AT&T To Start Data Throttling Heaviest Users

greymond writes "AT&T has announced that starting on Oct. 1 it will throttle the data speeds of users with unlimited data plans who exceed bandwidth thresholds on its 3G network. AT&T is following in the tracks Verizon and Virgin Mobile in reducing data throughput speeds of its heaviest mobile data users."

Comments

breach of contract

[samantha]

I signed up for unlimited back years ago. Not for unlimited with limits that reduce speed. This is an arbitrary change of contract.

Re:breach of contract

[Abstrackt]

I think you'll find they have provisions that allow them to do this. I think it's utter bullshit but it's there.

Re:breach of contract

[firex726]

Cant you get out of your contract without penalty for that now?

isn't there some kind of 45 day grace period where they are required to let you out if the terms of the contract change at their discretion?

Re:breach of contract

[Mia'cova]

A change in terms offers you the chance to get out of your contract. But that's fine for them as they want to transition everyone off unlimited plans anyways.. That said, they probably also had no guarantee of data speed/service provided in the contract. Limiting speed is possibly within their right without modifying any contract terms.. Those service agreements don't exactly work to the consumer's advantage.

Re:breach of contract

[Anonymous Coward]

Your contract ended after the term was up. They're no longer ablated by the contract any more than you are. If you signed a 2 year, so did they. After that 2 years, they're not obligated any longer.

To bad, so sad.

Re:breach of contract

[guspasho]

Well, you can always cancel your service. You might even be able to get out of the cancellation fee since they broke the contract. But then again, that's exactly what they want you to do. They don't want anyone to keep the unlimited plan.

Re:breach of contract

[Gerzel]

Perhaps. Though why would they put that in their contract?

Its capitalism at work. I

Re:breach of contract

[PopeRatzo]

I think you'll find they have provisions that allow them to do this.

The "provision" that allows them to do this is the decision of the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which enables AT&T to give unlimited amounts of money to elect (or defeat) politicians.

As long as Citizens United is the law of the land, there will never, ever be another law enforced that protects consumers from anything a large corporations decides to do. The government acting as a counterbalance to corporate power is now an historical relic. The Savings and Loan Scandal back in the 80s, when crooked bankers were put in jail? That will never happen again. Tobacco companies being fined billions for lying about the safety of their products? Never again. Even the occasional attorney general who takes his job seriously and busts a company for dumping toxic waste into the municipal water supply, rare as it was, has now become extinct.

You work for AT&T now. AT&T (and Exxon, and ADM, etc) are the government now.

The "provision" that allows AT$T to "do this" is a gang of 5 ideologues named Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts and Kennedy. Politicians in black robes. Extremist activists masquerading as "originalists" who devalued the human right of free speech by giving it to nonhuman entities. Bad enough that an earlier court decided that "money = speech" (something that diverse thinkers such as Jefferson and Madison both specifically rejected).

Re:breach of contract

[BetaDays]

even if there is where would you go everybody will start doing this

Re:breach of contract

[QuantumRiff]

Yes, he can. Where is he going to go now for unlimited mobile internet though? every single company has limits.. (bandwith limits and caps remind me more and more of baggage fees..)

Re:breach of contract

[jd2112]

Well, you can always cancel your service. You might even be able to get out of the cancellation fee since they broke the contract. But then again, that's exactly what they want you to do. They don't want anyone to keep the unlimited plan.

Well, you can always cancel your service. You might even be able to get out of the cancellation fee since they broke the contract. But then again, that's exactly what they want you to do. They don't want anyone to keep the unlimited plan.

Sprint still has unlimited plans, at least for now.

Re:breach of contract

[Qzukk]

They're no longer ablated by the contract any more than you are.

Do you normally use sandblasters as contracts?

Re:breach of contract

[anubi]

I keep getting ads through the mail to sign up for their "Universe" service. Ohh the large print looks so enticing!

But when I try to read all the "AT&T print" on the thing, I just get irritated and nauseous. Basically the whole mailer is just a legal document to get my approval to commit myself to paying them money while their fine print absolves them of any responsibility to provide me any service.

I think the only way of resolving this is organization. As customers, we need to adapt to doing business like a business, using the same business techniques already trailblazed by business.

We need to prepare documents using the same kind of fine print where we hold ourselves harmless for failure to remit payment just as they hold themselves harmless for failing to meet advertised bandwidth. Beautiful legal language for doing this is right on the AT&T business forms.

Insist they sign or no MONEY changes hands. Be prepared to NOT do business with them!

I do not mean to be a royal pain in the arse to cheat a business from revenue earned, rather I just propose to do business the way a business does business.

Re:breach of contract

[istartedi]

So. What kind of law do you want to draft that reduces corporate influence without also reducing the ability of citizens to organize and lobby? For that matter, how do you avoid having this very Slashdot discussion being regulated under campaign finance laws, and us having to file paperwork with the FEC because we're "electioneering" on Slashdot?

Note, I'm not disagreeing that corporate influence is a problem. No, far from it. I'd love to be able to walk into a grocery store without having to think about the politics of the people that run it.

We seemed to be able to muster the ability to reign in corporate influence during the first Progressive Era. The era was characterized by union organizing, muckraking journalism, and some politicians who actually had spines. I don't think CU would stand in the way of any of that happening again. Far from it. The problem with tinkering with free speech and association is that it's hard to separate the bad people you want to shut up from the good people you don't want to shut up. That's why it might be easier to just have a shouting contest, and keep letting the corporations shout until the people shout louder.

Also note I'm no fan of the justices you mention, or of corporate personhood. It's just that the devil's in the details. When you're working around the 1st ammendment, you need a scalpel not a butcher knife. While I'm not happy with the status quo, I'm not so sure a different ruling by the SCOTUS would have helped.

If we were to pass a constitutional ammendment stripping the rights of personhood from corporations, would that be all corporations or just for-profits? If it's just for-profits... say hello to the non-profit Corporation for telecoms. OK, all corporations. Say good-bye to AARP. Say hello to LLCs. OK, no rights for LLCs. Now we're stripping rights from millions of businesses. Ooops! You put a campaign sign in the window of your donut shop. You're in big trouble.

And it goes on and on from there... Only real solution I can see is for people to grow a pair and organize real opposition within the current framework. It might get ugly like it did circa 1900; but there may not be any real alternative.

Re:breach of contract

[Algan]

You are probably free to leave without paying an Early Termination Fee.

Re:breach of contract

[samriel]

What kind of law do you want to draft that reduces corporate influence without also reducing the ability of citizens to organize and lobby?

Simple: require that only HUMAN entities, not legal or financial entities, are allowed to organize and lobby. The Founding Fathers didn't imagine that we would be crazy enough to recognize a nonhuman corporation as a legal person with free speech and all of the other rights.

Re:breach of contract

[Richard_at_work]

By your own admission, you signed up "years ago", which means you are almost certainly "out of contract"...

I don't see why people think that an offering should remain totally unchanged for all time, especially when you as the consumer have the option of leaving - why doesn't the supplier have the right to change the offering after your initial contract period has expired?

Re:breach of contract

[AthanasiusKircher]

Nice rant.

About the only part where your logic is sound is the last sentence, where you reasonably challenge the supposition that "money = speech."

However, once you accept that "money = speech," exactly how do you arbitrarily draw lines in modern corporate culture? Why do CNN, Fox News, etc., as well as every newspaper and magazine get to run as many editorials and opinions as they want, promoting whatever political ideologies that they want, even though most of them are as influenced by modern megacorporations (and their political interests) as anyone else? (Before you say "free press," you might want to consider what all your arguments about what the Founders intended might say about the difference between a guy running a newspaper press in his basement versus a modern megacorporation spewing out continuous information through television, internet, etc.)

I'm not saying we should restrict political speech of news sources. But can you actually draw a clear line between them and the rest of corporations? I don't think you can. The law before Citizens United favored some corporations over others -- just because some small part of a corporation pretended to be "news" means they can promote whatever political views they want to.

And, while you focus on evil corporate interests, have you ever stopped to think about the type of group that actually sued in Citizens United? They weren't a normal evil corporation, as much as a political action group. The same law that prevented them and ATT, etc. from airing political views also prevented the ACLU and any other reasonable NON-PROFIT groups not tied to larger corporate interests from sharing useful information with you before an election.

A system that allows Fox News to rant continuously while denying the ACLU from contacting voters before an election is flawed. Perhaps the flaw, as you point out, is ever equating money with speech in the first place. But once you decide that "money = speech," the system before Citizens United was not necessarily more fair.

