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."

Comments

Re:Jews did 9/11.

[nizo]

Next month: Slashdot meters trolls posts. Only one per day, or you get charged $4/troll.

Do They Still Advertise them as "Unlimited"?

[Greyfox]

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".

Re:Do They Still Advertise them as "Unlimited"?

[nizo]

The best part is they will probably raise their rates, since all that extra monitoring to bring you quality service costs money don'tchyaknow :-\

Re:Do They Still Advertise them as "Unlimited"?

[GrpA]

Why not shape?

Because $1 per Gb is a lot less than it costs in Australia, which depending on the plan/carrier, still charges up to $10,000 per additional Gb...

Shaping/Policing is just a way of making people upgrade their accounts without the original infraction costing them the earth. It's a lot fairer, but it still leaves you unable to do a lot with your connection one it cuts in.

Actually, in the long run, just about all content will be accessible by net, but some will require serious bandwidth. Having caps works with the net as it is today, but it stifles innovation because it also limits what is commercially viable on the Internet and people adjust their usage to meet costs and available bandwidth levels and the carriers find it helps manage their bandwidth requirements, so they stop adding new capacity and find other ways to make their existing infrastructure go further.

Youtube? Myspace? Never would have happened in Australia. We're still working on models that were in place when modems were the dominant technology.

And a typical cap is around 5gb over here - Far less than the 250 Gb mentioned... Not enough to watch online movies even casually. 20Gb is considered a "Big" plan over here and pretty much no one can afford 250Gb for non professional (commercial) use.

Because the caps are so small, there is no business driver to keep upgrading infrastructure...

It's the same old story that we've seen forever. If a resource is essentially free and limitless, you can only make it commercially viable by restricting it's supply by some means. Music, Water, Electricity, Freedom, you name it. The less it's available, the more it costs you. Information is no different.

The reason they don't create new dams or build new ecologically friendly power stations isn't because they can't - it's because it's more commercially viable to retain limited availability of these resources.

GrpA

p.s. Most ISPs in Australia that "Shape" don't actually Shape - they Police - ie, drop packets that exceed the burst rate of the connection. That causes a much lower throughput than shaping does.

Re:Do They Still Advertise them as "Unlimited"?

[GrpA]

  That's correct, although it's written as 1c per Kilobyte in the contract.

  People would freak out if they saw "0.5 Gb Included, $10,000 per Gb" in the contract, so it's written as "500Mb included, 1c per kb thereafter"

  Yes, there are actually plans like that in Australia...

  GrpA

Software updates

[DataBroker]

How about software updates? I'm just curious if software sellers will be coerced into offering quality software on the original install disks, or mailed updates, instead of just expecting that every user will happily download 1/4 of their monthly cap just to keep software current.

Re:Software updates

[hairyfeet]

Actually updates give MSFT a very big boost. The plans here in North AR are 25Gb-$35(DSL) or 36Gb-$45(cable),but in both cases they don't count Windows updates or anything coming from the Microsoft Kb sites,since they would rather you go get the updates. Of course since the cap my trying different distros is pretty much toast,and of course any updates you get from say Ubuntu or Red Hat count against your cap.

Mark my words,they are ALL going to end up with crappy 20-40Gb caps unless you pay through the nose. Then we'll see how quick sites like Youtube dry up without anyone able to watch the vids. BTW,whatever happened to all that money and tax breaks we gave the telecoms throughout the 90's to upgrade our infrastructure? And what about all those miles and miles of dark fiber that was left after the dotbomb bust of 2K? I have a feeling we are all about to get really screwed.

They should do it right

[Slur]

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.

Re:Just don't put it in the fine print

[QCompson]

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.

Re:Jews did 9/11.

[dgatwood]

...or charged with a couple hundred thousand volts across their testicles?

Re:Jews did 9/11.

[Anonymous Coward]

charged with a couple hundred thousand volts across their testicles?

I'm a female troll, you insensitive clod!

Re:Cappings effect on net neutrality...

[z4ce]

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.

Re:Cappings effect on net neutrality...

[TooMuchToDo]

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?