I have 6Mb service from AT&T+free CONUS calling, paid monthly. I first had SNET service, then SBC, now AT&T; all the same service, just moved from company to company thru acquisitions.
I would say the service is excellent, I think I've had (1) 4 hour newserver outage and a few minor hour outages in 5 years. Since it is DSL it works or 'doesn't' @ your house. My parents spent 3 months trying to get cable internet @ their house, because of load, growth, signal strength etc, cable seems like a ---- shoot. It would work, then wouldn't , guy would come ok, it was ok, then wasn't..... Seems they have active network monitoring, if you call about an outage, they already know.
I was fortunate to get my service PRIOR to the Yahoo junk. I have pop e-mail and a PPPoe hook up without all the other nonsense. This was fortunate since I don't have Windoze or Macs.