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AT&T Broadband Introduces Tiered Pricing
Joey Patterson writes "It had to happen sooner or later. CNET reports that AT&T Broadband has introduced a tiered pricing plan called UltraLink (3 Mbps down/384 kbps up) for $79.99/month if you buy your own modem and $82.95/month if you lease one of theirs."
Honestly, my cablemodem is plenty fast enough for me. I'd like to know of a cheap alternative to having a static IP, and allow more than 2 machines to access the internet without anything fancy going on on my end.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I was really hoping this could be a way of getting good, quality based pricing but I guess it's just going to become a way to charge a busload of money... ...although for $82 a month I should get some legal mp3's or local TV streaming for free or something. The mention of being able to set-up home networks is nice though, I'll wait for that story next (that is when they shut those down)
Get your Unix fortune now!
AT&T Broadband said UltraLink will serve power users, which it described as those who have "set up home networks, send or receive large files such as when downloading software, or enjoy other bandwidth-intensive applications."
This is a change from the usual tone of set up a home network and die. Of course, you are paying much more for the privilege. My question, then, is if they give you more IP addresses too.
Currently, me and my roomate use ATT, and we pay them another $10 a month for a second IP. Not sure if there's any bandwidth increase with that; probably not.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
With SBC I am paying $159/Month for 6Mbit down / 384k up aDSL line. This is with 5 static IPs and a very loose AUP. I'd like to see what AT&T Broadband's Terms of Service look like for this new service level, but I don't think that the price is bad at all...
I actually don't think it is bad at all. I run servers so I need the upstream and realize I am more than the average customer so I should pay more for a premium service, but along with that I hope I get premium customer service on thier end (not sure if that is the case or not). This way I can run my servers and not have to pay business prices!
The 384 cap, though much better than it was, still leaves me aching.
I wish I could do a 2 meg down 1 meg up. I'd pay $80 a month for that RIGHT NOW.
The link is over here here
... What if the $80 a month charge means that they won't complain if you use bandwidth intensive stuff like P2P. If they'd put in the ToS "You can max out the connection 24/7 without fear of being disconnected or having ports blocked.", it may be worth $80 a month.
I already pay $55 a month now. If paying $80 would guarantee those clauses in my ToS for as long as I'm a subscriber, I'd probably go for it.
Oh how quickly people forget the early days of being online...text based bbs software, arcane keywords and CompuServe with tiered access pricing:
... at least yet...
300 baud 6.50/hr 2400 baud 14.50/hr (prices are in 1982 dollars, so let's say roughly double for 2002 dollars?) Sign me up!
Then the world was invaded by the likes of PCLink, the Commodore 64 version of PCLink and the Mac based version which bore the same name that these three companies were known as once they merged in the mid 80s...AOL. Now downloading new artwork at 2400 baud, only 30 minutes left to go...but aint it pretty!
Hey, at least they aren't rolling out METERED BANDWIDTH pricing
And funny how they chose 3Mbps for the enhanced services...similar to RCN in it's fiber network markets...however, RCN didn't raise its price one cent. Still appx. $40/mo in my bundle from them...that includes modem rental.
However, I daresay that AT&T may have difficulties consistently delivering the higher speeds as their digital network nodes are already overcrowded causing traffic jams and more general angst in the world....
Jack Greenwood Southern California Inland Empire Suburban Hell
Set up your second computer using DHCP and then hardcode the numbers it gives. It's almost as good as static. So long as you don't power off for too long your address shouldn't chqange. PLus the DHCP server doesn't seem to mind if you milk more than one ip address (I think we had 5 at one time once) and as far as I can tell we have never been charged for additional IPs. I don't think their functional system is tied to the billing system. They expect you to be on the honor system with extra IPs.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Ditto, why should I have to pay for bandwidth hogs? I do extensive browsing but rarely download anything except for RedHat's latest ISO's. I don't do the filesharing thing and my mp3's are ripped from CD's I own. No, I won't share them.
