What Is Average Data Use And Should You Care?

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matt87_50

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should just be pay by the byte...

now THAT is fair!

most people who cringe at the idea do so because they assume that means "expensive"

but it doesn't have to be. the important thing is that its fair.
 

ludee

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I don't live in the US, but I think AT&T is just being idiotic. If 150Gb cap affects only 2% of users it shouldn't be a big deal. AT&T only makes itself look bad by doing this.
 

fusion_gtx

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I remember when Steam had their whole Christmas special going on. Between my roommates and myself we burned through 150gb in a 3 day stint of mass downloading...
 

LuckyDucky7

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I'm Canadian. My government cares enough to slap 'em down. They just did recently.

Maybe some writing needs to go on? Time for the FCC to illegalize this crap?

I think so.
 

Supertrek32

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The biggest issue I have with data caps is that they're so obviously NOT a solution to any real problem. The amount of data carried over a line in a month doesn't matter. What matters is the amount of data passing through the line at any given moment - aka bandwidth.

So what happens when you put a data cap on the line? People wait till the end of the month to use up all the extra and you have a huge spike in bandwidth usage. Caps don't prevent lines from being overloaded. They promote it. If only a couple neighbors have their bills come at the same time of the month, the entire neighborhood (and possibly even nearby neighborhoods) will see performance plummet.

Data caps don't fix any problems (that actually exist). They just make them worse.
 

nforce4max

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I couldn't survive on 250gb a week much less a month. >:|

Greedy jerks! The only real cost to the isp is the end devices while much of the backbone infrastructure was already built during the .com boom era.
 

selks

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In an average sized town in Ontario, we pay $55 a month plus tax for a 60GB cap at 14Mbps, and $1.50 a GB over the cap up to $30. I average about 40-50GB a month between myself and my roommate, neither of us torrent, but we do download about a game a month on steam. During our free month of Netflix however, we used 140GB. I wish I did have a 150GB cap, but I'm sure theres many people out there who wish they had a 60GB cap. I've heard some horror stories about some services in Europe. Just my two cents.
 
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seems at&t is always claiming what they change is only going to affect 2% of their users.....

they upgrade cell tower equipment and which puts all 3g iphone uploads to edge only... and claimed it affected only 2% of users(didnt know iphone only made up 2% of all thier phone use...)

the cell data plan cap was only going to affect 2% of users..... i guess no folks use pandora while at work? i do and just a few hours a day puts me WAY over 2 gigs a month....

and now they plan on caping thier dsl? why are we moving backwards 15 years in progress to when dsl first came out and telecom companies complained that broadband would allow users to overload their equipment and congress needed to let them cap the data on heavy users..... it didnt work then, but it seems people dont have the guts to stand up to them anymore...
 

bvillan

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The 150GB cap is for DSL Service, whose bandwidth maxes @ 6mbps. AT&T will also start forcibly converting customers in areas to Uverse, whose cap will remain @ 250GB. I have Time Warner, I game online, stream Netflix, download larger torrent files from time to time, and share my internet connection with 3 neighbors, and I average 30GB down a month.

This article is a tad sensational. The idea that heavy bandwidth users may pay a little more, whose payment will in turn assist with the conversion from older copper infrastructure to fiber is completely fair, and I believe the average user claim for "DSL" users is accurate. AT&T is expecting the backlash, and I promise you the "average" user won't be aware of the change.

C'est la vie.
 

SmileyTPB1

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While I agree with the bigger picture of AT&T being anti competitive with this bandwidth cap I think that the more direct reason is that AT&T just wants your money. I think that it is much more than just 2% of customers that will be affected by this. The real number is probably more around 10-15% and they know that most of those customers will just pay the extra rather than limit their usage or switch providers.

As an AT&T wireless customer I have to check my bill thoroughly every month because AT&T like to subscribe me to services I didn't ask for and then charge me for them. When I call to get unsubscribed from these services and get the charges taken off my bill they always make it very difficult to do. Customer service operators always argue that the charge is somehow my fault and that I should pay for it, will not ever transfer you to a supervisor, and don't usually respond to anything but the threat of legal action.

