AT&T Putting on Caps on DSL and Uverse

[Fritzo]

Seems reasonable. People going over that would have to be running torrents 24/7.

 

[ScottFern]

Thank god I have Comcast Business internet!

 

[0roo0roo]

constantly having to watch bandwidth use is incredibly lame.
att provides a trickle service, and they are capping that? bs, if they were world leaders then fine, but to gimp second rate service is really just showing how uncompetitive the market is.


The top 2 percent of residential subscribers uses about 20 percent of the bandwidth on our network. Just one of these high-traffic users can utilize the same amount of data capacity as 19 typical households. Lopsided usage patterns can cause congestion at certain points in the network, which can slow Internet speeds and interfere with other customers' access to and use of the network. Our new plan addresses another concern: customers strongly believe that only those who use the most bandwidth should pay more than those who don't use as much. That's exactly what this does – and again, 98% of our customers will not be impacted by this.

no shit, grandma using her hotmail is going to use jacksh*t for bandwidth, but you aren't going to charge her 2 bucks a month for service are ya

 

[uhohs]

year 2011.
150gb cap "reasonable".
lol, the usa is doomed. ;_;

 

[SparkyJJO]

People just need something it bitch about because of the 'evil' corporations.

If they look at their PUBLIC utility, the same thing happens. You use more electricity than the (artificially low) base line and you get charged X times more. You go over another (artificially low) cap and you pay even more.

Well maybe in states like Cali, but here it is the same rate per kWhr, regardless of how many kWhr you use.

 

[0roo0roo]

People just need something it bitch about because of the 'evil' corporations.

If they look at their PUBLIC utility, the same thing happens. You use more electricity than the (artificially low) base line and you get charged X times more. You go over another (artificially low) cap and you pay even more.

if the price of producing electricity dropped at the rate of the cost of transfer of bits you'd have a point, and electricity would effectively be free at this point.

 

[child of wonder]

People just need something it bitch about because of the 'evil' corporations.

If they look at their PUBLIC utility, the same thing happens.

ANALOGY FAIL

I've never heard of an electric company advertising "UNLIMITED electricity, 250 amp service only $100/mo!" then when customers sign up and begin to use the power, the electric company decides "err... wait. People are using way more electricity than we anticipated. We don't have the infrastructure to support this! Let's change our pricing plan that you can only use 1,000 kWhs per month or we'll shut off your electricity!"

 

[rockyct]

I didn't read the thread but did spidey come in here and tell us how awesome this is?

Yep, he's telling us to welcome Candian ISP practices with open arms.

 

[0roo0roo]

compare
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Long-Awaited-Japanese-Caps-Arrive-930GB-Per-Month-95580
"Well, fiber carrier NTT Communications, which offers users symmetrical 100Mbps connections and VoIP for about $42 per month, today unveiled those long ballyhooed cap plans: a daily upload limit of 30 GB per day (930 GB per month), and unlimited downloads. No overage fees. Of course NTT's statement justifying the move sounds familiar:"
from 2-3 years ago even.

lets see how useless obama administration is...the us is behind and now at&t wants to make sure we are even further behind.

 

[13Gigatons]

if the price of producing electricity dropped at the rate of the cost of transfer of bits you'd have a point, and electricity would effectively be free at this point.

Exactly...electricity is complex and expensive to produce. Bandwidth is getting cheaper everyday. The equipment is getting cheaper everyday.
This is just GREED. :thumbsdown:

 

[HendrixFan]

In the past month I have used 124GB down and 29GB up, and my usage was heavier than normal. While I don't think caps are a good idea at least it is a reasonable one.

I just hope the cap moves up as more streaming sites move to high def. Youtube, Netflix and the NBA league pass broadband are the majority of my downstream total.

 

[duragezic]

Questions:

1. Is there a way to find out how much bandwidth you are using so far?

2. Do people with super high speed broadband countries such as Japan, S. Korea, et al have cap?

It maybe ok with 250GB now, but what about in the future, such as video streaming education/class, cloud computing, online storage files, etc?

Several programs out there. I started using Netlimiter 2 Monitor last month (there are several different versions, but the v2 Monitor is free and simple, since I don't need limiting, just monitoring).

Since 2/2/11, I've used 84.5 GB down and 3.6 GB up. I watch a lot of Youtube, some movies and TV, and some gaming.

A 250gb would be plenty for me at this point, but bandwidth use keeps increasing so they would need to adjust in the future. But for the moment, my TWC/Road Runner connection doesn't have any cap.

