Mark Lewis and his wife bought a house in Winterville, Georgia, in August 2012. They figured getting Internet service would be as simple as calling up AT&T, because the prior owners had AT&T DSL (Digital Subscriber Line). The neighbors also have AT&T DSL service providing about 3Mbps.

“The previous owners had left their DSL modem and everything in the house,” Lewis told Ars. But when he called AT&T, the company said they were “at maximum capacity, but if someone else in your neighborhood terminates their service that should open up something for you.”

In October 2013, two of Lewis' neighbors moved out, and he called AT&T to see if that opened up a spot for him. The answer was no. It continues to be no.

Lewis isn't alone. Nearly a decade after AT&T promised the US government that it would bring broadband Internet service to 100 percent of its wireline telephone territory, many people who are desperate for AT&T Internet face a maddening problem. They can get AT&T phone service through the DSL-capable copper cables coming into their homes, their neighbors have DSL Internet service from AT&T, but they themselves cannot get wired Internet service because AT&T claims its network is full.

A handful of people like Lewis, people who have been refused DSL service by AT&T, contacted Ars after we last wrote about AT&T’s broadband shortcomings. Together, these stories highlight a confounding situation involving minimal oversight, miscommunication, and millions of customers left with sub-broadband speeds or no Internet service at all.

Required network upgrades were short-lived

When AT&T bought BellSouth in 2006, establishing its wireline presence in 22 states, AT&T got the merger approved by promising to offer home Internet service of at least 200kbps (meeting the definition of broadband at the time) “to 100 percent of the residential living units in the AT&T/BellSouth in-region territory.” AT&T was supposed to meet the requirement by December 31, 2007.

The merger agreement required AT&T to meet 85 percent of the ubiquitous broadband commitment with wireline technologies such as DSL and to keep offering DSL for 30 months. AT&T was permitted to meet the other 15 percent of the broadband requirement with fixed wireless Internet but without any minimum time requirement. Satellite can be used for fixed wireless, and so can cellular connectivity, but a fixed wireless product based on cellular must be more reliable than standard mobile service because it has to be a substitute for a wired home Internet connection.

All of the residents we spoke to told us AT&T never offered them a fixed wireless alternative to DSL.

AT&T certified to the Federal Communications Commission that it met its obligation in February 2008, and the FCC did not contest this claim. AT&T filed its last annual certification that it met the merger obligations in February 2011. It’s clear from interviews with residents that AT&T no longer offers home Internet service throughout its territory.

When contacted by Ars, an AT&T spokesperson would not say when AT&T stopped making broadband available throughout its wireline footprint, saying only that "We met our merger conditions and certified that with the FCC."

AT&T is once again promising to improve and expand its broadband network, but only if the government approves its latest acquisition of DirecTV. However, telecom analysts Bruce Kushnick and Tom Allibone have urged the FCC to investigate whether AT&T lived up to its BellSouth commitment before determining the fate of the DirecTV merger.

When we asked the FCC if the organization investigated whether AT&T met the obligation, an FCC spokesperson told Ars, “we never confirm, deny or comment on the existence or status of investigations.”

In FCC filings, AT&T has argued that its promise to offer broadband to all residents in its territory is no longer relevant because the 200kbps broadband standard from 2007 is now outdated. In other words, AT&T is under no obligation to offer customers the speeds they need to use the modern Internet.

"That commitment expressly incorporated the FCC’s then-existing definition of broadband services, i.e., services with download speeds of 200 Kbps… The fact that technology continued to advance and the FCC has subsequently changed the definition of what constitutes 'broadband' services is irrelevant," the company wrote in October 2014.

AT&T's new promise: Broadband for more, but millions will be left out

AT&T says that it is no longer economically feasible to offer wired Internet service in 25 percent of its 22-state copper footprint. (Edit: Now 21 states, since the 2014 sale of facilities in Connecticut.) The company is promising to serve more customers if it is allowed to buy DirecTV, with a new, more reliable "fixed wireless local loop" service for 13 million residences in mostly rural areas that lack good broadband options today. But AT&T says about 85 percent of the 13 million wireless locations will be outside the copper footprint, meaning just two million locations inside the territory will get the service.

The current definition of broadband is service of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream. AT&T is struggling to meet that standard in huge parts of its territory. The fixed wireless service is planned to go up to 20Mbps. While AT&T imposes 150GB-per-month data caps on DSL subscribers, it has not said what the data allotments will be for fixed wireless.

