SBC’s financials are in a bit of a funk, as it tries to digest AT&T Wireless and AT&T respectively. The company reported net income of about $885 million for the quarter, down from $1.9 billion (or 58 cents a share) for the same quarter a year ago. Actually if you took out the merger related costs, the SBC income was $1.1 billion, still a pretty steep decline from last year. Last year’s income included profits (about 22 cents a share) from the sale of SBC’s investment in Belgian telecommunications firm Belgacom SA. Still earnings this year, 27 cents a share are down from 36 cents a share. Now for the good news – the company added 504,000 DSL lines — its best-ever quarterly gain — for a total of 5.6 million. DSL/Internet revenue jumped 28% from a year ago. And that’s despite discounting and bargains the company has been offering to entice new subscribers. (Software guys call it end of the quarter channel stuffing!) I guess the battle is between them and Comcast now for the top spot.
I had a terrible experience with SBC DSL. I paid for the fastest and supposedly best DSL service it offered to home users. It turned out to be slower than dial up. It often took longer than 5 minutes just to boot up. I was constantly on the phone with SBC’s trouble shooters who are of course in India. The technical trouble shooters were always polite, courtest and tried to deal with the problem. When they could get it to work properly, it would only last about 1 hour, then it would revert back to being slower than frozen molasse.
Done Done and Done with SBC!!!! I was patient as can be. I put it with this for over 2 years.