As long as Citizens United is the law of the land, there will never, ever be another law enforced that protects consumers from anything a large corporations decides to do.

Oh, come off it. Before Citizens United, there were huge numbers of corporate lobbyists already doing a very good job at this. The antidote to bad speech is more speech.

Re:breach of contract

[sycodon]

No restrictions what-so-ever.

But..absolute, full and immediate disclosure. Violators (corporations) should face what amounts to the death penalty. Revocation of he corporate charter and auctioning off of all the assets. Individuals who violate the disclosure rule should face confiscation of their assets. And if they are acting as an agent for any other corporation or person, they would face the same.

And Politicians who violate the rules "accidentally" should get the political death penalty, barred from running for any office for the rest of their lives.

If they knowingly violate the disclosure rules, then about 20 years in prison.

Re:breach of contract

[AthanasiusKircher]

The Founding Fathers didn't imagine that we would be crazy enough to recognize a nonhuman corporation as a legal person with free speech and all of the other rights.

Let's take a look back at that first amendment, shall we:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Note a few things here. "The people" is only mentioned for the rights to assemble and petition. No subject is given for religion, speech, or press, so it's not clear what entities they refer to.

Furthermore, please note that speech is almost the only right here that reasonably makes sense to refer to individuals. The right to assemble and petition only makes sense when referring to groups of people. The press, even back in the 1700s, usually required a group of people to operate, not often a single guy printing in his basement. And even religions require a corporate structure (not in the business sense, but in the sense of a "body" of believers) to be granted this freedom -- you can't be granted free exercise of religion for something you just make up yourself.

In other words, all of the other first amendment rights only really make sense when applied to groups of people. But, according to your logic, if any of those groups dare to form a legal entity of a "corporation," we should deny the constituent people making up the corporation those rights to act as a group. As long as they petition or assemble or whatever without claiming to be a "corporation," that's fine, but if they pool their resources and form an arbitrary legal construct, we tell them to just go home -- they don't have any rights. Is that what you're saying?

Speech is the only right that makes sense when applied only to individuals. But when read in context, it seems to make sense that groups of people might also have "free speech." Why are those groups of people silenced when they happen to enter into one particular type of legal agreement with each other?

Re:breach of contract

[DJRumpy]

Yes, but in your example, the group of people all have a voice. I have no voice in where my corporation spends it's dollars. That is the CEO and the Boards decision. Vastly different than a political group who's entire purpose is to voice the political opinion of it's members.

Re:breach of contract

[Hal_Porter]

I have no voice in where my corporation spends it's dollars. That is the CEO and the Boards decision.

Surely it's the shareholders' decision?

Re:breach of contract

[DJRumpy]

Indirectly, in as much as the voter makes decisions for the country. That never seems to be a clear 1:1 'vote', and you are still ruled by percentage of share, meaning the small voices are buried beneath those billionaires holding majorities of stock. The end result is the same. in either case No control over a corporations political 'voice' as that is left to the view who hold majority shares.

Re:breach of contract

[PopeRatzo]

So. What kind of law do you want to draft that reduces corporate influence without also reducing the ability of citizens to organize and lobby?

Humans only. If you can't vote or run for office, you can't organize or lobby.

Re:breach of contract

[PopeRatzo]

The antidote to bad speech is more speech.

But what if the "more speech" is not loud enough to be heard over the din?

Re:breach of contract

[AthanasiusKircher]

I have no voice in where my corporation spends it's dollars. That is the CEO and the Boards decision.

Ultimately, that decision is officially in the hands of shareholders, which delegate their power to the board. You don't want to delegate that power? Either argue for a different governing structure or don't have a share in a corporation.

Regardless, almost any organized group has a similar structure. You really think the day-to-day finances of the ACLU are dictated directly by ALL its members, or even your local political action group? Any group beyond a couple dozen people usually delegates some of its powers to an executive board or a few officers or something. Nothing generally gets done otherwise. Perfect agreement in large groups is generally impossible.

Vastly different than a political group who's entire purpose is to voice the political opinion of it's members.

Even if your "vastly different" were true, such a political group would also have been prohibited from free speech if it were a non-profit corporation before Citizens United. It wasn't just the evil ATTs of the world that were silenced, it was also the ACLUs or whatever your favorite political group might be.

Re:breach of contract

[AthanasiusKircher]

Indirectly, in as much as the voter makes decisions for the country. That never seems to be a clear 1:1 'vote', and you are still ruled by percentage of share, meaning the small voices are buried beneath those billionaires holding majorities of stock.

All of these policies are generally laid out in the corporate charter, and while many structures are like this, they don't have to be. In general, they are for for-profit corporations, since the primary goal of for-profit corporations is to make money, and generally most people accept that the more an investor puts in, the more voice he/she should have, and the more he/she should get out.

Again, though, note that there are plenty of non-profit organizations, many with political (even non-partisan political) goals as their primary reason for existing -- not necessarily with the evil money-based corporate structure you described -- and they were also banned from political speech. What's your rationale for banning the ACLU from political speech?

Re:breach of contract

[DJRumpy]

The fallacy in your logic lies in the purpose of a 'corporation'. When someone joins the ACLU or some other political action group, they go in knowing the general dictates of the group they are joining. They join such groups knowing that their time, donations, and energy will be forwarding their own goals. it's also trivial for people to leave such groups, stop donating, ect. Not so for a place of employment. For example, someone joining the ACLU would generally know what that group stands for and know what sorts of objectives the group has in mind. A corporation is a black box when it comes to political donations for the most part.

Also, as I pointed out elsewhere, you assume that each shareholder gets a vote, when the real power lies in a very small number of shareholders who hold a majority of shares, not the general population. A corporations primary shareholder may be a single individual, who can speak to the direction of the company regardless of the wishes of lesser shareholders.

I dont' see where you came to the conclusion that a political action group would be barred from free speech. Those are made up of like minded individuals who sought out the group, and donated time and/or money to further it's agenda. Such groups are allowed both before and after the most recent SCOTUS decision. An employer on the other hand is someone you need to pay your bills, etc. They primary purpose isn't to promote it's employees political goals but to make money. The political campaigns are typically run under the radar unless they create a stink. The recent Target and Best Buy donations are a good example of PR backlash. Only after the fact that their political donations were not well received in communities that typically supported those companies did the boards decide that future political donations should be reviewed prior to approval.

The two types of 'corporations' ARE vastly different. Stating that a place of employment and a political action group are the same is disingenuous at best.

Re:breach of contract

[jgerry]

In other words, all of the other first amendment rights only really make sense when applied to groups of people. But, according to your logic, if any of those groups dare to form a legal entity of a "corporation," we should deny the constituent people making up the corporation those rights to act as a group

A corporation is indeed a collection of individuals, but not all of those individuals should be forced to consent to the political wills of whoever speaks for that corporation. Furthermore, a corporation is not a group that has not come together to lobby the government. It is an arbitrary group that has come together to work. Should the corporation get to use the multiplier effect of me, and hundreds of thousands of other non-consenting workers, to amplify its corporate voice, a voice that individual workers may not agree with? Absolutely not. But that's where we are today in the U.S.

Re:breach of contract

[Macgrrl]

With my last change to telephony plan (including broadband), I was read the contract over the phone, and had to agree to the conditions. The contract and agreement were recorded (according to the operator). Admitedly this was in Australia, but I'm sure a similar option exists in the US.

Re:breach of contract

[Coren22]

Get a T1, the fine print is much smaller. They even discount your service based on outages. Of course you will pay out the nose for the service...

Ahead of the US

[genjix]

Here in the UK, this has been already happening with British Telecom (BT) for years.

I remember being on 'unlimited' dial-up and getting a letter saying that my speeds are going to be throttled at peak times due to heavy bandwidth usage.

Misrepresentation at it's best.

Re:Ahead of the US

[cshark]

Other companies here in the US have been doing it too. Clear, for example has been promising 6mb 4g wireless service, and throtlling over 3gb. After about a week, the service is slower than 56k. It's so slow in fact, that you can't even finish a speed test. Of course, if you visit the Clear Facebook fan page, you can see how well it's working out for them. Their customers hate their guts. AT&t really seems hell bent on killing customer satisfaction. If that's what they want to do, let them. There are tons of other options.

AT&T is already slow shit

[hsmith]

So they plan to make their shit service even worse?

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[icebike]

So they plan to make their shit service even worse?

No, they are making it better.

As soon as they get rid of the guys pulling 30 to 100 gig a month there will be some bandwidth for the rest of us.

