AT&T to Impose DSL, U-Verse Usage Caps

[hellwig]

What a crock, not only did they fail to provide fiber to the home with U-Verse (more like fiber to the local node), but they're trying to claim their infastructure can't handle the traffic? Think about it this way folks, every byte you pay to download, someone also paid to upload that byte. If that providers network can handle sending you the data, why can't AT&T's network handle it?

Lets consider what internet companies pay compared to users. If you only pay Netflix $8/month to stream unlimited videos, do you really think it costs them more than $8/mo to do that? Not likely. But you have to pay AT&T $50+ a month for the privilege. Netflix can afford to stream all that content, and has the infastructure to do so, but apparently AT&T, which gets a lot more money per month per subscriber, can't support it? And don't give me bull about Netflix getting a better deal or something, AT&T is an ISP, Netflix is not.

And Bitorrent? That should be even less of a problem, because with Bitorrent, you aren't downloading from some huge server farm in a datacenter, you're downloading from 100 other normal users with their normal internet connections. They can upload the data, but its too much for AT&T to handle the downloads? Give me a break.

This is greed, pure and simple. The FCC should step it not because its "unfair", but because AT&T is charging for a service they don't really provide. I doubt they or any ISP can give you proof about what happens when a user goes over their cap, i.e. they can't provide actual evidence of damages that they need to recoup through higher pricing. Bah, I could go on forever, I'm just glad I'm not a customer of theirs, and I never will be.

 

[jj463rd]

This is probably just used to increase corporate profits whereas many Asian and European countries have vastly higher Internet speeds and bandwidth usually with fiber optic connections.It reminds me of the horrible exorbitant pricing,overage charges,extremely limited data usage and speeds with current smartphones and common cell phones..
I would like to see this all replaced someday soon with perhaps something like blue tooth VOIP phones replacing cellular and current smartphones with the user having something like a WiMAX type Internet laptop close by with Internet charges for both not exceeding $40 USD per month with unlimited usage.
The bandwidth should be increasing in speed and usage per individual rather than being limited otherwise these corporate profiteer jokers are heading us back in time technology wise.
We are talking about DSL here too.What do they expect for people to go back to using dial up modems?

 

[Niva]

I became a U-Verse customer because Comcast also has this same cap on their service, but apparently they dump you if you exceed the undisclosed quota. I'm not sure other options are available for me though... choosing between these two is all I got. If I get dish or direct TV they still give at*t DSL.

Hopefully Clear will be available soon. I keep hearing good things about them.

 

[Camikazi]

[citation][nom]wallace1337[/nom]So since they are going to be monitoring how much internet we will be using, doesn’t that mean they are going to be secretly logging what website we go to and what we download now????[/citation]
Chances are they do that already, but now they will just add a byte counter to it too.

 

[starryman]

FU AT&T... I was with your sorry arse for over a decade and left you 5 years ago... best thing ever. It's like being in an abusive relationship... CAP my arse!!! Bandwidth is cheaper by the day so put it out or get lost. AT&T really should be removed from the market.

 

[milktea]

AT&T just increased my U-Verse fees last month. And now they plan to CAP my bandwidth? This just add another reason for me to move to other provider. Anyone have good suggestion for >6Mbps?

 

[Guest]

at&t is the worst company that has ever existed. No one treats their customers as poorly.

This proves how stupid man is that they keep on buying products from them.

 

[Guest]

this is the end of the internet.

 

[BulkZerker]

As its been said befor, I'll say it again. Aat is doing this to either discourage people from using their advertised internet speeds for more than an hour a day; so they can keep their current infastructure. Or so they can upgrade it with the overage fees so they keep the same proffit margin while upgradong things. Its all about looking good for their investors portfolios. The last thing a ceo wants is record making gross proffits without record making net. It makes them look like they don't know what they are doing.

 

[Stevemeister]

Limited to a mere 150GB a month - luxury! I live up in Canada and most plans here limit you to 50 GB/month after which you pay $1.50/GB unless you get a vastly more expensive plan so Netflix users beware. That being said my average usage is probably around 20 GB/month (no NetFlix and I work for a living so I can't play games or download porn all day). Anyone using 100GB in two days - wtf? you need to start working for a living

 

[Guest]

Wow.. you americans pay alot for internet. In my crap country Romania most of my friends have 50mbp no cap for 9$ and i have 100 mbps no cap for like 11$. everything i leech with bit-torrent comes down with 10,8 MB/S... I guess I can't complain..

 

[f-14]

time to start writing to the FCC, and my congressman where my money is going to go for the next election and how much negative/positive influence i will bring about in their campaign.

 

[f-14]

i just remembered something, obama gave all these telecoms money to upgrade and expand service, maybe it's high time we start voicing our displeasure of this unecessary expense and demand that money back from these particular telecoms. there's more then a few congressmen looking for re-election that need some stable ground to run on with this national debt problem. voicing our concern to them about this displeasure would give the desperate ones something stable to run on and force the issue into the lime light.
all politicians are liars, but it's a very big issue for the telecoms.

http://www.majorityleader.gov/YouCut/YourIdea.htm

 

[killerclick]

I live in the crappiest European country and even we don't have usage caps. Then again we don't have telecoms pushing VOD so they don't have a reason to pull this kind of crap... yet...

 

[Travis Beane]

Between me and my roommates, we use over 150GB a month just for Netflix.
I have a 100GB cap at 15mbps, but luckily my ISP doesn't care if I even hit 400GB.

 

[Guest]

150GB limit? My service is so slow I doubt I could even download that much in a month if I tried. I've gone round and round with AT&T and in the end they tell me it's as good as it can get and not even what I pay for. Visit SaveTheInternet.org.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]Stevemeister[/nom]Limited to a mere 150GB a month - luxury! I live up in Canada and most plans here limit you to 50 GB/month after which you pay $1.50/GB unless you get a vastly more expensive plan so Netflix users beware. That being said my average usage is probably around 20 GB/month (no NetFlix and I work for a living so I can't play games or download porn all day). Anyone using 100GB in two days - wtf? you need to start working for a living[/citation]

its called a torrent, or a download list (cant think of the Q word) during an 8 hour work day i can download up to 57gb while not at the computer, i don't, but if needed i can ,and i have downloaded over a 2tb the month my harddrive died.

just because you work, doenst mean you have to be stupid about computer usage.

 

[cchambers]

I can’t say that I’m surprise about the step back to the AOL dial-up mentality, but I expect the worst outcome to this. I would guess that other service providers will monitor AT&T’s success with this and will soon follow suit when it becomes clear that if all service providers jump on the same bandwagon then consumers won’t have an alternative to avoid such restrictions.

 

[virtualban]

[citation][nom]eklipz330[/nom]speak with your wallets friendsTWC has no internet caps on me... but when they do, i'll be sure to find an alternativethe lack of competition is amazing... some people say verizon and at&t have a deal under the table... pathetic.[/citation]
just some?

The 2% of the users affected are the future though, for the video services and the cloud(myass)computing, more and more people are supposed to be towards that which is the future of the interconnected world. So, future looses, users loose, providers of content loose. Providers of the internet should be sued and given a really big kick in the ass Obama style (thanks f-14).

 

[eddieroolz]

While better than the Canadian caps of 40GB/60GB/100GB (for pretty much all users) caps still suck.

But Shaw won't notify me even if I'm over cap. I wish we had such a system.