My Response to AT&T Data Caps

[JHoNNy1OoO]

I just read this. Seems related:

http://www.dailytech.com/NC+Republicans+Fight+to+Ban+Municipal+Internet+Services/article21161.htm

Such a wonderful read. I especially love the part that it was tax-positive and on it's way to repay the loan in only two years providing 10X the speed at half the price. Fuck the fact that the citizens are actually benefiting, think about the poor companies having to not only IMPROVE their service but also LOWER their prices. This country has become such a joke.

 

[Barfo]

Are they going to charge 50 cents to grandpa who checks his mail twice a month?






yeah...didn't think so.

 

[Texashiker]

Personally, I do not see what the big deal is with internet caps. Its kinda like complaining that highways have speed limits, or complaining that your car requires gas from time to time.

My personal opinion, providers have not kept up with bandwidth increases. Instead of keeping up with technology, providers put caps on usage.

 

[Scotteq]

OP: You *do* understand that - if you expect to get anywhere - your letter should include a campaign donation more substantial than AT&T's?

 

[Eos]

Personally, I do not see what the big deal is with internet caps. Its kinda like complaining that highways have speed limits, or complaining that your car requires gas from time to time.

My personal opinion, providers have not kept up with bandwidth increases. Instead of keeping up with technology, providers put caps on usage.

Personally, I don't see what the big deal is with < insert something you enjoy >. It IS complaining about something that doesn't matter to you.

Why does someone else care what another person does with their internet connection? You obviously care enough to comment here.

 

[Texashiker]

Personally, I don't see what the big deal is with < insert something you enjoy >. It IS complaining about something that doesn't matter to you.

I do care - my monthly cap is 10 gigs, I would love to have a 250 gig cap.

Complaining about a 250 cap, is like having a BMW in the driveway, and complaining that its not a Mercedes.

 

[mvbighead]

I do care - my monthly cap is 10 gigs, I would love to have a 250 gig cap.

Complaining about a 250 cap, is like having a BMW in the driveway, and complaining that its not a Mercedes.

Not exactly. It's more like having a BMW in the driveway, but having the dealership only let you put 250 miles a month on it when before you were able to drive it 750. They are essentially limiting what used to be limitless. One of their sole reasons for doing this is that most are in the business of providing TV service, and with some of the consumer base dropping cable and picking up HuluPlus and Netflix, their profits are going to shrink, especially if that migration continues.

Given the $130 a month charge for TV service, my wife and I have decided to follow suit with a bunch of the techie crown and go strictly to OTA broadcasts, HuluPlus (on Roku), and Netflix. With the Roku, you essentially get a DVR like service to watch most of your favorite series, among many other things. Oh, and the icing on the cake is the $25 a month I'll soon be paying for TV instead of the BS $130.

As for the cap, I am unsure how close I get to that, but I can only imagine with streaming HD video over the web, my useage has to be up there somewhere.

 

[Eos]

I do care - my monthly cap is 10 gigs, I would love to have a 250 gig cap.

Complaining about a 250 cap, is like having a BMW in the driveway, and complaining that its not a Mercedes.

Sorry about that. I misunderstood your previous.

 

[13Gigatons]

I do care - my monthly cap is 10 gigs, I would love to have a 250 gig cap.

Complaining about a 250 cap, is like having a BMW in the driveway, and complaining that its not a Mercedes.

250 cap is 4% of the line capacity though so it's pretty bad.

6mbps = 1500gb / 150 = 10%
12mbps = 3000gb / 250 = 8.3%
24mbps = 6000gb / 250 = 4.2%

 

[OCGuy]

Not exactly. It's more like having a BMW in the driveway, but having the dealership only let you put 250 miles a month on it when before you were able to drive it 750. They are essentially limiting what used to be limitless.

See sig.

 

[Eos]

See sig.

Is there an equation for Godwin's Law as well?

 

[Slew Foot]

Unless you staple more money to that letter than att&t funnels to that politician, you're fucked.

 

[Texashiker]

Not exactly. It's more like having a BMW in the driveway, but having the dealership only let you put 250 miles a month on it when before you were able to drive it 750.

In other words, people that complain about the 250 gig cap, should also be complaining about speed limits.

Its a changing of the times, deal with it.

 

[bfdd]

Good post, thanks. I'm going to be writing a letter, if I don't forget, and I'm planning on canceling my service. Sucks because I've only had it for 4 months and it is much faster than my time warner line was.

 

[TJCS]

Doesn't ATT&T state that 2% of their users consume 60% of the bandwidth?

There's got to be a way (with math) to show that the 2% aren't ruining the experience for the other 98%.