Yes, we would all like a 3g network that could be used like a cable modem, but the the fact of the matter is that
wireless is more constrained for bandwidth than wireline, and even wireline is getting caps.

Yes it would be nice if unlimited meant truly unlimited, but we are all adult enough to realize that was never the case in any market for any commodity at any time in the history of earth. There are always limits.

The reasonable expectation was always around 5 gig a month.

This is where everyone jumps in and claims that when they said unlimited they are bound to that and should support it.
Well, guess what, they still do support it. It will just flow slower. You can still get as much as you want across your
unlimited 3g plan, its just that you won't want to anymore.

The idea that on demand TV and streaming media should all go to the internet was ill-conceived and is proving inconvenient for both wired and wireless usage.
There is a reason multicast was invented.

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[PNutts]

Even with a dictionary you fail to grasp the meaning of "unlimited"?

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[PaladinAlpha]

They are not changing your ability to 'access' anything. Nowhere in that thing you quipped did it say "unlimited obligation on the part of AT&T to deliver the technically fastest possible throughput to your particular device". You still have unlimited access, i.e. at any time you can access the web.

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[Nyder]

No, they are making it better.

As soon as they get rid of the guys pulling 30 to 100 gig a month there will be some bandwidth for the rest of us.

Yes, we would all like a 3g network that could be used like a cable modem, but the the fact of the matter is that
wireless is more constrained for bandwidth than wireline, and even wireline is getting caps.

...

Um, no. You are buying towing the company line there.

First off, there isn't a wired problem. Well, there is, as in the ISP don't bother installing more lines for peeps. Don't bother upgrading peeps connections, etc, and are over subscribing their lines, all for their bottom line.

Now with wireless, we have the same problem. the co's don't want to spend money upgrading their stuff to run with demand of what they are selling, so they are making it seem like it's the customers fault, or some of the customers fault, which the truth is, the company over subscribed what they could handle and are way too cheap to fix that.

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[sjames]

So, why do they keep advertising all the amazing bandwidth burning things you can do if you sign up with AT&T?

They invite heavy use and then cry about it whenever someone actually takes them at their word. The nerve of those evil nasty customers using what they paid for! Now, AT&T (hereinafter known as the paragon of virtue) will make everything all better for everyone by not giving people what they pay for. In other news, chocolate rations have been increased from 13 grams to 9 grams.

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[Khyber]

"As soon as they get rid of the guys pulling 30 to 100 gig a month there will be some bandwidth for the rest of us."

Or maybe they could actually bother to upgrade their networks to conform to the standards at which 3G speeds are set to, and thus actually be able to fully service their customer base like any SANE company would do?

http://www.silicon-press.com/briefs/brief.3g/index.html

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[Mark19960]

as well as unlimited access to mobile Web, search, email, apps, and more.

You answered your own question...
They are not limiting your ACCESS, just your speed.

I hate these bloodsuckers as much as the next guy but let's keep it honest - even if they don't do the same.

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[babywhiz]

Total kick in the schlong to those of us who have been dedicated customers all these years. They want me to give my business back to cable, so be it. I'll take my $300 a month cell phone bill with me too.

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[Vecanti]

They are not limiting your ACCESS, just your speed.

Are you serious??

Yes, they are limiting your access. Maybe not limiting the "quantity", but they ARE limiting your ACCESS.

Read again what ATT writes again on their website:

Stay connected anytime, all the time. For a low monthly fee, Messaging & Data Unlimited gives you unlimited text, picture, video, and instant messaging, as well as unlimited access to mobile Web, search, email, apps, and more.

Ok, so if they throttle your speed then you "no longer" have access to stream video or maybe even audio. How can you say that is not limiting ACCESS?

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[Vecanti]

Even with a dictionary you fail to grasp the meaning of "unlimited"?

Maybe you could explain it? Before there was no limit. ATT gave me a phone that could stream Youtube with an app pre-installed for example to stream video. No limit.

Now, if they throttle the bandwidth part way threw the month I am "limited" in that I can no longer stream video using the Youtube app they gave me. But they told me I could stream as much Youtube as I wanted!

Seems like a restriction or a condition. Hence it goes against the definition of unlimited, no? I realize, there is still no limit on data. But I didn't buy unlimited data, I bought "Unlimited 3G Speed!" and the amazing things they told me I could do on their network if I went with them. They are limiting a bunch of the activities I can possibly do partway through the month. Hench the things they said were unlimited before are no longer unlimited.

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[ultranova]

Yes it would be nice if unlimited meant truly unlimited, but we are all adult enough to realize that was never the case in any market for any commodity at any time in the history of earth. There are always limits.

If you make a contract for a 20-kilowatt grid connection, you can pull 20 kilowatts 24/7, all year long. Electricity is a limited commodity, of course, but you get what you pay for, rather than paying for lots and getting little. So it's the broadband market that's unique in history, in that there the providers can make deals and then decide they don't feel like delivering what they promised, yet keep the money, and this is all legal.

Also, implying that disagreeing with you is a sign of immaturity only works on immature people.

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[nurb432]

Yes it would be nice if unlimited meant truly unlimited, but we are all adult enough to realize that was never the case in any market for any commodity at any time in the history of earth. There are always limits.

So, since we are 'all adults' its OK to oversell and lie to customers? There is no excuse for dishonest practices, and just blowing it off is why we suffer with them.

Re:AT&T is already slow shit

[icebike]

If you make a contract for a 20-kilowatt grid connection, you can pull 20 kilowatts 24/7, all year long.

20kw is not the same as unlimited.
Since you can't fathom that basic fact, the rest of your rant is not worth responding to.

I wish I was throttled!

[blahbooboo]

I would LOVE to be throttled! That would mean I actually maintained connection long enough to use the data at a high speed to be in the top x% of users.

Counting down my last month until I switch to Verizon...

Re:I wish I was throttled!

[joeboomer628]

I would LOVE to be throttled! That would mean I actually maintained connection long enough to use the data at a high speed to be in the top x% of users.

Counting down my last month until I switch to Verizon...

You won't be happy with Verizon either. I hated their (lack of) service so bad I switched to Alltel when my contract with them expired. Verizon then bought Alltel just to show me they were not through screwing me.

Re:I wish I was throttled!

[Patch86]

I would LOVE to be throttled!

Kinky.

parenting

[StripedCow]

The worship of corporations has come so far that customers are allowing companies to spank them when their behavior goes against the established business models?

Re:parenting

[Macrat]

Welcome to the Corporate States of America

Re:parenting

[Nate B.]

Well, this is cheaper for the carriers to implement than building the infrastructure to support their over selling.

This is an ass-backward industry.

[Foxhoundz]

Instead of coming up with new and innovative ways to increase data usage while lightning the workload on the network, they punish all of their customers to save a few bucks here and there.

Re:This is an ass-backward industry.

[PNutts]

I'm an AT&T customer and I'm not being punished by this action. In fact, since I'm not in the top 5% of data users (as the others have already said) I actually might benefit from this.

Re:This is an ass-backward industry.

[Foxhoundz]

Well, I'm referring to the telecom industry as a whole. AT&T just instated a 150 GB limit for its DSL users, a time when high-definition streaming is becoming a norm. I'm sure this is the case for a few other ISPs out there. While other countries are investing in their communications infrastructure, these companies here in the United States are trying to profit from every ounce of bandwidth they provide us. I have yet to see Verizon or AT&T experiment with high-speed networks or city-wide WiFi like Google has done in Mountain View ( http://wifi.google.com/ ). As long as customers don't complain too much, these companies have no incentives to provide better infrastructure for its users.

Re:This is an ass-backward industry.

[Fnord666]

I'm an AT&T customer and I'm not being punished by this action. In fact, since I'm not in the top 5% of data users (as the others have already said) I actually might benefit from this.

Eventually you will be in the top 5%.

There already is a throttle

[mwfischer]

It's called the AT&T network.

Entirely the wrong approach.

[Mia'cova]

I hate how these statistics are worded to vilify these users. First, it's the top 5% vs the average of the other 95%. Hell, they don't even filter out the bottom 5% to balance that out who likely use close to zero data. By removing the top 5% from the average, the average is going to be reduced dramatically, unlike the median would be. 2nd, the services they claim as being the data hogs are the same services that are most heavily advertised. And when defined this way, even if top users find more efficient ways to get their content, eg pandora starts to cache up to 2 hours of songs in advance whenever connected to wifi, there will always be a top 5%. Without setting actual hard limits, eg 50x the median user's usage of the previous month, it's impossible to know where you stand without much greater transparency. It's also frustrating that off-peak usage and edge/hspa/lte are costed the same. 1GB on edge is obviously more destructive to the network than 1GB on LTE.

