Earthlink (ELNK) on broadband profitablity (quotes from the conf call)

Here's what Earthlink (ticker: ELNK) CEO Gary Betty said about the profitability of broadband services on his company's Q4 earnings conference call:

Our ADSL ARPUs are declining, they were a little over $50 at the beginning of last year and probably will be in the mid-40s, maybe 43-44 by the end of next year…

Bell South was pretty aggressive in Q3 and Q4 with a $9.95 option for a 256K product. SBC continues to be the most aggressive of the ILECs and pursuing promotional pricing to do that…

(Quotes from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)