AT&T Caps Bandwidth On Former @Home Users

graznar writes: "It seems that AT&T users have been limited to 1.5 megabits of bandwidth. According to AT&T (after calling and waiting for 30 minutes), the service my friend was originally on went bankrupt (@home maybe?) so they were transferred to an alternate network. AT&T claims they will be getting this back up to speed soon. What I would like to know is if this is a nation wide problem, or if this is just in California where he lives?" More generally, I wonder what type of experiences -- good or bad -- the people who've just gone through a forcible @home weaning are experiencing.

Comments

Links?

[Alien54]

like we really have to ask?

Re:Links?

[Lostman]

As a @home customer (comcast if you must know) that was REALLY watching out for new developments during the showdown, I used the DSLREPORTS forums for new developments. They even tossed ATT out of the @home forums and created their own cable forum for att users seperate from @home (so they can bish in piece it seems).

Linked here

From the look of it, the ATT users are none to pleased about the goings on... even talking about something worse than SPEED caps -- a download limit.

The forum goers seem ALL OVER THIS... for real information its a good bet to get it directly from them, so to speak.

*Limited* to 1.5Mbps?

[cperciva]

Is this really a limit? After two years with a cable modem (first Rogers, then Rogers@Home, then Shaw@Home, then Shaw), I never saw transfer rates of over 1.5Mbps. I generally considered myself lucky if I got half of that.

Re:*Limited* to 1.5Mbps?

[Jburkholder]

I have att in Chicago here, and I had been judging my speed based on what I considered a local fast debian mirror. Someone recommended bandwidthplace to get a better measurement. I've tried this at different times of the day, and the best I ever get is 1.2Mbps

There are a couple other sites I've found that do a test like this, and they give similar results.

here's a site that links to a whole bunch:

http://home.cfl.rr.com/eaa/Bandwidth.htm

as an @home user..

[X-Dopple]

this is OLD news. AT&T has been capping their bandwidth for a month now.

AT&T has been providing quality service for all your needs

My status in Richmond, VA

[omega9]

I'm in Richmond, VA, and my cable access provider is Comcast@Home. Our network has not been purchased by AT&T, however my speed has dropped (only slightly) since @Home went down. Comcast has been rolling commercials like nothing happened around here: deals if you subscribe to digital cable and cable modem access together.

I must hand it to Comcast. They've kept the network up with no outages that I'm aware of. They're not as fast as other cable access companies (my avg. speed is ~400kbps), but they have had killer uptimes while I've been on.

I wouldn't get to worried about AT&T limiting your bandwidth anyway. You have to expect something in a time of adjustment. If this becomes prolonged practice, then I might start bitchin', but sometimes you just need to let the industry figure itself out.

Time Warner RR

[ImaLamer]

I've been noticing for weeks now an ability to shut your whole connection off [only briefly enough] if they don't want you doing something.

I've only had this happen to me doing these things:
* Kazaa [one port, easy to detect]
* Gnutella [any client, only using 6346 port!]
* WinMX [anytime I connect to an opennap server]
* USENET [not all groups, but a general 'backup' of anything in the alt.binaries.* tree. No more playboy pics for me :(]
* Uploading [When uploading to a private FTP... expect to get booted]

I thought this was a windows issue since I have just moved and as a consequence started a new account with new hardware. Since the move, I've gotten my boxen up and they get disconnected using even SCP! [if it takes more than one hour]

So I can't SSH to my boxen because what? There is no excuse for this. I can see the blocking of P2P systems since TimeWarner DOES own all the content people are trying to share.

The problem is they don't actually watch what you do. They figure, port 1214... Kazaa, shut him down. But when is the line drawn for LEGITIMATE USE?

I can't connect to my own PC for private toying around? I can't download a distro? I guess I can't even install over FTP?

Just when I was loving 'Broadband' and it's perks. You know, constant updates to anything. Even if it is for your slash.applett....

Seattle Cap

[Rothfuss]

I'm in Seattle. I'm capped at 1.5 mbps also. Have been since the switch. Complained to CS for the record, but obviously they could do nothing for me.

More annoying is the change in the way they handle DHCP. @Home used to assign each user a unique name that would be associated with a DNS entry for the IP address given to the machine by the DHCP. The result is that I could always find my machine through name resolution, regardless of my changing DHCP lease (they also gave static IPs if you wanted, but it wasn't necessary if you could resolve your name to an IP address). Now the Powers That Be at ATT have had the utter lack of foresight to assign dynamic names to the DHCP clients, which are in fact simply the TCP/IP address with slashes. For example if your IP address is

192.54.75.213

Then your name resolves to

192-54-75-213.client.attbi.com

I suggested to a tech to tell anyone who would listen that they should be using MAC IDs, but once again he had the obligatory complete lack of power that goes hand in hand with phone tech support, so he did nothing.

