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."

Comments

Bandwidth is not the issue

[Rupert]

Sure, 3Mbps would be nice for only double the price of 1.5Mbps, but it's not going to help AT&Ts finances. The people who are causing them a problem are the people who are using 1.5Mbps all the time. If these people upgrade to 3Mbps they are going to be using 3Mbps all the time, so AT&Ts bandwidth bill will double, while their revenue will not.

What AT&T needs is tiered bandwidth. You get 1.5Mbps for the first 5GB per month. Then you get on a nice sliding scale where the more you download the less bandwidth you get, until your worst bandwidth hogs are getting 28.8kbps. Pay more, and the slope is gentler. Pay lots, and you can have 1.5Mbps all the time. However, since AT&T now needs an extra T1 to support your pr0n habit, expect to pay that kind of price.

I have Time Warner Road Runner, and apart from the occaisional .ISO download session, I rarely make use of my 1.2Mbps down. But they don't hassle me about running http, smtp* and ssh servers, it's always on and the latency is low.

* apart from when they tested for open relays and asked me to upgrade sendmail

Re:I ache for a little more...

[Wee]

I wish I could do a 2 meg down 1 meg up. I'd pay $80 a month for that RIGHT NOW.

Yeah, I bet most people would pay 1/6 as much as they should for goods and services if they could. Hell, I'd like a new 4WD Toyota Tundra, and I'd pay 5 grand for it THIS VERY SECOND. I'd have enough cash left over from my savings that I could easily pay for five years in advance of a 2 meg down 1 meg up Net connection. And while we're off in a never-never land where everyone gets what they want, I'd like a pony, too. And world peace. And for all the children of the world to be happy and healthy.

Why don't you just get a T1? It's only US$674 a month. Or SDSL? It's only about US$400 per month if you're close enough to a CO. Oh, wait... I remember. You wanted something for nothing. I don't think it's gonna happen anytime soon, bro.

-B