AT&T Embraces BitTorrent, Considers Usage-Based Pricing

Wired is running a story about AT&T's chief technical officer, John Donovan. He contrasts his view of BitTorrent and P2P in general against the controversial policies adopted by other ISPs. Donovan also explains why AT&T is considering usage-based pricing, citing the cost of network upgrades which only affect a small number of users. AT&T is expected to test the new pricing scheme later this year, which should give them plenty of time to see how Time Warner's customers respond to the idea. "'I don't view any of our customers, under any circumstances, as pirates -- I view them as users,' Donovan said. 'A heavy user is not a bad customer.' What he wants to do is gently encourage more efficient usage of his network, and usage-based pricing may be one of the ways that happens. Such measures may not even be necessary, as Donovan admits that users self-adjust their habits to take advantage of off-peak times. For instance, he said, BitTorrent on the company's network peaks around 4 a.m., when other traffic is at an ebb. Overall P2P traffic accounts for about 20 percent of the network's usage, Donovan said."

Comments

Re:We have this in Australia...

[Wavebreak]

Experience proves that this simply isn't true. ISPs in Finland (where I live), and several other countries that I have no personal experience with, provide ridiculously fast unlimited connections for very reasonable prices already and keep making a profit. I have a 100Mbit connection for 43e a month, and similar connections are getting more and more prevalent. You could also get an unlimited 3G data plan for 10e a month. Finns have a long history of heavy p2p usage as well, yet the ISPs aren't even complaining, stay in business just fine and my connection at least isn't throttled at all, *true* unlimited bandwidth. They do use QOS, but no artificial bandwidth caps or whatever, just prioritization for low-latency use. Just because your anti-competitive "free market" (we have actual competition thanks to some government regulation of the market, tell me again how your system is so much better) can't do it right doesn't mean it can't be done.