Unlimited and equal access is great. But there is really little reason to make responsible users subsidize users with high bandwidth demands.
I'd love to see tiered service:
- 128k up/386k down for $20/mth
- 386k up/1M down for $50/mth
- whatever... >$70/mth
On the other hand, I strongly disagree with dynamic limits, where ones b/w is reduced as a certain amoutn of data has been moved.
Just my few pennys worth...
Look at their pricing. 1.5M/256K for $40ish, and 3M/384K for $80ish. Why didn't the upload rate double on the high-end offering?
Oh yeah, we're consumers, not supposed to upload, share, or be creative, only eat the drivel provided for us. Why would we want to connect to our computer remotely? Or videoconference? Or share movies from our ReplayTVs?
ATT already doesn't allow home users to run servers. It is unlikely they will do so under this new plan which seems to come from a desire to maximize the profit from their existing infrastructure and not to provide any enhanced service to their customers.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I looked on the site and there wasn't a clear answer to that question.
If you can't run your own servers, you basically have to eat what they dish out to you, and you're limited in what you can say. 10 megs for webspace - that's nothing. On my DirectTV DSL line I have a static IP for $49 a month. I have an 80 gig drive in my webserver. That's a whole lotta opinions that I can put on that drive.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Why must providers always assume that someone who sets up a home network is a bandwidth hog?
One of the techs at Shaw Cable told me, long ago, that the reason they didn't support home networks is that people buy cheap, and don't understand the difference between a hub and a switch... so they buy a hub, because it's cheaper, and then all your lan data gets thrown to the cable modem, which dutifully passes it on to the upstream gateway, which then deals with (and disgards) it.
While I'm not sure if this is necessarily applicable in all (any?) cases, it sounds like a good indicator of what's wrong - stupid or ignorant people doing networking badly. Networking can be a very finicky thing if it's not extremely well done, and it's easy for people to cause problems.
--Dan
Hell yeah, In Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, I have a basically Static IP, no downtime EVER. I've pushed 55KBps (440kbit) upstream, And have pulled stuff in at 400+KBps (3200kbit). I can't stress enough how cool this modem is. And for $47 (after tax) I am not wanting for more. They are even cool about me having a bunch of servers behind a NAT.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
> yeah dude, unlike Canadia, people live in the US
Canadia? LOL, sometimes I feel ashamed to be a U.S. citizen. We can't even spell our flames right.
I am in British Columbia, and we have the same Telco here as in Alberta (Telus). Though I don't use Telus, I have friends that do. The bandwidth cap is not enforced at all. They just say they do so later down the road when they decide that people are leeching way too much they can implement it without much recoil from the users.
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
How about 5000 down and 1000 up for $30?
That's Optimum Online in NJ. When I read about the shit that's happening all over the country I start to believe I'm in freaking broadband heaven. Even if they double the price, I'd still be as happy as a clam....
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
I run a mail server, web server, ssh server and I NAT my internal network. I've never had any problems with them.
What do the cable companies do with all the excess outbound capacity? At the endpoints of attbi or comcast or the like's networks, they are buying symmetric connections to the naps/pnaps. In the attbi example, both the old and the new service have about a 10 to 1 inbound to outbound ratio. That theoretically means that 90% of the outbound capacity is going unused.
Do they somehow think I forgot that a year ago I was getting these speeds AND static IPs for $39.95, when their backbone was provided by @home?
"This is a good thing" my ass.
I don't mind the idea of varied prices for different bandwidth figures.... but what good does that do me if my current AT&T connection is utterly saturated already at a 1.5 mbit cap? What I'd like to see is some package that runs on a separate network that is NEVER oversubscribed, so that pings don't go from 20, to 40, to 200 on a whim. I don't need 3mbit downstream, heck I don't even need 1.5, I'd take 1mbit down, 256k up and pay a little bit more for it if I could be guaranteed that the network would be consistant, and never saturated.