AT&T announced on Monday that starting with March it would raise the prices of its main broadband Internet services. This decision will affect all of the states where AT&T operates excepting the ones acquired by the company with the buyout of BellSouth. According to AT&T’s spokesman, Michael Coe, the affected customers will be the ones having the slowest broadband tiers, ranging from 768 Kbps to 3 Mbps. So, the 1.5 Mbps service, which is the most common service among the company’s almost 14.2 million broadband clients, will also be affected.

Still, according to Michael Coe, the $5-per-month price hike will not affect AT&T’s new clients who sign up for the slowest broadband Internet service, as well as the ones who signed up under special promotional deals.

AT&T has already started to announce its customers about the price hike via emails or notices coming with the bills. The company’s arguments for taking this decision was that thus, “the value of our broadband service” would be better reflected as demand continues to grow for high-speed Internet services.

On Monday AT&T’s shares ended down 12 cents.