Ladies and gentlemen, the days of unlimited broadband may be numbered in the United States, and we're not talking wireless this time -- AT&T says it will implement a 150GB monthly cap on landline DSL customers and a 250GB cap on subscribers to U-Verse high speed internet starting on May 2nd. AT&T will also charge overage fees of $10 for every additional 50GB of data, with two grace periods to start out -- in other words, the third month you go over the cap is when you'll get charged. DSLReports says it has confirmation from AT&T that these rates are legitimate, and that letters will go out to customers starting March 18th.
How does AT&T defend the move? The company explains it will only impact two percent of consumers who use "a disproportionate amount of bandwidth," and poses the caps as an alternative to throttling transfer speeds or disconnecting excessive users from the service completely. Customers will be able to check their usage with an online tool, and get notifications when they reach 65 percent, 90 percent and 100 percent of their monthly rates.
We just spoke with AT&T representative Seth Bloom and confirmed the whole thing -- rates are exactly as described above, and the company will actually begin notifying customers this week. He also told us that those customers who don't yet have access to the bandwidth usage tool won't get charged until they do, and that AT&T U-Verse TV service won't count towards the GB cap.
Update: What prompted this change to begin with? That's what we just asked AT&T. Read the company's statement after the break.
We are committed to providing a great experience for all of our Internet customers. Less than 2 percent of our Internet customers could be impacted by this approach - those who are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. We will communicate early and often with these customers so they are well aware of their options before they incur any additional usage charges.
The top 2 percent of residential subscribers uses about 20 percent of the bandwidth on our network. Just one of these high-traffic users can utilize the same amount of data capacity as 19 typical households. Lopsided usage patterns can cause congestion at certain points in the network, which can slow Internet speeds and interfere with other customers' access to and use of the network. Our new plan addresses another concern: customers strongly believe that only those who use the most bandwidth should pay more than those who don't use as much. That's exactly what this does – and again, 98% of our customers will not be impacted by this.
So.. uhh.. yeah. I hate AT&T now. 250gb? /on u-verse. Sure that's a huge cap, but still I hate the fact that I have a cap. ._.
If being a loser means not playing Silkroad all day.. lulwut?
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken.
Last edited by Love on Thu Mar 17, 2011 10:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Guild Wars 2, Isle of Janthir (NA)
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken.
HejsaN wrote:I fear the day they do shit like this in Sweden.
I'm sure it'll take trend sooner or later at least in the United States.
Master_of_Puppets wrote:Stop complaining, I have high speed internet and a cap of 30GB a month, and for 1gb of extra GB downloaded I pay 8$
So your 250gb cap is fine...
Stop QQ'ing some people are much worse than you...
Considering I've been with AT&T for about a decade and they decide to pull this out of nowhere.. uhh yeah I'm going to QQ.
After seeing so much from Aussie friends (and maybe a few others) about their caps and such, I thought this would have happened a long time ago. 250gb is just fine anyways, anyone that DLs more than that a month is probably not downloading legal stuff anyways. They'd better impress on people about using security options on wireless routers though. Otherwise some jackass neighbor will do their major downloading on other people's routers when they hit their cap.
Quoted from BuDo (Except I Am Vegeta cuz we all know he is a used tampon when it comes to his personality)
HejsaN wrote:I fear the day they do shit like this in Sweden.
I'm sure it'll take trend sooner or later at least in the United States.
Master_of_Puppets wrote:Stop complaining, I have high speed internet and a cap of 30GB a month, and for 1gb of extra GB downloaded I pay 8$
So your 250gb cap is fine...
Stop QQ'ing some people are much worse than you...
Considering I've been with AT&T for about a decade and they decide to pull this out of nowhere.. uhh yeah I'm going to QQ.
After seeing so much from Aussie friends (and maybe a few others) about their caps and such, I thought this would have happened a long time ago. 250gb is just fine anyways, anyone that DLs more than that a month is probably not downloading legal stuff anyways. They'd better impress on people about using security options on wireless routers though. Otherwise some jackass neighbor will do their major downloading on other people's routers when they hit their cap.
It's 250gb now ..... I'll leave the rest to your "imagination".
Guild Wars 2, Isle of Janthir (NA)
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken.
MrJoey wrote:If they mention lowering the initial 250gb limit, there will be a shitstorm, and they probably would end up not doing it.
I'm not sure if most of you guys read the article it says 150gb for DSL users and 250gb for U-Verse users. I've had U-Verse from them for a couple of years with no problem, but again pulling this out of nowhere is uhh.. a bit random. As mentioned 98% of the users don't go over that limit, but I do sometimes. By sometimes I mean formatting my drive and downloading everything off steam pretty much hits the limit.
If being a loser means not playing Silkroad all day.. lulwut?
If they lowered the price then said "whoever uses more should have to pay more", it would make sense..but the it is now they are just charging the same $$ while providing less services...
Hopefully verizon won't follow this, even though i think my internet usage hardly ever goes over a 100GB, or even 10gb
let it gooooo let it gooooOoOooOOOOOO
Let her suck my pistol She open up her mouth and then I blow her brains out
If it is really only 2% of their users and it really isn't that relevant, why are they going out of the way to impose a cap? Methinks they are full of bullshit.
heroo wrote:I really can't believe that you guys still have something like a caplimit for internet in the U.S. Things like that are unheard of in the Netherlands.
This is I believe the first time there will actually be a cap for a U.S. company.
Quoted from BuDo (Except I Am Vegeta cuz we all know he is a used tampon when it comes to his personality)
heroo wrote:I really can't believe that you guys still have something like a caplimit for internet in the U.S. Things like that are unheard of in the Netherlands.
This is I believe the first time there will actually be a cap for a U.S. company.
iirc awhile back there was a company in Texas that did it. Then again that is if I remember correctly.
If being a loser means not playing Silkroad all day.. lulwut?
Amarisa wrote:Again I would like to state how much bs this is. They have 100Gigabit Ethernet coming out going on a Terabit and beyond.
How does that have anything to do with this? You do realize that even if you had a 50Mbps connection with a 100 Gigabit Ethernet card that you still can transfer at a maximum of 50Mbps right? You could send data to other computers on the network at 100Gbps if you had all the right hardware but that wouldn't affect your data cap.
Amarisa wrote:Again I would like to state how much bs this is. They have 100Gigabit Ethernet coming out going on a Terabit and beyond.
How does that have anything to do with this? You do realize that even if you had a 50Mbps connection with a 100 Gigabit Ethernet card that you still can transfer at a maximum of 50Mbps right? You could send data to other computers on the network at 100Gbps if you had all the right hardware but that wouldn't affect your data cap.
Because with a 100Gbps Ethernet system it more then doubles their current bandwidth?
I am talking about an ISP here. More specifically ATT.
It won't effect our bandwidth individually yes. Ethernet is no longer just for homes anymore. What is being replaced by 100Gb Ethernet is OC-768. OC-768 has a bandwidth of 40Gbps and I am sure this is what ATT is currently using.
M3K0S wrote:erm... is there a way to tell how much bandwith ive used?
Customers will be able to check their usage with an online tool, and get notifications when they reach 65 percent, 90 percent and 100 percent of their monthly rates.
Crumpets for Pres