Overall, it's a system that is somewhat fair but doesn't offer the user the tools or opportunity to optimize their usage. It's in everyone's best interest to maximize available bandwidth. The networks need to make the users partners rather than enemies. For example, have an unlimited plan with peak-usage throttling and offer rebates, free music/apps/whatever bonuses to good network citizens. If there was an actual thank you and reward for downloading/pre-caching my music rather than streaming it, I'd certainly prefer that option. But if they only punish, I'm going to give them the middle-finger and abuse 'their' network.

Re:Entirely the wrong approach.

[TaoPhoenix]

"Move to the cloud! Work wirelessly from your phone line on your mobile device using data -heavy apps! Why bother downloading a song once and playing it ten times on a local player when you can stream it from your phone any time you want it! Join social networks where it will take you extra bandwidth to load all the ads from companies that sell your data on 42 meg pages for a twelve line text update! ...

"Introducing our new unlimited data plan where we throttle it without limiting it!"

Re:Entirely the wrong approach.

[gl4ss]

exactly, the companies are speaking with two faces. and the face that is promising more is the one they spend their advertising budget on. so they should honor that more vocal voice.

Oblig

[NoKaOi]

AT&T: We have altered the deal. Pray we do not alter it again.

Do you think it's coincidence that this comes when they're buying up the competition? I have been staying with AT&T specifically because of my unlimited data plan. I'll be switching to a different provider when this takes effect, thank you very much. Unfortunately most people don't know the difference, they just know that the guy at the store said they can watch Youtube and use Facebook with plan X. I wouldn't mind non-unlimited plans if they charged a reasonable amount for overage. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to exist in the US.

When telecos function as a cartel

[HangingChad]

AT&T has you by the nads. You have a hard time finding phone service where you don't waive your right to sue and the carrier can make changes any time they want.

There's always some pompous horses ass who jumps in to say, "If you don't like the terms, don't sign the contract." But when you can't get service anywhere without those stipulations, there is no consumer choice. The wireless carriers operate as a cartel, not a free market.

Markets are not free if they're not also fair. And when one side can change the terms of a contract at any time, it's not fair.

Re:When telecos function as a cartel

[roman_mir]

something to look at

The biggest myth of all in this regard is the notion that telephone service is a natural monopoly. Economists have taught generations of students that telephone service is a "classic" example of market failure and that government regulation in the "public interest" was necessary. But as Adam D. Thierer recently proved, there is nothing at all "natural about the telephone monopoly enjoyed by AT&T for so many decades; it was purely a creation of government intervention."

Once AT&T's initial patents expired in 1893, dozens of competitors
sprung up. "By the end of 1894 over 80 new independent competitors had already grabbed 5 percent of total market share . . . after the turn of the century, over 3,000 competitors existed. In some states there were over 200 telephone companies operating simultaneously. By 1907, AT&T's competitors had captured 51 percent of the telephone market and prices were being driven sharply down by the competition. Moreover, there was no evidence of economies of scale, and entry barriers were obviously almost nonexistent, contrary to the standard account of the theory of natural monopoly as applied to the telephone industry"

The eventual creation of the telephone monopoly was the result of
a conspiracy between AT&T and politicians who wanted to offer "universal telephone service" as a pork-barrel entitlement to their constituents. Politicians began denouncing competition as "duplicative," "destructive," and "wasteful," and various economists were paid to attend congressional hearings in which they somberly declared telephony a natural monopoly.

"There is nothing to be gained by competition in the local telephone business," one congressional hearing concluded.

The crusade to create a monopolistic telephone industry by govern-
ment fiat finally succeeded when the federal government used World War I as a n excuse to nationalize the industry in 1918. AT&T still operated its phone system, but it was controlled by a government commission headed by the Postmaster General. Like so many other instances of government regulation, AT&T quickly "capturedn the regulators and used the regulatory apparatus to eliminate its competitors. "By 1925 not only had virtually every state established strict rate regulation guidelines, but local telephone competition was either discouraged or explicitly prohibited
within many of those jurisdictions."

The complete demise of competition in the industry, Thierer con-
cludes, was brought about by the following forces: exclusionary licensing policies; protected monopolies for "dominant carriers"; guaranteed revenues or regulated phone companies; the mandated government policy of "universal telephone entitlement" which called for a single provider to more easily carry out regulatory commands; and rate regulation designed to achieve the socialistic objective of "universal service."

That free-market competition was the source of the telephone monopoly in the early twentieth century is the biggest lie ever told by the economics profession. The free market never "failed"; it was government that failed to permit free-market competition as it concocted its corporatist scheme to the benefit of the phone companies, a t the expense of consumers and potential competitors.

Re:When telecos function as a cartel

[dissy]

AT&T has you by the nads.

This is especially true if they plan to *start* throttling users.

I might fire up the browser on my phone twice or maybe three times a week.
It takes at least 15 seconds to fully load the front Google search page!
Waiting at least a full minute for the search results to come back.
Most websites with any content end up timing out for the first couple reloads

If they already provide only 0.5k/sec or less to normal usage customers, I can't imagine how painful it will be once you get throttled...

Re:When telecos function as a cartel

[Duradin]

So, that free market would get a dial tone out to the never-going-to-be-profitable like the failed government monopolies did?

Re:When telecos function as a cartel

[hedwards]

I see our resident troll is putting up some more copy pasta.

You do realize that the original telecommunications monopoly was created on purpose specifically because it was the only way to ensure that there was enough money to build out the infrastructure, right? I guess the other alternatives having none and government ownership were even less palatable at the time.

If you don't believe in natural monopolies, then how precisely do you explain the tendencies of corporations to buy out the competitors or run them out of business? I'm curious as to why it's in the best interest of any corporation to tolerate competitors without regulators telling them to.

Re:When telecos function as a cartel

[Phrogman]

The companies own us consumers. They have superior rights and they can get away with whatever the fuck they want mostly, because if we want phone service we have to go to one of them. Many companies that appear to be independent are of course owned by a larger company.

We live in a world populated by corporations who allow us to keep the illusion that we live in a democracy, that we have personal rights and freedoms etc. We don't.

Re:When telecos function as a cartel

[drolli]

No. Throttling data plans has nothing to do with a cartel.

The economic reality is that unlimited data plans cant exist. What could exist is an unthrottled plan for packets with a low priority TOS, and a capped (or usage based) one for high priority TOS. But that would acctually require that users think about what they are doing.

Re:When telecos function as a cartel

[Sebastopol]

"I'm curious as to why it's in the best interest of any corporation to tolerate competitors without regulators telling them to." It isn't. It is in the consumer's interest that competition exists. "If you don't believe in natural monopolies," I believe in them, just like I believe in natural 'ass raping'. I guess you like ass raping, and want to stand up for the rights of a few dozen executives to pilot their 100ft yachts up your rectum? I'm gonna strawman on ahead here and guess your next response will be: we wouldn't have an infrastructure if it weren't for natural monopolies. To which I would reply to my strawman friend: BS. NASA, DARPA, USPS, etc... Now I obviously lean left, and I understand AT&T is doing this because we've become a society who worships entitlement and the free lunch (which is usually a big mac) and AT&T simply cannot provide the infrastructure for everyone to be a heavy user, but IANAE, so how does a society keep a natural monopoly honest and ethical? Of course I'm assuming the well being of the individuals is more important than the well being of a few executives, but since economics doesn't consider morals or ethics, I'm always interested to hear proposals.

Re:When telecos function as a cartel

[foniksonik]

Hmm, my experience is completely opposite. I barely notice going from WiFi to 3G. Often the only clue is low quality on YouTube hosted video (if I happen to open one). I am in the Dallas area, both ATT and Verizon have major corporate interests here - could explain it. Sorry your experience is so poor.

Some of us...

[U8MyData]

...are relegated to tethered phones for internet access where we are so rural as to not have a choice other than satellite and they have similar restrictions. I am not on AT&T but I thought about writing my carrier's (the big V) CEO and issuing a challenge. Go a month with your "surfing habits" with only a tethered phone and your data service plan. No cheating now, tell me if you think it is fair, usable, and how far you get while on the web before you hit your limit. It doesn't take long trust me. Even then I cut back on what I do with it. Being a systems professional, it's not unheard of to download a MS Partner ISO, or a linux distro from time to time, but now if I did that it would either kill my data allotment or my pocket book. If you can't handle the data requirements that your product offerings require, don't you think there is a problem there? Oh, and the best that big V will do is 10GB plan at an additional $80 making my monthy bill equivalent to a small car payment. I can drive my phone!

