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AT&T To Introduce Broadband Caps
rekenner writes "In the upcoming weeks, AT&T customers are going to start receiving notices that their broadband services are going to have a monthly cap, starting in May. DSL users will have a cap of 150 GB per month, while U-Verse users will have a more 'generous' cap of 250 GB per month. However, unlike other caps, it won't be until your third month of overage, on the life of the account, that you'll be charged an overage. Thanks, I guess."
Usage caps do absolutely nothing to limit the amount of data your customers use. ISPs problems arise when a large portion of their customers use their cap at the same time... usually around 6-8pm. The rest of the day the ISP is idle for the most part. The people hitting caps like this are doing so because they are using their connection 24hrs/day. ALL ISPs in the US throttle peer to peer traffic, even if they don't admit it. So these people are already slowed way down during this peak period. So why are they doing it? New fees, plain and simple. It's the equivalent of credit card overages.
Add in the fact that they are all doing this not to "manage slowdowns" but instead to try to push people back into buying "on demand TV" and "premium cable TV packages with rental DVR" and it's clear: this is not what they say it is. This is pure greed on their part.
Now you're just making things up. It doesn't mention that anywhere in the article.
There is a finite amount of bandwidth. The options that have been presented to solve this problem are traffic shaping and capping, so please either throw your towel in with one of those or propose another idea.
Oooh ooh! Pick Me! I know!
Another option would be to have more options!
Since ATT is only able to provide service because they have used publicly owned throughways and have been given permission to sell me service, we could allow more people to provide service!
We could allow co-ops and startups to lease/buy/build lines and improve our networks!
Heck, we could even use that bandwidth that they took from TV providers (remember that?) and use it for broadband wireless with open networks like they said was going to happen!
It seems there are a lot of options besides bandwidth capping, traffic shaping, and anti-competitive practices. We just don't use them.
As a sidenote, HR 607 would take the D-Block of frequencies and instead give them to emergency response/public safety people. Sounds good right? Well, they don't need it, and it keeps it away from what it was taken for (which helps these same ISPs) and proposes to take away the 70cm band from Ham radio operators - which would really impair public safety in the event of a true emergency.