Apparently, there's a great deal for DSL Internet service in AT&T's service areas: $14.95 a month for a two-year contract.  That's not a bad deal at all, if not for a hidden gotcha.  The gotcha is, you must be running a supported version of Microsoft Internet Explorer -- excuse me, Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer, because a Web browser certainly can't be anything but essential to an operating system's function -- which means you must be running a supported version of Microsoft Windows.

In other words, one of the taxes, surcharges, and other fees they don't tell you about is the Microsoft Tax.

Now, you think you can just bypass the modem's set-up CD and access the modem's Web-based control panel to configure it, right?  Have it all done and ready to go before the CD has the chance to spin up?  Wrong.  This requirement is to access the modem's Web-based control panel.

In order to configure Internet service on AT&T's new modems, you must download and install an ActiveX control on your personal computer from the modem.  You must install and run untrusted software on your personal computer.

This rules out customers using Linux and MacOS.  That rules out the increasing number of business customers who are abandoning Windows for Linux in ever increasing numbers.  AT&T say they support Macs, but since Macs haven't been able to run a new version of Internet Explorer in 10 years now, I don't see how.

And stories are appearing about users not using Windows having their service speeds drop.

Internet access should be operating system agnostic.

Unix made the Internet, the Internet made Linux, and they all support an amazing variety of hardware and connections.  Windows supports only one variety: Microsoft's flavor of the month.

Source:

AT&T Blocks Linux Configuration - The Blog of Helios, 2010-12-13.