I think the key will be to not pay them for services, since they are not giving me the service I expect. They have avenues for diminished payment due to support failure. As far as I'm concerned, my service has been down since the switch.

-Rothfuss

What they *should* have done

[b.foster]

In my area, Time Warner service is letting us burst at 20Mbps/3Mbps, and transfer steadily at 10Mbps/1.5Mbps. Needless to say, their service is very snappy. How are they able to do this?

Well, as my warez kiddie neighbor's son found out last week, they are capping uploads to 10MB/day and downloads to 150MB/day. After that point, their filters drop about 25% of your packets and the connection is pretty much useless until midnight.

Since I am a responsible internet user who does not try to download gigabytes of stuff that I don't want to be 1337, I am getting more than my money's worth (especially that 20Mbps burst rate). And Time Warner is making a special effort to punish the jerks who just leech all day and waste bandwidth. The result? The network has been extremely responsive, and reliable to boot.

I will be sticking with TW for the forseeable future because this is one company that has finally figured out how to provide excellent cable modem service.

Bill

Re:What they *should* have done

[krogoth]

At first I thought your speeds looked impressive, but those caps would make it unusable. I could hit them within two hours easily. On one day I probably downloaded 6 full isos (and not just to be 1337), and I regularly transfer large files to people through my server. At the sustained transfer rate of 10Mbps, you could hit your download cap for the day in 2 minutes - I'd consider that service to have a very low availability. Even if they let you save unused transfers for other days, that service is next to useless for anyone who does more than read the news and email.

My DSL is only 1.5Mbps/384Kbps, but it's a much better deal because I can transfer as much as I want (of course, I haven't tried using the full bandwidth 24/7 for a month straight...). I can't remember the last downtime that was caused by something outside my network (the Linksys router being the main point of failure), and I haven't found any limits other than the basic bandwidth limitations. You may have a fast connection, but I don't see how that can be useable with the limits they put on it. I never knew using the bandwidth you bought was abuse... it may sound like a lot, but even the 10Mbps for "steady transfer" is just a rate for very short bursts according to your description.

I personally think my ISP has done something even better: they let you open any port, and yet the IIS worm attack rate from their subnet is very low - maybe they are smart enough to kick off people who have more worms than real software on their computers, but I haven't found out. That's real abuse of a service, not trying to use the bandwidth you think you have.

Re:What they *should* have done

[bacchusrx]

"...as my warez kiddie neighbor's son found out last week, they are capping uploads to 10MB/day and downloads to 150MB/day. After that point, their filters drop about 25% of your packets and the connection is pretty
much useless until midnight."

The implication that someone who downloads more than 150MB of data in a day is of course linked to some form of mischief is both ludicrous and wrongheaded. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to use more than 150MB of downstream data transfer per day.

There are days where I may do a complete network install of an operating system by FTP... everything from system sources to X11 and perhaps 350 software packages... I could easily hit a few gigabytes in a day... and none of it on any "warez kiddie" (read: illegitimate) purpose.

I don't mean to offend, but, it sounds like the service you need (basically "fast web browsing") is one-way satellite service.

A broadband service that caps data transfer such as you describe is a rip off.

This is an issue where private monopolies aren't really listening to "demand." Yes, a large number of people simply want "fast web browsing," but for the most part, any broadband service will provide that... however, there is a large segment of the computing population who'd like to be able to do more than just that.

It baffles me as to why these companies do everything in their power to curtail this sort of thing. Surely they must realize that if these people could afford "business-class" service and the QOS guarantees that provides, they would have contracted for the service already. So there's certainly no economic motivation--at least, not one that has any meaningful chance of playing out.

(Well, acutally, the above assumes that we're talking about companies who are in the business of providing data services. However, we're increasingly seeing Internet providers that are becoming dominated by media production companies. Time Warner is the perfect example. I've written about this before on Slashdot, and, it seems that large media companies are tailoring commercially available residential internet services to curtail not only alternative media voice, but, of course protect their all-important "intellectual property." Thus, we've got Internet services that behave more and more like television. Custom--and restrictive--browsers, proxies, network filters, asynchronous transfer rates ludicrously biased in favour of downstream (consumptive) usage over upstream (productive) usage... the list goes on. It seems a little insidious, but, the more you look at it... you start to see that from the perspective of a media company, not an ISP, the sorts of business practices being pursued by some broadband providers make more sense.)

bacchusrx.

whining about the rope

[Lumpy]

@home made a fatal flaw by trying to offer more than they could offer. 10Mbps access speeds. Having basically a T3 for every customer to the internet is business suicide and was purely moronic for them to ever have offered. (Example, they' failed.)