Re:Some of us...

[maxume]

Verizon has no desire to be your only connectivity service.

They want to be your high-end, portable connectivity service, they set rates accordingly.

Re:Some of us...

[foniksonik]

Exactly. I wonder if he also uses a Mustang to tow his trailer instead of a work truck. Different tools for different jobs.

RaceToTheBottom tag?

[erroneus]

It's always another ratcheted step in their race to the bottom. One of them pulls some kind of stunt, waits for backlash... if it's sufficiently small enough, they keep it and their increased benefits. The others will follow suit as they see they can do it and get away with it as well.

This will keep going on and on until we see some legislation to stop it. And before anyone says "but we don't need any more laws!" I would like to hear what ELSE could make them change their behavior? No significant numbers of people will stop using their services because of it. So what else is there but law?

Re:RaceToTheBottom tag?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about lowering the licensing costs for startup competition to use the spectrum?

I already have a 20Mb pipe available at the office, which is only needed to handle the nightly traffic spikes from updating customers.

I can build a picocell gsm provider big enough to service several hundred people across 1/4 of my town for less than $10,000.
There is a market here for this type of internet connection, I'm certain I could sell it.

However, the fcc license fee for doing this would completely dwarf all other costs.

Additionally, I can easily setup a wired isp for just my neighborhood for less than $5000. (i already have most of the equipment)
The cable is cheap, but the local large isp managed to get city planning to deny my application for access to the right-of way.

Instead, I tried setting up a wireless service using 802.11.
The fcc has come knocking 3 times to measure the signal strength of my radio.

So lets start by relaxing/removing some of the existing laws before we start trying to pass more.

 

Re:RaceToTheBottom tag?

[foniksonik]

Look into line of sight microwaveor laser. Those services seem to not require nearly as much regulatory red tape.

Re:RaceToTheBottom tag?

[erroneus]

All that would result in, as has been demonstrated by history, is that bigger companies will eat/buy the smaller ones. Problem solved. We use other government regulators for precisely that reason -- to keep competition alive by keeping the big ones from buying the little ones. It's starting to break down, of course, as AT&T will likely buy T-Mobile.

am I the only person who thinks this a good thing?

[enigmatichmachine]

I mean, I want my service to work, because it's not overloaded all the time, and this fixes that problem without
a. Hard caps
b. overages.

seems to me, saying you'll get 3g speeds for the first 2gb/mo, and edge speeds after that is the best way to solve the problem. SO long as it's publicized. if you don't like it, too bad, I'm tired of shitty service because some folks use their hacked Iphones to download torrents all day.

that said, if the service still sucks, or the cap it too low, leave.

Re:am I the only person who thinks this a good thi

[Osgeld]

or the CEO could go without his new jet this month and actually expand their spread so thin you can see though it decade old network ... many have signed into this thing as unlimited, not unlimted as long as it doesnt effect ATT, I went through the exact same thing with them on long distance and dialup, its their oldest trick

They offer you the moon for a penny and when it starts to catch up with them and bite them in the ass they change your contract and sometimes they might even bother to inform you, most of the time they just add charges and hope you wont bitch

In other news, top 5% telecom companies depeered.

[DamnStupidElf]

A spokesman from Level3 was quoted as saying "AT&T just uses such a tremendous amount of the world's Internet bandwidth. What else could we do?"

Try telling that to a Clearwire Customer.

[tysonedwards]

I am a Clearwire Customer.
In my area, I can not get Cable or DSL. I am in a city with 180,000 people living in it, so it isn't a small place by any stretch of the imagination.

I got in bed with Clearwire after they were advertising uncapped, unthrottled, unlimited speeds faster than DSL. I signed up for a 2 year contract with them, that I can not physically leave without paying $500 to do so.

When I was getting less than stellar speeds (28Kbps Down / 5Mbps Up), I called to complain and was informed that I was in their top 5% of users on my connected tower, and that as such I am being "managed", and was told how this is significantly different than being "throttled".

When I asked how much I had used to get up to their top 5%, I found out that I was sitting at 38MB downloaded for the month. After repeated calls to attempt to figure out how this made sense that web browsing for a day using my same dial-up habits put me in their top 5%, I found out from one of their senior technicians that I was one of two people who actually use service off of my tower.

They told me that the only way to get unmanaged would be to move to an area with more customers, or convince more of my neighbors to come on board as it would shift that top 5% figure to one of them instead.

The bottom line is that at this point, it will cost me more to cancel with them on day two than it will for me to wait out my contract ($19.95 per month * 24 months = 478.80).

In the mean time, I use my iPhone as my primary method of internet connectivity to browse the web faster than I do with my Dial-up account when I really need to do something in a hurry for work.

When there is no visibility as to what those invisible limits are, than what are you going to do? If you are legitimately within the top 5% of users when using next to nothing after all...

It doesn't take much to be a "heavy" user....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm on an unlimited plan and recently I called AT&T to see if I could drop my plan to a lower usage plan and (hopefully) save money. The nice lady on the phone looked up my usage, laughed and said that I was "double" the usage rate of the next lower plan both in terms of voice as well as data. The thing is, yes I live by my phone. (I run my own business.) But really, I very rarely watch any videos with my phone. (Though perhaps every other month I'll watch a video on NetFlix) I mostly use my phone for e-mail and for reading various news websites -- being a news junkie -- and yet I'm a "heavy user".

So, from my point of view speaking as one who rarely uses high-data intensive applications, if you aren't a "heavy user", you don't use your phone at all ....

I thought they do it already

[ugen]

I thought they were throttling me ever since I got the contract. How else would you explain the lethargic data rates I am getting - what feels like 56Kbit modem or less. Oh, wait, someone can download too much data at those speeds and they'll throttle them *even more*? Oh, the humanity.

Re:I thought they do it already

[SilentChasm]

I think that's probably the size of the web page and all the extra elements in it that's making it feel like 56K. Looking at the article page's it's 102KB for the main page size and 900KB of inline elements. That's a MB of data for rendering what's mostly text.

I get the benefits of the whole dynamic content thing that's been going on a while now but sometimes I just wish it was more of a static page. For someone on a slow connection, it kind of sucks to have all this extra stuff download. The fact that handheld devices now use "screen" instead of "handheld" probably makes it worse by not being able to have separate low-bandwidth styles for mobile (as far as I know, with knowing basic html/css/javascript).

no you signed for unlimited with no overages

[Joe_Dragon]

And that is US data only

Wait

[ericartman]

You mean AT&T actually connects cell phone calls?, wow wish I signed up for that option, I keep getting 2 week old text messages. Maybe

Re:Wait

[hedwards]

I've definitely noticed that. From time to time my cell won't even ring and the first indication that I've got a call is 15 minutes later when I glance at my phone. If I lived in a rural area I could sort of understand that, but I live in a major city and I never had that problem with Sprint.

Re:am I the only person who thinks this a good thi

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I mean, I want my service to work, because it's not overloaded all the time, and this fixes that problem...

To be fair, we don't actually know this. There is no data, they just say "top 5%". They don't say "... that download this many bits" or "... in this particular city where it's incredibly bad.." or anything like that. They don't even actually say "We'll recoup enough resources to make YOUR connection faster".

I'm not saying this to be nitpicky, rather I'm pointing this out because AT&T is currently trying to make their case that they should be able to purchase T-Mobile. Generally speaking, though, the LAST thing I'd believe is their PR spin.

I work for a phone company...

[Charliemopps]

I work for a phone company... and over the years I've made my way up the ladder to the point that now VPs will actually talk to me occasionally. Now, trust me... I'm a hardcore "information wants to be free / net neutrality / anti-software patent" type of person. Look at any of my previous posts on the subject to see this. But recently I got to sit in on a meeting with one of our top VPs who revealed what's "really" going on with this subject. While I still don't agree with bandwidth caps, throttling or traffic shaping, I think his point of view makes a little more sense to me now and is worthy of mention.