I know I am not an isolated case. As the largest wireless provider in the US can you imagine how much extra money they are making off of customers who either don't notice the extra charges or don't go through the hassle of getting it fixed. If they do this to 2 million customers and only 1 million of them get the charges taken off that is an extra 1 million dollars they are making every single month off of their customers for extra charges they "accidentally" added to their bills.

The bandwidth cap and extra charges are no different. While it is definitely anti competitive it's really just about the money.
 

alidan

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[citation][nom]matt87_50[/nom]should just be pay by the byte...now THAT is fair!most people who cringe at the idea do so because they assume that means "expensive" but it doesn't have to be. the important thing is that its fair.[/citation]

if i have to pay by the byte, than i want to pay for how much that byte actually costs to deliver, not how much they want to deliver that byte.

look at netflix, they serve out more movies on demand than you have bandwith for, and they do it for 8$ a month. serving out that data must not cost all that much, so how is it that i pay 80-90$ a month for a lesser service than that?

how much does 1gb REALLY cost? im guessing that 1gb= less than 20 cents

you want to charge me 1 cent per 50mb, i'm ok with that. it would probably be cheaper than what i pay. but you CAN NOT have a tiered pricing structure like that, you HAVE to get the best to everyone. you also have to give us a 1gb monthly free amount, to cover mindless chatter that happens regardless of if we do anything online or not.

 
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Well, I live in Brazil and my ISP has no cap for my service...
BUT the quality is questionable...
The nominal speed of my link is 16Mbps, but on real it has been 5 to 12 Mbits...
This suck, but I have to admit that I'm glad I don't have a cap!
With this kind of cap I would be screwed....
=D
 

g-thor

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Sorry to have to ask this, but is English the author's second language? If not then he needs to either re-read his articles or have a proofreader look them over. The errors made it hard to read, and in some cases difficult to discern what he meant.

Other than that, an interesting article. I tried to find out what our average use is, but our ISP doesn't seem to track that (an "unlimited" account at the moment). We have three adults using the service, with home based offices and I do a fair bit of gaming. I think ours would be closer to your usage than to 18GB per month. A thought provoking article. Thanks.
 
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Well, actually..you forgot a step in there.

ATT claims 18GB for an average "user". Note the singular use there, not plurarl. So if we take your estiamted 130GB a month for your 4 teenage children, and 2 adults (you and your wife) = 6 people. So, 130GB divided by 6 household users = 21.7GB. So...not so far off of ATT's esimation.

Now, having said that, data caps are still a step backwards, and ATT once again proves that they are just greedy pig dogs who have no care for consumers. Ever try to talk to their "tech" support? It's a bunch of devoled primates flinging their primoridal juices at one another. No one remotely intelligent answer that phone.

I can only hope we still get one or two companies who will fight the bandwidth caps. Lets face it, Time Warner fought off the municiple wifi project of a small town so it wouldn't have to compete, and Comcast likes to tell you how to download and for how long.

Dark times indeed...

-Ru
 
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I'm not an AT&T customer, but still hate to see what would come of this. I would imagine they'll see a sharp decline in subscriber numbers if more than expected are affected. I wouldn't even know how to figure out my monthly bandwidth usage, let alone keep up with it on a day-to-day basis to make sure I don't go over at some point during the month.

What does scare me is that if this is deemed successful for them, other ISPs will likely follow suit.
 

desperadaux

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The fact that you DON'T KNOW what your using daily/weekly or monthly leaves you wide open and vulnerable to the whims of your ISP. I cut the TV cable 2 years ago. With low cost adapters, I connected my home theater and TV to my PC. Most network content is free and readily available as well as pay channels like HBO, Starz, etc. Even live streaming although several sites have recently been seized. And movie torrents. Want to know your usage? Google "Networx" and download their free Data Usage Monitor.
 

Soul_keeper

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My isp used to cap me at 500MB per day ...
After they suspended my account for the second time I switched to unlimited business
Also they prohibited "servers of any kind" for residential accounts

It costs me 4x as much per month, but I don't have to worry about them bothering me
 
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