Even with the wireless expansion, about 17 million customer locations in AT&T's copper territory will have service of only up to 6Mbps downstream, or none at all. Ars calculated those numbers based entirely on AT&T's public statements.

This is bad news because there are plenty of customers in AT&T territory who lack a good home Internet connection and have to rely on smartphones, mobile hotspots, or satellite, with their shaky reliability and strict data caps (and for satellite, high latency as well).

AT&T tells many of these customers that it doesn’t have enough DSL “ports” to serve them. Ultimately, that means AT&T hasn’t invested enough in its network to support everyone who is willing to pay for its service. This has been going on for years, and the problem isn’t about to disappear. AT&T’s capital budget of $22 billion last year was slashed to $18 billion this year.

Multiple states, same story

When AT&T told Lewis that he couldn’t get an Internet connection until a neighbor canceled, he found that odd. After all, the total number of customers hadn’t changed; Lewis was trying to connect in a house where the previous owner had service and left the DSL equipment behind. AT&T told him to keep calling back in case it had an opening, he said; AT&T did not have a waiting list or any system to notify customers when service became available.

AT&T told Lewis that it would upgrade his area from DSL to faster U-verse service within 6 to 12 months, but that never came to fruition. At various times, AT&T representatives said there weren’t enough “lines” or “ports” available to offer Lewis the existing DSL service. Later, AT&T would say there wasn’t enough bandwidth allotted to the local node, he said.

With no wireline Internet available, Lewis and his wife have relied on Verizon Wireless service. This has limited Lewis’ ability to work at home. Luckily, they won’t be there much longer—Lewis, his wife, and their kids are putting their house on the market and moving to Massachusetts, where he’s secured a new job at a technology company.

The new job is “the main reason we're moving,” he said. “But in the back of my mind this whole time, I'm saying we can't continue to live here.”

Mathew Abernathy is in a similar situation in Smyrna, Tennessee. His neighbors have 3Mbps DSL service, but he hasn’t been able to get AT&T to hook him up in the nine months since he bought a house.

“As far as DSL, every time I called them, they tell me it's not available in my area,” Abernathy told Ars. “The most technical [explanation] I could get out of them was that there were 48 ports and they were all full.”

The previous resident in the house “wasn't very technical. He had dial-up and he was fine with it,” Abernathy said.

Abernathy is checking with AT&T every couple of months, since there’s no waiting list or notification system. There is a local wireless Internet provider that delivers service to antennas on people’s homes, but Abernathy and his family are just outside its coverage area. Like Lewis, they have been relying on Verizon cellular connectivity, with a 10GB monthly cap. Abernathy said his wife runs a photography business, and she drives to her parents’ house to upload images. Abernathy is a network engineer.

“I could work from home if I had reliable cable Internet,” he said.

We provided an AT&T spokesperson with details on these cases and the others that we’ll describe. AT&T did not dispute any of the details, saying, "We looked at all the geographies and indeed what the customers were hearing about no availability seems to make sense in each case."

AT&T declined to make anyone available for an interview and instead offered this statement:

While we are expanding the reach of high-speed Internet access to customers as fast as we can, there are some locations we just have not yet reached. Enhancing speeds and expanding the reach of our wireless and wireline networks is a top priority for AT&T. In fact, over the past six years (2009-2014) AT&T has invested nearly $140 billion in our wireless and wireline networks. With our proposed purchase of DirecTV, we’ve committed to expanding and enhancing access to high-speed Internet service to approximately 15 million additional customer locations [13 million with wireless and 2 million with fiber] across 48 states, most of them in underserved small towns and rural areas, within four years after the merger closing.

None of that is helping people in AT&T's wireline service area who are desperate to get DSL Internet and can't. “It has been almost two years since we first requested DSL service. With each inquiry, we have been met with the reply that all ports are currently full,” one person wrote on AT&T’s support forums last year. “This is our only practical option for home Internet. All of our neighbors have service and as this is the only practical option in the area, I do not foresee anyone canceling their service. We are being told with each attempt to remedy this that there will be a request put in to add a port for us. Along with this answer, there is the promise for someone to follow up with us within 5-7 work days. I have never received a return call.”

An AT&T employee responded in the thread, saying, “DSL availability can be tricky as the rollout has ended, and as far as I know, no new equipment is being added.”