 

[Freejack2]

That's just the point. They're not going to raise the caps without a fight of some kind. Either they'll say because we have to raise caps we're going to increase rates, or they'll offer a higher cap package that could easily be double what you're paying now.

In the past month I have used 124GB down and 29GB up, and my usage was heavier than normal. While I don't think caps are a good idea at least it is a reasonable one.

I just hope the cap moves up as more streaming sites move to high def. Youtube, Netflix and the NBA league pass broadband are the majority of my downstream total.

 

[uhohs]

comcast put in place their 250gb cap 2 or 3 years ago? hasn't increased one bit since then.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

comcast put in place their 250gb cap 2 or 3 years ago? hasn't increased one bit since then.

lol. One bit. Get it? HAHAHAH.

 

[13Gigatons]

comcast put in place their 250gb cap 2 or 3 years ago? hasn't increased one bit since then.

The 250GB cap will be the limit for the next 10 years...enjoy SUCKERS!!!

After that they start charging you for just thinking about the internet. :awe:

 

[rockyct]

Exactly...electricity is complex and expensive to produce. Bandwidth is getting cheaper everyday. The equipment is getting cheaper everyday.
This is just GREED. :thumbsdown:

Not to mention that the power company will supply you with as much electricity "bandwidth" as you want. They charge for consumption. ISPs are going to charge for the bandwidth and for the consumption. They aren't getting rid of bandwidth caps up or down. Give me 50Mb/s symmetrical for no extra charge and then the electric company comparison is reasonable.

 

[acx]

Good thing I moved to Sonic.net last month...

 

[gorcorps]

Although I've never actually tracked my bandwidth usage, I'm sure it's quite a bit. I skip cable subscription and get all of my TV from netflix and hulu. And now that I started using Steam heavily again, there will be a lot of use there with updates and such... plus any new games I buy. I doubt I get close to 250 because it's only me in the house, but still. I signed up for U-verse partly because Comcast has terrible CS around here, but also because they had no bandwidth caps.

 

[SearchMaster]

I've only had a dd-wrt router for about a month, and it looks like I've used ~23GB in that time, so I doubt I'd ever hit 250GB (I'm an AT&T customer). However I'm philosophically opposed to calling it "unlimited" if it's not. I'd say we're pretty "average" customers - we use PS3 online pretty often, moderate YouTube/websurfing, and quite a bit of remote desktop for work, but no torrenting, movie streaming, etc.

My biggest complaint with AT&T is the godawful DSL modems they use. I've had it crap out twice due to bad forced firmware updates, and it needs to be reset several times per week because it gets slow.

 

[MikeyLSU]

So is the cap download and upload combined?

Also, I would not mind this as much if you could roll it over. You pay for 250 GB of bandwidth, you should get it. If you use 20GB, then next month you have 480 to use.

That way if you are a power user(I download lots of demos for games on PS3/XBOX/and PC) you can find a way to make it work. I have no clue what I use, and I doubt I get that high, but with a rollover attached to this I could take it easy one month, then get everything I wanted when I knew I woudln't go over. Rather than having to figure out how much you are using all the time.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

There really isn't any legitimate reason why someone would go over 250gb on a home plan in a single month.

I use a lot of netflix, and while i dont get close to 250GB i see it as a slippery slope.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

correct. Streaming is NOT the problem. I can't go into detail but I can tell you that 90+% of the people this will affect torrent.

I wonder how people would feel about paying for data usage rather than speed? Give everyone 25 meg download and let them pay per Kb. Sounds fair to me.

Except they dont want a true pay for what you use model. They want you to pay the same price you do today but then have you pay again for any significant usage

 

[0roo0roo]

I use a lot of netflix, and while i dont get close to 250GB i see it as a slippery slope.

yup constrain usage now you really just put a damper on innovation, a few years ago when most were on dial up these numbers would have seemed stupid huge, but now, we are getting near HD streaming now, that is how fast things change, and only because people didn't have to worrya bout bandwidth usage. youtube woulda sucked back in the day if isps had isanely low bandwidth caps early on.

 

[slag]

You have to do the math though:

250GB + 24mbps = 1 day. :thumbsdown:

What's the point of the speed if you can't enjoy it all month?

I own a boat but am not using it 24x7 because gas costs money and people dont do one thing all day every day.

Its the same with the above. Just because you have a fast dsl/uverse line with a limit, doesn't mean you need to be using it all day, every day, full bore because with usage comes costs and you need to work that out on your end. You want to use it all the time and go over the very generous 250 gb cap, then you pay more. Very simple.