SBC earlier this month lowered the ceiling for residential DSL service with a $14.95 per month promotional offer.

There are caveats, of course. The $14.95 per month rate is good only for new subscribers who commit to a 12-month contract, buy SBC local phone service and order online. Still, SBC's Yahoo! DSL Express service offers between 384K bit/sec and 1.5M bit/sec of bandwidth at a rate that rivals or beats many big name dial-up Internet services - which top out at 56k bit/sec.

SBC is the largest DSL provider with 5.6 million DSL subscribers and second only to cable operator Comcast in total broadband subscribers, according to research firm Gartner.

While enterprise interest in the $14.95 deal may be limited by the lack of nationwide availability - SBC serves customers in 13 states - and the requirement for a subscription to SBC local voice service, Gartner expects the offering will be attractive to many consumers and small businesses in SBC's coverage area.

Down the line, Gartner says it's likely SBC will offer "naked" DSL service - without requiring a phone line purchase - if buyers subscribe to SBC's VoIP service. In the meantime, the firm suggests enterprises with locations in SBC territory carefully evaluate the SBC offer, which may be appropriate for remote locations and teleworkers.

For the telework industry, a deal that encourages broadband adoption is a good thing. Industry watchers have often found links between broadband availability and the success or failure of telework programs.

When broadband is available, teleworkers are more productive and work more flexibly than their counterparts who use dial-up service, according to a Telework America research report by ITAC. Teleworking employees equipped with high-speed broadband service reported an average productivity increase of 33.3% in a survey published last year. The research also points to greater use of security technology among the broadband sect. Notably, 85% of broadband teleworkers have firewalls, compared to only 67% of dial-up users.

Conversely, federal government officials have said a lack of broadband technology is one of the reasons agencies' telework progress is not where it's supposed to be. In 2000 Congress mandated that agencies offer all eligible workers the opportunity to telework by 2004 - but as of early last year, only about 14.1% of federal workers eligible to telecommute were doing so, according to a report from the Office of Personnel Management.