Their main concern is what they are calling "free riders." This isn't the customer, and they are in no way mad at the customer. They, in fact, wish this entire subject didn't exist. They aren't worrying about people downloading music, browsing or anything of that nature. Their first concern was You tube... and service like it. At first it was a bit annoying... you-tube setup a service where you could stream video to the customer and in exchange the customer would view adds. Youtube made ad revenue at almost no cost. The ISP saw this as an annoyance because to generate more ad revenue Youtube and service like it forced the user to re-download the same content every time they watched it... or at least made that the most convenient method for the user to use. Now the user is not only sucking up a lot more bandwidth, but they are very concerned about latency and download speeds even at peak hours. All of this to support Youtubes profit model that the ISP has no part of. Now this sort of service was annoying to them for a while, but later it got worse. Netflix put huge strains on their networks. Not only did it increase the amount of bandwidth people used, it also focused all their use to very specific time periods during the week. It was the ISP was a grocery store and some other vendor setup a cart in the middle of their store with "FREE CANDY FRIDAYS AT 8PM" The stores flooded with customers, the bathrooms are wrecked and there are lines of people at the front desk bitching that they cant get to the milk because of the swarm of children in the center isles. Despite all the media hype over Netflix, this wasn't really the last straw... The final nail in the coffin were services that most people don't know exist. In recent years many companies have started selling devices with network connections... in fact, most devices have them now. These connections offer users added services to their devices, like weather updates, firmware updates, games, trivia, TV guides, the works. But few users realize they are trading something for these services. As soon as these devices are hooked up there is almost a continuous stream of data going back to the vendors servers. They're monitoring their customers device usage and rarely even notifying. What's worse is these devices continue to communicate or at least attempt to communicate with their home service even if the vendor no longer cares to receive it. They have no vested intrest in the health of the network their equipment is hooked up to, so they use the cheapest most bandwidth intensive methods available. Why pay for software to compress your data when you don't have to pay for the bandwidth? The customer pays for that right?

These types of service were scary enough, but then Direct TV went over the top. When their receiver is hooked up to the customers internet connection and the customer trys to watch certain movies, the receiver starts downloading the movie from the home network FIRST to save the satellite provider bandwidth. So, what you have, in effect, is one ISP hijacking another ISP to deliver content. This threw the telecoms into a frenzy. All they could see was danger. If Direct TV or a local cable company had equipment hooked up to the telecoms network and the user had unlimited bandwidth and little incentive to pay much attention to how much their equipment was using, the competitor could quite easily cripple the telco.

I think the answer will never be in capping bandwidth. But I can understand their concerns. I think more transparency in how much data and what kind of data a device is using is a better option. But I have to say, I can now see what's got them so concerned.

Re:I work for a phone company...

[kidgenius]

Your analogy about the store was quite faulty. A slightly better analogy would be to think of it more like a mall. So you have a vendor in one of those stores that is paying the owners of the mall a fee to rent out space there. Now, if that vendor starts doing stuff like offering "FREE CANDY!" and it floods the mall with people, to the detriment of other patrons and shop owners, then yes, that's a problem. But, there are ways to fix that though. In addition, companies like netflix aren't hijacking a connection. They pay for their internet service so they can stream you video. And they almost certainly pay through the nose for the amount of data they push out onto the network. Youtube does the same thing. As does Google, Microsoft, Apple and any other cloud based service. Those guys are all paying a metric farkload of money. If you as an ISP can't afford to provide a service then you have 3 choices. Either raise the price to make more money, reduce the service to a point where you can, or a combination of the 2. The BEST analogy is something we've had for quite sometime, and that's the power companies. For instance, if I want to run 30 AC units off of my line, I pay for every kWh I use. If someone comes out with a new device that uses tons of power, they aren't "leaching" off my power company, as I am paying for that usage. The power company doesn't care how I use my power or what I use it for, as I am paying them all the same. In addition, I get better rates if I use power at lower demand times. If I choose to watch Netflix at 8pm, it sucks, but so does running my AC at 3PM in the afternoon. I can also go over to plans that give me a better rate if I keep my kW usage below certain levels at any given point, just like if I was to keep my total downloads to less than 5mb/s at any time. These kind of options help the power company meet their goals of trying to supply a finite resource at any given point in time. If I decide to reduce my usage by switching over to lower wattage lights, that means I use less juice and it pays more. This would be analogous to using compression schemes on my data. The power company and the way they operate would be a perfect analogue for an ISP.

Re:I work for a phone company...

[n8r0n]

What does your Direct TV story have to do with my iPhone? I mean, thanks for the explanation, but the only thing it has in common with the topic is that the telecom industry is involved. Different network technology, different company. Different. Everything isn't a slippery slope to everything else.

I'm pissed, because for about the last three or so years, I haven't seen one iota of increased performance in my home internet or mobile phone speeds, my rates haven't dropped a bit, the economy is in the tank (which normally drops prices, especially for technology that isn't improving), and AT&T is one of the most profitable companies on earth, even before this move!

Re:I work for a phone company...

[hedwards]

This isn't interesting it's complete bullshit. I pay my ISP to provide the bandwidth and Youtube pays their ISP to provide bandwidth, the bandwidth has been paid for. I don't get money off my bill at the end of the month if my ISP was able to serve me up a cached version, so why on Earth should the ISP get to cheat me like that?

From your post the take home message here is that we need more regulation to clamp down on ISPs' and their fraudulent advertising practices. If they can't provide the advertised speed then they shouldn't be pretending to offer it, it's just that simple.

Re:I work for a phone company...

[babywhiz]

Well, then why didn't THEY get in on some of that at the beginning? I mean, it's like trying to prop up the MAFIAA with all this choking copyright stuff. There is nothing saying that AT&T couldn't have jumped in and offered any type of video streaming at a decent cost. They didn't want to, they didn't see far enough ahead to get a piece of the pie. Now they want to fuss and cry about it, and punish their customers. Cry me a river. I'm tired of having to play the tap dance game because all these companies didn't get with the times. Didn't see far enough ahead to see what money could be made, and someone else made it....TOO BAD. I'm a paying customer. I am willing pay for what is of value to me. Sometimes it feels like a dick is being shoved down my throat and I'm being pick pocketed at the same time. If this is how these companies are gonna start acting, none of ya'll are gonna get my money. Keep your crappy cell phone service, keep your stupid videos, and music. I'll spend my money on companies that know how to treat a customer right.

Re:I work for a phone company...

[gblues]

Netflix contracts with companies such as Akamai, called content delivery networks. These companies pay ISPs to co-locate their servers so that each ISP gets its own local cache of the content served by their clients. And yes, this means that the Netflix content you watch, which counts towards your monthly cap, is being served *locally*.

Customers pay ISPs to access their network. The CDN pays the ISP for the bandwidth they use to transfer their data to their servers, and the CDNs are paid by the content providers, who are, in turn, also paid by customers.

Every step of the delivery between Netflix and the customers is completely paid for, yet ISPs want to whine and cry about how Netflix is harming their network. More like anti-competitive posturing, since the ISPs doing the biggest whining happen to be owned by big media corporations.

Re:I work for a phone company...

[Charliemopps]

Content delivery networks are irrelevant. 99% of the cost of a customers connection is the last mile, not the trunks leading from netflix itself. The content delivery system saves netflix money, but does nothing for the ISP (ok there's a tiny cost savings.) The last mile of that connection is still downloading the same content over and over again.

Wind does it here in Canada

[nebular]

Wind Mobile does this in Canada. They say you have unlimited but if you go over 2GB, I think, they de-prioritize you and you get throttled if the network needs you throttled.

I agree with it completely, so long as they tell everyone exactly where the line is

Re:Wind does it here in Canada

[hedwards]

That's not unlimited. If they place any limits beyond what the technology allows it's no longer unlimited. Nobody really thinks that they can download a gazillion gb per month on an unlimited plan, but the ISP shouldn't be prioritizing, throttling or any of that on an unlimited plan.

Re:Wind does it here in Canada

[maugle]

Wind Mobile does this in Canada. They say you have unlimited but if you go over 2GB, I think, they de-prioritize you and you get throttled if the network needs you throttled.

That's like telling an imprisoned man he's free to go ... and then breaking his arms and legs the moment he leaves his cell. Hey, he's completely free to do whatever he wants, it's not our fault he's decided to spend all his time twitching and bleeding on the floor!

I'm excited about this.

[whois]

I'm mostly excited about all the choices we have here in America and the fact that all of them give you the same bandwidth throttling option. In a world out there filled with choice it's important to know that we can go to any provider and get the same thing no matter what we want.

Re:very old news

[PNutts]

I wonder what 2 hours a night 3 nights a week of 480p content from youtube, hulu or netflix would add up to.

About 30 pounds.

What a line of bullshit.