T-1 speeds are plenty fast enough, I just want the latency to drop. I dare anyone (other than in Chicago) to get a T-1 for 5 times the price they pay for a cable modem.. Ok I can already hear the "well I can run a server, bla bla waaaah,waaaah. Yes you can on a Real T-1 and you are paying through the budd mercilessly for it. A T-1 is from $700 - $1500 a month USD and this gives you nothing but a wire from A to B no net access at all. you need to pay another $400 - $800 a month for that. So you're paying $1100 to $2300 USD a month for a T-1 line... 1.5Mbps (MAX, you usually get much less) and the right to run servers, porn sites, warez sites. whatever...

You have a residental cable modem, you pay $40.0 - $60.00 a month for T-1 like speeds for download so you get the net effect that the guy being mercilessly raped by the phone company and ISP does for a miniscule fraction.

and now we bitch about it. Good grief, Us americans are a bunch of snotty spoiled brats. No wonder the rest of the world cant stand us.

I agree, that most of us signed up under the old advertising which promise things that were never possible, and we knew it. and now we are looking for a reason to complain about it... Just like how we get pissed when the police start enforcing the traffic laws on our stretch of highway to work. we are minorly inconvienced and that pisses us off.

My question? what are your alternatives? DSL isnt as fast as 1.5Mbps (some are but it's rare, very rare) sattelite? please dont mention that, I dont need to laugh that hard.. can we say 3sec ping times at the minimum? What have any of you done to create any free alternatives? 802.11b freenets are super easy to create and cost peanuts to build the hardware. (Granted you will never get your precious 10Mbps back. never ever unless you buy your own T-3)

It is about time that people quit whining and start acting. every one of the problems we face today can be solved without billions of dollars, and special laws or lawyers.

Happing Eveywhere... it's economics

[green pizza]

Yes, it's true, and it's national. I don't like it, but I'm no longer complaining. Yes, I used to be able to get ~400,000 bytes/sec.. but I can see how selling a $3000/mo connection for $45/mo might be a cause for bankrupcy.

Same thing has happined with the local telco/isp (a rural telco co-op) in my hometown. Because the rather small city has two switchhouses, almost everyone within city limits could get a flavor of 2.1 Mbps SDSL. For $39 per month, no less. The telco tried hard to keep up with the bandwidth usage, but after their second T3 plus an OC3, they gave up and capped thruput to 1 Mbps for everyone on the $39 rate. Static IPs are now an additional $5 per IP and multiple computers per DSL "modem" are no longer supported (but they do continue to work). Still, $44 per month for 1Mbps SDSL with a static IP is a hell of a deal. Yet, folks continue to moan that they're no longer getting the world for $39.

The upload limit has been 12,800 bytes/s for the last year. (I'm using bytes, because nobody seems to understand the diff between KB, Kb, Mbps, MB, etc).

I hear you. Folks around town confuse them as well, and some will even toss MHz into the mix. Yikes!

How AOLTW defines "legitimate use" (sarcasm)

[yerricde]

I can see the blocking of P2P systems since TimeWarner DOES own all the content people are trying to share. The problem is they don't actually watch what you do. They figure, port 1214... Kazaa, shut him down. But when is the line drawn for LEGITIMATE USE?

<sarcasm>AOL Time Warner Inc. defines "legitimate use" as HTTP GET and POST requests on port 80 to web sites operated by AOL Time Warner Inc.</sarcasm>

Hmmm

[SuiteSisterMary]

So, basically, you're complaining that for fifty dollars a month, you're *only* getting download speeds of a T1, which still go for a hell of a lot more?

a word from a Net Admin from former @Home market

[tempest303]

For everyone bitching about a "1.5Mb cap" on their cable modems, here's a little piece of info you might not be aware of... you were SUPPOSED to be "capped" at 1.5Mb down to begin with! The only reason you weren't rate-limited before was because @Home had lots of money for bandwidth, and were too stupid to figure out rate-limiting until only a month or two before their collapse. Nowhere in your EULA did it say you were to get an unlimited download speed.

Which brings me to my second point... bandwidth doesn't come cheap, y'know. Exactly what were you expecting for $35-$40 a month??!? In my area anyhow, the cable ISP I work for is EASILY the cheapest per meg per month on the download side. The alternatives are DSL, which usually only offers up to 1Mb download, and that's if you're damn close to their equipment, and it's around $120-$130 a month for that download speed, once you include your ISP fees. There's always a T1, but is anyone really up for $700 a month for the same download speed as a single cable modem? Cable modems are THE best "value" (much as I hate that word) for heavy downloaders available, but we still have to make money, too. You're not charged by the meg for your downloads, but WE ARE. If everyone ran uncapped, all the time, we'd probably pull an @Home too, and go bankrupt.

