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AT&T Begins a Trial To Cap, Meter Internet Usage
An anonymous reader writes "On the heels of Comcast's decision to implement a 250-GB monthly cap, and Time Warner Cable's exploration of caps and overage fees, DSL Reports notes that AT&T is launching a metered billing trial of their own in Reno, Nevada. According to a filing with the FCC (PDF), AT&T's existing tiers, which range from 768 kbps to 6 Mbps, would see caps ranging from 20 GB to 150 GB per month. Users who exceed those caps would pay an additional $1 per gigabyte, per month."
At least they should be required by law to use sarcastic air quotes when they say "Unlimited." I don't buy their attempts to redefine "Unlimited", either. That's pretty much my definition of "Consumer fraud".
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
When your bandwidth cap is exceeded your ports are all shut except 80. Your web browser can only get AT&T's page. You have options to (a) pay for another XXX GB of transfer or (b) upgrade your plan.
It ain't all that hard to do this. Making people pay a dollar-per-gigabyte without giving them notice that they've exceeded their limit is clearly not informing the user.
Tag this story lawsuitwaitingtohappen, whatcanpossiblygowrong, goodluckwiththat, monopoly, luserunfriendly and !cool.
-- thinkyhead software and media
I'm fine with schemes like this provided the ISP makes it perfectly clear and obvious when you sign up what your download limitations are and the costs of running over. This allows consumers to make an educated choice about which provider they want to use. Unfortunately, I see this being shoved in the fine print while still advertising "unlimited" internet access. I mean, we are dealing with telecom companies here. I know my bill is a surprise about every other month after all the "taxes and fees" are tacked on to the advertised base price...
That's all well and good in markets where customers actually have a choice. In the markets where the options are Cable Company A or dial-up, the heavy internet-usage customers lose out and end up paying the exorbitant price of $1 per gigabyte.
Nothing to do with net neutrality as long as you meter all traffic the same way.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
You *poor dears*. Really. I can manage to make it through every month on 40GB... But then Americans aren't typically known for exercising restraint, are they?
You wasteful slob! I managed to make it through most of my life in the 1970s and 80s on less than 40GB total! But then people from whatever country you are from aren't typically known for exercising restraint, are they?
But seriously, bandwidth isn't a finite resource like food or water or oil. There's no reason to restrict ourselves to the stone-age because a handful of media-corporations wish to control the flow of information while raking in boatloads of cash. Your attitude only helps them.
Honestly, can't we just get rid of anonymous posting? Let logged-in users check the checkbox and post 'anonymously', but keep ramifications for people's actions. It would solve this BS troll problem once and for all, since persistent trollers could eventually end up with such negative karma that they couldn't post for a month.
Everyone wins.
I'm fine with schemes like this provided the ISP makes it perfectly clear and obvious when you sign up what your download limitations are and the costs of running over. This allows consumers to make an educated choice about which provider they want to use.
Most customers have no idea what 50GB or 150GB monthly caps would mean. I definitely wouldn't expect my mom to be able to make an educated choice about usage caps.
Hell, I'm good with PCs and I don't know how much bandwidth I would need in a month. How many people would really know how much bandwidth they use when you consider flash advertisements, youtube, etc.?
True. But they won't meter all traffic the same way. Movies on "ATT Movies" won't count against the tier. They will partner with lets say Amazon for unmetered music downloads. In all practicality,, this is the end of net-neutrality.
Nothing to do with net neutrality as long as you meter all traffic the same way.
The next step is clearly going to be "free" downloads from paying partners.
Unless there is a radical change in direction, I give it no more than 2 years before we see the first such offering.
$1/gigabyte is just too prohibitive in a market where netflix and others are offering pseudo-HDTV movie downloads to anyone with a game console, the time is coming.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
So why don't we get together and start municipal fiber projects in our respective towns? I mean, municipalities can get cheap bonds to build out the infrastructure, and than let companies sell internet access over the fiber (similar to how Speakeasy/Covad can sell ILEC DSL lines). Are we not tired of this bullshit yet?
And if you think they are going to meter their partners (aka : people who pay them money), you should share what you're smoking. Barring regulation forcing them to meter everything, this is a direct path to the end of net neutrality.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Yeah but that's communism and evil and prevents competition.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
I particularly like "caps ranging from 20 to 150 gigabytes per month, depending on which service speed tier a customer signs up for (AT&T offers DSL tiers ranging from 768kbps to 6Mbps)." If they were really doing caps to keep the internet faster for everyone because they cannot handle the traffic they would cap everyone at 150 GB. But no, they are shrinking the cap based on your connection. They want more people to hit to hit the cap so they can charge a premium. Otherwise people might just buy the less expensive connections so that they never hit their cap. I mean if they are capping me at 150 then I don't need 6 Mbps per month, I'm more likely to hit the cap, I would buy a slower link. But to stop me from doing that they are nice enough to lower the cap on slower connections to make sure I hit it. This is hardly fair.