[Montezumaa]

So, AT&T is telling us that we(the customers) are causing harm to the network by using what we were fucking promised. AT&T states that we, as "unlimited" customers, will see a decrease in speed, if we are found to be using "too much data". What the fuck is "too much data"? We don't want to hear about fucking percentages; we want hard data.

I found it even more hilarious when AT&T, in this press release states the following:

"The bottom line is our customers have options. They can choose to stay on their unlimited plans and use unlimited amounts of data, but may experience reduced speeds at some point if they are an extraordinarily heavy data user. If speed is more important, they may wish to switch to a tiered usage plan, where customers can pay for more data if they need it and will not see reduced speeds."

http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=20535&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=32318&mapcode=corporate

So, even though we are trying to use what we paid for, and that high usage is causing AT&T a lot of network problems, we will not be affected by the throttling if we pay more money. Excuse me? Either the network cannot handle the traffic, or it can't. With AT&T making almost $20 billion USD, in profit each year, I see no reason why any of us should be paying more for a service we were promised, contractually, would be "unlimited".

What is the excuse going to be? "Limited spectrum"? First off, AT&T is the largest hoarder of spectrum in the United States, if not the world. Secondly, spectrum is no boundary. If AT&T cannot handle the traffic on its network, then it needs to install more towers and improve the overall infrastructure. The number of wireless subscribers that can be handled in a given area is spectrum, multiplied by the number of towers in the area. Of course, AT&T only wants people to focus on the spectrum portion of the equation.

AT&T failed to sufficiently plan for the increased demand for mobile data. Coupled with that, AT&T has failed to completely roll out UMTS/HSDPA over their entire network. severely lagging behind Verizon. I still have yet to see a 3G indicator show up on my phone within 25 miles from where I live. I live close to an interstate highway, and in the metro Atlanta area. Yet, Verizon(yet another company unprepared, but not quite as badly), has EVDO out here, and it has been out here for years.

With all of this, AT&T has also refused to roll out DSL and there are no other options for "broadband" where I live. So, I am a little confused as to what the hell I am supposed to do for data access on my phone. Use one of the non-existent "hotspots" in my area, or use my non-existent DSL service? Oh, wait, AT&T doesn't want us to focus on this problem either.

I have yet to see a commercial that states, directly from AT&T, just how behind the company is in meeting the demands on its customers. All I am seeing is some nice music, happy people, and pretty pictures, while AT&T uses a plethora of euphemisms to describe how it will fuck us, and its employees over, when it takes over T-Mobile. Oh, shit, sorry, we are not supposed to pay attention to that.

Well, you may have not noticed any of this, but your brain did.

Re:Move?

[PNutts]

Seriously, to hell with you people who want to live in the country but have all of the benefits of urban living.

Yeah, like those buildings called supermarkets where bread and meat and fruits and vegetables magically appear out of thin air.

Re:am I the only person who thinks this a good thi

[forand]

Why not charge per bit instead of per bit per month. Then I would agree with you, but if they want to charge a fee per bit per month then we are just paying them to keep service low. Per bit we are paying them to improve bandwidth. If we use more they WANT to make it easier for us to use even more. But as it stands they have no interest in investing in the infrastructure, only in removing 'offending' customers who are trying to get the most out of what they are being charged for.

AT&T To Start Data Throttling Heaviest Users

[Anonymous Coward]

In true Slashdot fashion, I didn't read the article or the summary, only the title. But frankly, I think this is a great idea since obesity is such a serious problem in the United States. If AT&T begins throttling data for these heaviest users then maybe they'll actually go outside and get some exercise. Though to be fair, AT&T should base it on something like BMI so as not to penalize users who happen to be tall but who are not overweight.

Red herring to their real interest

[petsounds]

Their press release closes with:
"But even as we pursue this additional measure, it will not solve our spectrum shortage and network capacity issues. Nothing short of completing the T-Mobile merger will provide additional spectrum capacity to address these near term challenges."

So basically this is just a ruse by ATT execs to have the T-Mobile merger approved by the government posthaste, by trying to underscore how their poor widdle network is crumbling under the weight of the few people left on the grandfathered unlimited plan. It's ridiculous! You notice how they never define a limit, or put a range on what this top 5% is using. It's because the whole thing is malarkey.

Re:Red herring to their real interest

[gl4ss]

cell density cheapskating problems are not spectrum problems(it might be a poor choice of network infrastructure building subcontracts though)

Visibility

[SuperKendall]

I'd far rather see who is sending money where than the old system were all of the money was hidden from plain site (not that some is still not obscured).

Citizens United protects freedom of speech, far more than it has any harmful effects. All of the money you fear was already flowing to politicians anyway.

The only solution for the problem you see is smaller government. A smaller government has less power over you, there is less impact that money flowing from corporations can have.

Re:Visibility

[Chaonici]

Smaller government also has less hold over corporations, who will grow to fill the power vacuum filled by shrinking government. End result: The consumer is raped by the corporate world.

Larger government may be better able to contain corporations, but the end result of that is that the citizen is raped by federal power.

You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. What exactly is a free society to do?

Re:Visibility

[PopeRatzo]

Citizens United protects freedom of speech,

Whose freedom of speech?

Re:Visibility

[ody]

Larger government may be better able to contain corporations, but the end result of that is that the citizen is raped by federal power.

You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. What exactly is a free society to do?

I can't speak for everyone, but the giant bureaucratic power I'd rather have running my life is the one which apportions its representation per-citizen, instead of per-dollar.

Re:Visibility

[The Wild Norseman]

That's a false dichotomy.

The smaller government need only remove the legal shields that corporations provide to boards and directors and to remove the legal fiction of 'corporate personhood.'

It will never happen, but that's the way that you get the best of both worlds.

Re:isn't it already throttled?

[Zontar The Mindless]

If you aren't from the US and, more specifically, from the San Francisco Bay Area, please don't use the term "hella". Thank you.

I've been using it for 15+ years, and I'm from the opposite end of the country.

You're welcome.

Yes

[SuperKendall]

So, that free market would get a dial tone out to the never-going-to-be-profitable like the failed government monopolies did?

There's money to be made in any market, no matter how small. It just would have been a bit longer. Or perhaps rural regions would have had more robust wireless technologies sooner. We'll never know because AT&T iced all competition for decades.

Re:Yes

[Duradin]

And if they hadn't pushed electricity out to the rural areas we'd have cold fusion by now.

Re:Yes

[roman_mir]

Rural areas would have been off the common grid, totally energy independent and more efficient.

Re:Yes

[Duradin]

So the libertopias of Africa are your idea of what rural life should/would be like?

Re:Yes

[roman_mir]

Africa has been playing ground for all sorts of world governments, who wage their wars in Africa for the African resources. With that in mind I wouldn't call them utopias of any kind, never mind libertarian.

Re:Yes

[SuperKendall]

Obviously the U.S. would be better off than Africa since we have much lower corruption here and also a lot more natural resources. Also people would have tended to move to where they could get power etc. instead of mandating power had to follow them, so more wild spaces would have stayed wild and the cities would have grown larger as a result.

Farmer?

[SuperKendall]

Yeah, like those buildings called supermarkets where bread and meat and fruits and vegetables magically appear out of thin air.

You're a farmer? Yeah right.

I have considered moving out into the country to but if internet connectivity was important that would ALSO affect where I lived. If you don't like the internet where you live, move; otherwise it was not really that important to you.

I used to live out in the country and we didn't mind going into town for groceries, so you can go into town for internet sessions...

No time like the present

[SuperKendall]

There is a market here for this type of internet connection, I'm certain I could sell it.

However, the fcc license fee for doing this would completely dwarf all other costs.

Well with the government, and therefore FCC enforcement, about to shut down - wire up those towers sir and get ready for customers!

Re:No time like the present

[Patch86]

I think you'll find any agencies with the power to issue multi-million dollar fines will probably be the last ones out of the building. And in any case, government agencies have long memories...

You missed the point

[SuperKendall]

This isn't interesting it's complete bullshit. I pay my ISP to provide the bandwidth and Youtube pays their ISP to provide bandwidth, the bandwidth has been paid for.

That's why, as stated, they didn't mind YouTube much.

Has DirectTV really pain anyone much for their content? I doubt it. They are riding off the ISP's network.

You paid for an average amount of data use. When people drive up that average in a huge way, then your costs will also rise.

