How to Be Cheap: How to Get AT&T U-Verse installed for free

I have spent much time learning the art of getting the cheapest deal for my broadband. If you read my other articles, you know that the only monthly telco fee I pay is for broadband (I get free TV via antenna, and get virtually phone service via Ooma).  As such, I only need the telco providers to give me a broadband only service, no TV and ,no landline phone.  I'm probably the least favorite customer for them because I don't bundle any of their other services, so this has forced me to learn all the tricks to playing them against each other to get the lowest price for this single service.

Where I live in the Northern California Bay Area, there are 3 main choices for broadband:

1. Comcast: I actually have this at the moment because I was able to find a deal where I would have the 15 Mbps service for $30/month for a year.  Normally, their special offers this package for  $20/month for 6 months, then it jacks up to around $65, usually without any warning.
2. AT&T DSL: I call this internet for grandparents.  It is the slowest option as it maxes out at 6 Mbs downstream (realistically 4 Mbps because DSL has about a 20% overhead), and 600Kbps actual for upstream.  But it's the cheapest and has no install fee because they use your existing phone landline wiring.  I consider this is a non-option because I like to stream HD video, plus want to ensure that I have the margin to be doing other stuff while someone is streaming video such as taling on my Ooma VOIP phone or playing my XBox.  Also keep in mind AT&T has a 150 GB monthly data cap on DSL users.
3. AT&T U-Verse: I am fortunate to live in a neighborhood that gets U-Verse service up to 18 Mbps and 1 Mbps upstream.  I've had this service before, and it's good and reliable.  My buddy who is in the networking industry tells me that AT&T U-Verse is superior to Comcast in that it tends to have lower jitter, which is critical for real time video conferencing. Anyhow, one of the barriers to getting U-Verse is that they will charge you a $150 fee for doing the installation of a new internet only service.  Ouch!  Well, we'll find a way around that!

I found out the way to get U-Verse installed for free from an AT&T customer service agent over the phone, believe it or not.  It happened when AT&T was first rolling out their U-Verse service in my neighborhood last year, so they were being pretty aggressive in getting their customers to upgrade from DSL to U-Verse, probably because this would open the door for them to be my TV provider (since the wires that carry the U-Verse broadband signal also carry the signal for their TV service, which you can't get over the DSL wires).  The trick is to order an internet + TV U-Verse bundle from AT&T, which usually has free installation.  Then a few days after they do the install, you call them up and cancel the TV service.  That's it!  The terms & conditions say nothing about you having to fork over an installation fee if you cancel the TV service (but you should read it yourself in case they change this in the future).

I recommend that you should only take this approach if the pricing for broadband-only U-Verse is well priced.  In May 2011, AT&T was offering their 12 Mbps broadband only U-Verse service for $30/month if you agree to a 1 year commitment.  So I placed the internet + TV order for my parents' house, and immediately cancelled the TV after install knowing that I could fall back to this $30/month deal.  If AT&T no longer offers a cheap broadband only price, then you can always cancel the whole enchilada within 30 days of install and get all your money back.  I'm pretty sure they'll offer you something to keep you from doing this, especially since they incurred all the costs of rolling a truck to your house and having a technician run a new U-Verse line into to your house.

As a side note, once you have your U-Verse installed, AT&T should not be charging you any installation fees should you decide to cancel and then re-subscribe in the future, because all your wiring is already there and they should only have to flip a switch on their end.  Comcast is like this, where they can literally activate my service over the phone.  So if you want to have the most flexibility to be able to go back & forth between Comcast and AT&T for broadband service, it might be worth getting U-Verse installed at some point so that you can avoid that $150 installation fee in the future.  Personally, I have my Comcast and U-Verse wiring going to the same networking cabinet in a closet where my router and switch are also located.  So going from one telco to another is a a piece of cake, and only requires me to swap out one short cable.  Freeeeeeedom!