If you want something to bitch about, bitch about the ACL's that don't allow personal web servers, or the lack of the option for a static IP. Now there, you've got my sympathy. But as for the speed? Think of the uncapped speeds you got for years as a gift, not an expectation.

Charter Pipeline ...

[SuperDuG]

Well Charter Cable customers now have the wonderous Tioga spyware installed on their systems. It's been posted to slashdot a few times and been rejected. Members from the MadLug (Madison, WI). Have noted that the new service listens on a specific port to monitor and "Assist" The county board is also investigating this.

The software is supposed to be a VNC-Type program that helps Service Reps service computers. Basically I see this as a way for them to not only monitor, but have their way with your system. Along with this software also comes a real annoying Internet Explorer with Charter MSN crap everywhere, diabling network shares, and reformating TCP/IP to their network. Basically everything you can do yourself, but they won't tell you because they want you to install their software.

The whole thing stinks and the company is hiding behind lawyers and PR reps to try and get the whole situation worked out. Basically they released a new service, and the MadLUG guys were on them in 2 days when they noticed weird activity.

Moral of the story ... don't screw with geeks ... we'll find you ... we know who you are :-)

SuperDuG

Haven't noticed a huge speed difference though

Boohoo, only T-1 speed. Unbelievable.

[jcostom]

Let me get this straight, you pay $40 or so a month for your cable access, right? Boo freaking hoo, poor you, only T-1 speeds. How'd you like to pay for that T-1 to the tune of over $1000/mo?

Re:DNS fix

[Enigma2175]

And their names are:
Name: vnsc-pri.sys.gtei.net
Address: 4.2.2.1
and:
Name: vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net
Address: 4.2.2.2

I think Verizon is trying to tell us something with their neighbor:
Name: i-will-not-steal-service.gtei.net
Address: 4.2.2.4

Comcast screwed me over.

[truesaer]

First, they had to change my email address to the new domain that they're using on comcast's network. So they took my old user name, added my 6 digit account number and my state abbreviation. So I feel like I'm an aol user now. Maybe they should have just named me "teenMforF028734927".

Next, they send a CD with all kinds of ominous warnings about how if I didn't run it by a certain date to install their new software, my access would be interrupted. I wasn't sure what software was necessary, since I currently use no special software, but I decided to go ahead anyway. Big mistake. It tried to update my email account to my new aol-luser account name and update the mail servers. But, I have both Outlook and outlook express (No comments that I should just use linux, I use multiple OSes, including windows thanks). So it didn't bother to ask, added the account to outlook express, even though I use outlook for mail.

Next, it completely fucked my browser over. It added a ton of bookmarks, it added a ton of links, and it changed my homepage to comcast's website. That was easy enough to reverse, but then it pulled an X10 on me: The little spinny icon that is animated when a page is loading was changed to comcast's logo. And they added "provided by comcast" to the name of the program that goes on the titlebar. I am dreading having to figure out which registry keys I will need to edit to change that back. At least it didn't change the icons for any file types like X10 does.

But overall I'm pissed. I can handle having my email address change, and having to change service. But did they really think that those email addresses were acceptable? A lot of people are going to want them changed (which is probably why their phone has been busy for 3 solid days). The rest will deal with it, but be pissed nonetheless. And I most certainely did not ask for them to fuck with my programs and settings. There is nothing more enraging than to have a program change your customized settings on things without so much as asking.

And did I mention the new support tool they isntalled? When I complained about my email address I discovered that it was sending all kinds of info to them about my system. Now this makes sense to help diagnose problems, but it was sending configurations, what programs were running, system info, and about a half dozen other categories of stuff. This is extremely intrusive and it is only vaguely alluded to.

When I got my cable modem, all they did was get my ethernet card's MAC address, plug in the cable modem, and active that MAC address at their headquarters. Now they think they have free access to my computer. I'm not pleased, but as usual there is no alternative for me to comcast.

saw it coming

[fishbowl]

When I explain to people who ask that my DSL connection costs me about $200/month, they
look at me funny. (That's $109 to the ISP,
80-something to the telco, a voice line is included in that of course, with a pretty good
voice mail system).

Now, every time I hear about how cable users
are being screwed, I look at my 1.5 rate (both
directions), my static netblock, my own primary
dns server, and my http box, and I just laugh.

Of course, I'm typing this on the 49k modem line at my family's farmhouse since I'm on holiday,
trying to be grateful that we even have a PHONE out here, and that it isn't a PARTY LINE. It wasn't very long ago at all that you couldn't get
a private line, much less a data line.

Heck, I'm grateful that I don't have to haul water from a well. That wasn't very long ago either!