Re:You missed the point

[gl4ss]

When I started paying for internet, we were paying for time online, per minutes.

it's just bullshit. you're either selling bandwidth or not. what they'd like now is that we'd pay for access they sell as mobile 24/7 broadband, but would use it as if it were a dialup from late '90s. the free riders the ceo's see are actually _ANY_ service from which they don't get extra money from - while their whole business should be ignorant of what data is transferred, they shouldn't care, if they start caring they start acting as censors - and that's why walled garden mobile portals always sucked and NEVER gained much popularity, not even when you threw millions and millions at them and even let people stream few tv channels from them, people don't want to go to america online now, it's 2011 and internet is the norm - in some of these you could use unlimited amounts of data, if you stuck to the walled garden. unlimited amount of a very limited selection of data, that still would have placed the last mile network infrastructure at a strain(what a stupid idea to provide transcoded live tv channels over gprs, for a example).

bandwidth providing scales, the more it's used the more you get it, the more there's reason to put in more cabling. but if you've done some "expert calculations" on how much each customer would use of the bandwidth you sold them.. you can always twist those calculations to meet your existing infrastructure and pretend that customers are playing foul by actually using their broadband connections and that your "competitors" are playing foul by providing content(it's a stupid thought from isp side that companies which provide popular high bandwidth services, which make high bandwidth connections more valuable to customer, would be the bad guys).

and fuck, that one guys directtv argument is more bullshit than 100% original guaranteed authentic bullshit. wtf should it matter if the box has superTIVO or REALMEDIASUPERDOWLOADER or directtv printed on the box that's fetching content over the connection? it shouldn't - the connection provider should be ignorant of what's transferred, what they should have done from the start would have been to sell 0.5mbit/s connections if that's what they were actually only planning on delivering.they should at least be forced to market their connections with the information of how many gigabytes can you get transferred in a month and provide that data in mbit/s (from data_per_month/time in month) - that way, you could at least try to figure out what they've prepared to sell to you.

"When their receiver is hooked up to the customers internet connection and the customer trys to watch certain movies, the receiver starts downloading the movie from the home network FIRST to save the satellite provider bandwidth. So, what you have, in effect, is one ISP hijacking another ISP to deliver content. This threw the telecoms into a frenzy. All they could see was danger. If Direct TV or a local cable company had equipment hooked up to the telecoms network and the user had unlimited bandwidth and little incentive to pay much attention to how much their equipment was using, the competitor could quite easily cripple the telco." yeah a telco gets cripled if someone uses their connection. that's a pretty twisted argument - they're not HIJACKING, they're providing an USE for the connection - transferring data. if the isp doesn't want to be in business of transferring data, maybe they should sell their assets to someone who is.

Re:You missed the point

[Patch86]

Has DirectTV really pain anyone much for their content?

Yes. If they are hosting things over the internet, then they will have a contract with an ISP (it's not magic- that's how things get on the internet). Their ISP will be charging them a certain amount for as much upload/download bandwidth as they want. If they find DirectTV are using "too much" bandwidth, they're free to charge them more in order to provide a better service.

You do the same, at your end.

What isn't acceptable is to say to you "yeah, you can have unlimited downloads at broadband speeds" and take your money, and to say to DirectTV "yeah, you can have [x amount] or uploads at broadband speed" and take their money, and then not do it (by throttling to a much lower speed than was promised once you cross some arbitrary mark). All parties have paid up, they should get what they've paid for.

If ISPs (at either end) are finding that their infrastructure can't cope with demand, they should either sell to fewer people, or improve their network (and charge more to cover it, if they need to), or offer the same number of customers lower speeds that they CAN cope with. They can't have their cake and eat it too.

Re:You missed the point

[hedwards]

DirecTV has some means of magically getting their data to the end users ISP? Because that's the only way in which they can do that without paying for it.

I'm not paying for an average amount of data, at least that's not the basis upon which my ISP marketed the connection. Like I said, this is just further evidence that the government needs to step in and stop the fraudulent advertising that's leading to these head aches.

This isn't fundamentally any different from food processors that provide less food in a given container for the same price and then claim that consumers wouldn't like a price increase. Well, it is a price increase, there's less food for the same money, the cost per unit has suddenly gone up.

You are re-defining unlimited

[SuperKendall]

If they place any limits beyond what the technology allows it's no longer unlimited.

I consider it unlimited if I can download continuously and they don't care. They never promised you an exact transfer rate, that was never part of "unlimited". Unlimited was all about amounts of data, never about speed (because claiming it is "unlimited fast" would be silly),

Only in America

[qxcv]

In Australia most ISPs have had systems like this in place for almost a decade now, and we call it "shaping" (a nice term for "use too much bandwidth and we'll jack you back down to ISDN").
The funny thing is that "shaping" is a change for the better in Australia, as before it became common place (it was initially marketed as "UNLIMITED BROADBAND!11!!*") users were either charged ridiculous rates for excess usage ($50+/gb on some plans) or had their service cut off until the end of the month.
AT&T's move may be seen as a step backwards, but the truth is that Americans are still lucky to have some of the lowest cost bandwidth in the world.

Re:Only in America

[qxcv]

Edit: I'm talking about Australian fixed line internet vs. American 3G. Should have said that in the post :P

Re:am I the only person who thinks this a good thi

[DedTV]

I'm all for this as well. So long as it's not like Satellite internet where if you go over the cap your connection is reduced to an unusable state, having your bandwidth capped at a lower rate is much preferable to massive overage fees or service termination.

Ideally, it wouldn't be an issue and when an ISP (mobile or land based) offered a high speed connection they'd have the capacity available so every subscriber would be free to have that bandwidth pegged out 24/7. But since that's not a currently realistic business model, this is the method that is the least painful. The alternative is to do like most other mobile carriers and eliminate the Unlimited plans which most /.ers have long understood were never truly unlimited and never could be.

"top 5 per cent of heaviest data users"

[jvkjvk]

Lol.

There will always be a top five percent.

This is a brilliant move to cause *everyone* to reduce usage. The people at 3GB feel safe because of the headroom. But if everyone cuts down to a max of 3GB, what then?

Top 5% baby! Ok, so *most* of those users cut down. Well, there's still a top 5% that gets throttled, unless *they* also cut down...

Truly a race to the bottom - whatever AT&T says they won't throttle at is eventually where almost all users will end up.

Nice. For them, at least.

Regards.

Not a breach

[nurb432]

You agreed to them changing things at their whim.. All they have to do is notify you and they can change it.

But i agree with you in that its uncool, and unfortunately expected.

What is the effective cap then?

[nurb432]

So if they do enforce this and limit your rates, what does this amount to per month total in practical numbers?

Does this reduce your total potential data 'limit' below the other 'limited' plans or do you still get more?

Re:isn't it already throttled?

[cshark]

I've heard the term more often in the midwest, than anywhere in California.
I thought the rule was "if you're over 25, you're too old to say things like 'dude,' and 'hella cool,' "

Either way.

Re:am I the only person who thinks this a good thi

[Solandri]

many have signed into this thing as unlimited, not unlimted as long as it doesnt effect ATT

To be fair, the contracts they signed were unlimited until either party decides otherwise, not unlimited forever. There will be a few years of grandfathering as multi-year contracts expire, then unlimited will either be gone or relegated to expensive business plans.

OP is right though - this is the better, more honest way to do it. The bandwidth industry lives on overselling capacity to lower prices. From the google searches I've done, it looks like about 20:1 overselling is the norm. Selling that as "unlimited" is simply the marketing department's fantasy, designed to entice customers away from other more honest providers who clearly state their bandwidth and usage caps up-front. Like all fantasies, it's unsustainable. So it's better in that the industry is heading towards honest disclosure of the actual extent of your service.

I'd agree with you that they should be held to the letter of their contract if they sold you "unlimited" service. But once that contract expires, I don't see anything wrong with your only choices being one of their more realistically labeled plans.

So what are they throttling it to?

[Restil]

I mean, right now, I only get around 80kbps upstream anyway... IN 3G. I realize that i didn't mention downstream there, but for my most bandwidth intensive application, I don't use it. So where's my limit going to be? 2gigs? 5gigs? and what are they going to throttle that 80kbps down to? Will it be incremental based on total data transferred or is it going to get cut sharply? Will it vary based on peak times or will it be constant? Will bandwidth used during non-peak times count as much as bandwidth used when the towers are overloaded? Details will be helpful so we (or at least *I*) can attempt to work within the system to ensure the best quality of service for myself as well as others.

-Restil

Re:AT&T To Start Data Throttling Heaviest User

[Hal_Porter]

Don't mention BMI around here. Lots of morbidly obese network admins who've never seen the inside of a gym and live off junk food will point out that since BMI gives the wrong answers for professional athletes it is a worthless measure when applied to them.