriber line service to $29.95 from $26.95. The move restores the feature's prepromotion price.

That $3 increase "suggests that broadband pricing may have bottomed," wrote Banc of America analyst Douglas Shapiro Monday in a note that reported the price rise, along with a $55 price cut in one of SBC's more expensive Internet offerings. ...