AT&T Looking At Charging Heavy Internet Users Extra

SmokeRngs said:
It's impossible for me to track my internet bandwidth usage without something checking it at the modem. I have multiple machines which kills the ability for normal software tracking. Also, I do a lot of transfers across my network which has nothing to do with internet usage.

I don't really have much of an idea of how much bandwidth I use. Some days I will barely use the connection and other times I'll bang on it like it was a cheap whore. My usage is very erratic depending on what I feel like doing or not doing. I wouldn't be surprised if through the month I averaged around a gig a day but I can't say for sure. I also know that there are some times I have done 10-20 gig in day. I snagged a Linux distro one day last week and it was around 4 gig. I'll be doing that at least once if not twice more this month with other distros.

I'm by no means running my connection at the max all the time and yet I will probably be one of the people this would affect. You know damn good and well that the ISPs are going to try and say that anyone using more than an average grandma who only checks her email a couple times a week is a heavy user.

I just hope that these companies feel a nasty backlash from their customers after implementing these measures. Luckily, AT&T moved out of this area for cable years ago. When they introduced cable internet here, the speed was 10/1. About a year later they dropped most people down to 1.5/256k. I was lucky and managed to avoid that speed cut for another six months. That's what you call getting screwed. Sign up for the service and later they cut it to about 10% of what you signed up for. If I remember correctly, it wasn't long after that they left the area and another company took over which has slowly brought speeds back up. The basic plan is now 6/256k I believe while I have 8/512k and the next step up is 15/1 which I hope to afford before too long. It's only $15/month more but I don't have that at this time.

"Improving" service by degrading the service is a bad business decision in the long run. Some people will remember and when some real competition comes along, those people will likely jump ship if it looks like the competition is a better deal.

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you can track it with many routers... look around on google...
 
This is bulls**t, People in Japan don't have to worry about this crap.
 
That's it, lets all just move to Japan, it's not like they could get anymore crowded and we would have better toys!!
 
I'm torn between rage at the constant threat of overages from my legitimate usages of bandwidth (media server) and sympathy with them for needing to find SOME way to punish retarded people who open mininova.org when they wake up at 1 pm and proceed to download 20GB of Xbox isos.
 
looks like i need to find a new isp.

ive used 67gb from the 4th through as i type this message.
 
I think most [H] readers are in the top % of net users, all of us probably cost the ISPs more than we make them. Personally I would hate to see this happen but at the same time I question how this can be considered so unfair. I don't think there are any utility companys out there that give you unlimited electricity/water/gas for a monthly fee. Take a look at your cellular plan. You can get unlimited minutes but it costs a friggin fortune. Tiered access makes perfect sense to me even though I'm sure my bill would probably at least double in cost.
 
Except internet is like that.. they charge you based on the speed package you get. Now they want to double up and charge by how much virtual massless content you use. It isn't like a natural resource where you have a finite amount of something that just goes away once you use it all. It's a scalable series of tubes.
 
Cox has actually done this since they took over the @home service. You can see the tiered pricing and bandwidth limits here: http://www.cox.com/policy/limitations.asp

You can get unlimited from them in the form of a SOHO/Business account. It costs about $80 a month for 3mb/512 though, and an annual contract.

I've had both types of accounts and never had a complaint from them about my bandwidth even though I've exceed their limits quite frequently on the residential account.
 
Up in Canada we already have this cap in place.

Rogers announced this 3 months ago. Depending on your monthly internet package, you have a limit of either 95/ 60 / 25 / 2 GB. Any overages and you will be charged $2 + tax per GB over your usage limit.

In my neighborhood there is only cable, NO ADSL. So that means that my entire neighborhood has NO CHOICE but to sign up with Rogers for broadband.

I currently have a monthly limit of 60 GB and for June, my total usage was 60.5 GBs ( No charges - I guess they have a little bit of leeway )
 
I hated Bellsouth (I live in Atlanta) and I now hate AT&T.... Cable internet FTW.
 
SmokeRngs said:
It's impossible for me to track my internet bandwidth usage without something checking it at the modem. I have multiple machines which kills the ability for normal software tracking. Also, I do a lot of transfers across my network which has nothing to do with internet usage.
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This would be tracked at thier end, which would track your total bandwidth used. Companies that do this often offer a way to sign into your account and see your current total for the month.

If you wanted to do it yourself, you could use a router that has the capability, or one that has the ability to have custom firmware loaded in (since the company releases the firmware as open source). For instance the old standard linksys WRT54GS ones. There are others too, you can google the stuff up. DD-WRT is one famous version of the firmware.
 
Looks like I have to do another reply since I can't edit to merge them.

darkking said:
Its going to cause a few ripple effects.
DSL will start a resurgence. I know there are many using it already but heavy users will move to avoid tiers (until they do the same)
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Except read the headline of this news story again. AT&T. They are SBC/Pacbell and a bunch of others. All DSL. DSL is going same direction.
 
w1retap said:
Except internet is like that.. they charge you based on the speed package you get. Now they want to double up and charge by how much virtual massless content you use. It isn't like a natural resource where you have a finite amount of something that just goes away once you use it all. It's a scalable series of tubes.
Click to expand...

That comment just don't make sense, Cause all 3 of those utilities also have a "scalable series of tubes" For instance, the gas company only provides you with so much PSI and charges you Per Cubic Foot (speed and Quantity), The phone Company charger you per line, and how many long distance calls you make, The Electric company will only allow so many Amps, but charges you by Kilowatt Hour, just like the what Internet companies want to do, there is no difference, you isp pays for the bandwidth it sells to you, it is not free for them, they have costs and those costs go up with the more bandwidth that is used just like any other utility company. Even the cable TV services are not unlimited, the more subscribers they have the more infrastructure they have to have behind it to power and service it.
 
no the finite part is the speed, the traffic coming through is infinite.

they charge you for a finite speed, now they want to charge you more for how much you get at that finite speed they already charge you for.
 
whereas on the other hand gas and electricity are charge by how much you use. electricity travels at the (or close to) the speed of light. you arent charged by how fast your electricity is coming through the wall you are charged by how much you use. gas come in at a fixed pressure, you dont get charged by how fast you use the gas you get charged by how much you use. internet is sold at a speed, not a volume.
 
Diablo2K said:
That comment just don't make sense, Cause all 3 of those utilities also have a "scalable series of tubes" For instance, the gas company only provides you with so much PSI and charges you Per Cubic Foot (speed and Quantity), The phone Company charger you per line, and how many long distance calls you make, The Electric company will only allow so many Amps, but charges you by Kilowatt Hour, just like the what Internet companies want to do, there is no difference, you isp pays for the bandwidth it sells to you, it is not free for them, they have costs and those costs go up with the more bandwidth that is used just like any other utility company. Even the cable TV services are not unlimited, the more subscribers they have the more infrastructure they have to have behind it to power and service it.
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No... electrons bumping in internet lines are not going to be used up and disappear one day. Natural resources used to provide utilities will be gone because they are finite. I didn't think it was something that hard to understand. Look at it this way.. if more users need to use internet, they just upgrade servers or fiber, possibly even replacing them with something more electrically efficient. If more people need power or utilities, we need to consume far more finite natural resources such as oil/coal/natural gas/etc..
 
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