It's actually 20% of bandwidth used by 2% of their customers. This is the quote from AT&T:

Why is AT&T implementing a usage allowance?
AT&T has experienced a dramatic increase in the amount of data that is sent and received over its wireline broadband networks. This dramatic increase is driven primarily by a small fraction of our customers. In fact, the top 2% of customers use about 20% of the total capacity on our network. A single high traffic user 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.

I agree with you though that they make no sense, except maybe a shady business one. In order to deal with 2% of their customers' utilizing 19 times the bandwidth usage of typical households, a limit is imposed on 100% of the customers? Could they just deal with the top 2% directly while not affecting the rest 98% TOS?

 

[TJCS]

I do care - my monthly cap is 10 gigs, I would love to have a 250 gig cap.

Complaining about a 250 cap, is like having a BMW in the driveway, and complaining that its not a Mercedes.

Not sure why you would "love" to have a 250 cap, doesn't really seem all that lovable.

I think we are moving to a digital era where more and more mediums are becoming digitalized (digital game downloads, hd movies, etc). I think when the digital market matures your 250GB cap won't look so as big as it does for you today.

 

[Texashiker]

I think we are moving to a digital era where more and more mediums are becoming digitalized (digital game downloads, hd movies, etc). I think when the digital market matures your 250GB cap won't look so as big as it does for you today.

While I was working for a cable modem provider in the early 2000s, I learned several things. One thing that really stood out, was that providers do not care about innovation, they do not care about the future, all most providers care about is how much money they are going to make today or tomorrow.

Take SBC for example in the late 1990s. While time warner was rebuilding their cable plants, sbc was sitting on their hands. It was like sbc did not care that time warner was scooping up customers by the thousands. In some of the cable plants I worked in, dsl was 4 - 5 years behind cable modem.

While the 250 gig cap might be fine now, in the near future its probably going to run out rather fast. When that time comes, providers will probably offer a tiered payment plan. I dont think providers are really looking towards the future, except how much money they can squeeze out of people.

In the long run, I look for the USA to fall further and further behind other countries in the high speed market. with greed becoming the final factor on whether to upgrade the lines or not.

 

[0roo0roo]

I do care - my monthly cap is 10 gigs, I would love to have a 250 gig cap.

Complaining about a 250 cap, is like having a BMW in the driveway, and complaining that its not a Mercedes.

no you are like a starving xyz complaining that an american can eat a hotdog.
no need to drag everyone down to your level of misery to make it unfair for everyone.

 

[0roo0roo]

It's actually 20% of bandwidth used by 2% of their customers. This is the quote from AT&T:


I agree with you though that they make no sense, except maybe a shady business one. In order to deal with 2% of their customers' utilizing 19 times the bandwidth usage of typical households, a limit is imposed on 100% of the customers? Could they just deal with the top 2% directly while not affecting the rest 98% TOS?

doesn't make sense anyways because the 2% might use 20%, but the rest use the 80%, and they probably don't even use that!! that is how it is supposed to be!!

as the guy above said, they aren't charging grandpa 2 emails a month 50 cents.

 

[Patranus]

Its no different than paying for electricity, or water.

I really don't understand the irrational arguments over this.

Dear Congressman,

The electric company charges me more per KW if I go over the artificial baseline they have created.

I don't know why I am bitching because I can choose how I use electricity and either go over that base line or not.

Sincerely,
Some Bitchy Consumer Who Thinks Everything Should Be Free

 

[Eos]

Its no different than paying for electricity, or water.

I really don't understand the irrational arguments over this.

Dear Congressman,

The electric company charges me more per KW if I go over the artificial baseline they have created.

I don't know why I am bitching because I can choose how I use electricity and either go over that base line or not.

Sincerely,
Some Bitchy Consumer Who Thinks Everything Should Be Free

Who said this?

 

[Nebor]

Its no different than paying for electricity, or water.

I really don't understand the irrational arguments over this.

Yup, exactly.

 

[Patranus]

Who said this?

That is essentially the argument made by people who are bitch about data caps.


What it is in reality
For X price you are buying Y amount of bandwidth and for Z price you can buy more.

Vs

What people want
For X price you are buying unlimited bandwidth

 

[QueBert]

as I said in other threads, FOUR HD movies a day from Netflix for 30 days wouldn't hit 250 gigs. Online gaming uses very little bandwidth. Pandora's around 64k/s. You could have a house of 4 people who each watch 1 HD movie on Netflix and stream Pandora every hour their awake and play 3 hours a day of WOW or whatever game they like and it might hit 250.

That's a lot of fucking usage though.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Bandwidth caps are all about the money.

Virtual monopoly on high speed internet + caps = $$$.

In places where there's no high speed monopoly you don't see caps.