ISP Review: SBC Yahoo! DSL

SBC Yahoo! DSL Internet access gives you a lot of freebies, too, just for using their DSL service. You get anti-virus protection, anti-spam tools, parental controls, and firewall software -- which is useful because your computer can be online all the time.

With their DSL Internet service, you also get Yahoo! instant messaging, a pop-up ad blocker (a real plus if you're like me and see them all the time!) and a customizable home page. Finally, Yahoo! also tosses in many of the services you'd have to pay for on Yahoo.com, for free, if you sign up for their DSL ISP.

Yahoo! also provides a lot of content especially for high speed Internet service users. It has pages specially designed for broadband, which means that you get more information quickly, get to see more streaming video (like sports clips, news, or movie trailers) and so on. You also get online access to Consumer Reports Guides, SBC Yahoo! Games All-Star Package, SBC Yahoo! Finance Research Reports, SBC Yahoo! Bill Pay.

If you're the kind of person who travels a lot with a laptop (I am) you'll like the fact that SBC Yahoo! DSL also comes with unlimited national SBC Yahoo! Dial Internet access -- so you can still log onto your Internet service provider and check your email using your laptop's good ol' dialup modem.

You get 11 e-mail addresses, each with 10 megs of storage, plus 15 extra megs for your mail email account. And you get up to 760 MB online storage -- which is a TON compared to some of the other Internet services out there.

For those with kids, you can use SBC Yahoo!'s parental filters to keep the Web safe for them. You can choose and block which sites (based on specific sites or words on those sites) that your kids can visit, and you can personalize the settings for each child.

For businesses, you can purchase SBC Yahoo! Internet Access and also get a discount on Yahoo! Small Business online services, like SBC Yahoo! Business Mail, SBC Yahoo! Web Hosting, and SBC Yahoo! Merchant Solutions.

I've said it before: I don't understand how DSL Internet access works, technically speaking. But I do know a great deal when I see one. I like that I can use my home phone while still being online, and I love being always connected to my Internet service provider. And boy oh boy, once I tried DSL Internet services, I knew I'd never go back to dialup as long as I could afford it.

One sizable downside, really, is really just the shortcoming of DSL service providers: DSL service isn't available everywhere in the country, so you need to check with SBC Yahoo! for DSL availability (you can do it online.)

More specifically, you have to give your phone service to SBC to be eligible for SBC Yahoo!. That might prove to be the deciding factor here -- if you're happy with your phone service, do you really want to change to get good Internet service?

Also, there are a couple special fees you'll have to pay, and SBC Yahoo! wants you to subscribe to DSL Internet service for a long period of time, so signing a contract is encouraged by lower pricing.

All in all, however, the freebies and the tiered pricing plans are appealing to the value-conscious buyer -- and SBC is available in much of the country, so there's a good chance that DSL availability might not be a big problem.

Great-ISP-Deals.com gives SBC Yahoo! DSL... four sunglasses! A great value!!

• $26.95 with annual contract ($39.95 otherwise) gets you basic DSL Internet access (up to 384 Kbps downstream)
  
• $26.95 with contract ($49.95 month-to-month) gets you faster DSL access (up to 1.5 Mbps downstream)
  
• $39.99 with annual contract (or $59.99 without a contract) gets you SBC Yahoo!'s fastest high speed Internet package (with up to 3Mbps downstream.)