AT&T To Cap DSL Internet Data Usage At 150GB

obs said:
U-Verse does not require and internet subscription. I pay $68/month for 25/3 from U-verse with no TV. And my guess is well under 1% of people use more than 150GB a month.
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Damn typo, U-verse does not require a TV subscription.
 
The idea behind this sort of move is that they're hoping for other ISPs to do the same thing. That, and people who only have AT&T DSL in their area, have no choice. There's also the possibility that they're losing services to the internet.

Either way, consumers will do the thing they do best. Canceling their service, and moving to another ISP. Eventually AT&T is going to undo these changes.
 
Ashbringer said:
The idea behind this sort of move is that they're hoping for other ISPs to do the same thing. That, and people who only have AT&T DSL in their area, have no choice. There's also the possibility that they're losing services to the internet.

Either way, consumers will do the thing they do best. Canceling their service, and moving to another ISP. Eventually AT&T is going to undo these changes.
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They're only going to cancel service if this actually effects them.
 
Sigh. The only other think available in my area is some DirectTV bullshit that doesn't even hit a meg on the down side. You would think Oakland CA would have better effing internet. ISPs hate big cities here.
 
I got in on the 6 MB for $19.99 for 12 months deal with AT&T DSL. This cap is disappointing. So far I like AT&T better than Comcast...nothing like being in the heat of and online battle, then bang "connection to server lost", which happened frequently with Comcast.

I haven't had one drop-out with AT&T yet...
 
I would kill to have the option to get DSL where I live. At the moment, the only broadband option I have here in southern Indiana is satellite. You think 150GB limit is bad? Satellite has a 5 GB limit, after which your speed is slowed to dial-up rates. I haven't gotten it because I frankly don't see the point of paying the $300+ dollars for the satellite equipment plus $60/month for 3 Mbps with a 5GB cap.
 
dgingeri said:
honestly, if someone is going over 150GB per month, they're 'hogging the road' just like someone driving a 4 lane wide supertruck down an interstate. they should be removed for the sake of all other customers.
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Come back to earth. Here on earth, if we use too much of something, they expand it.

If people buy too much stuff, then companies make more.

If ISPs are congested, then they should expand. Add more fiber. Get more T3's. It's not something they can't do, or can't afford. The thing that worries people is that these services are a conflict of interest for ISPs.

If ISPs were to build their infrastructure to give every customer full speed and fully unlimited connections, they'd have to charge about $2000 per month for the connection. If you want to download 150GB of data per month, get a business connection with that capacity. (On a side note, I have a Hulu account, a Netflix account, download Linux ISOs for work, and play WoW on a regular basis, and I barely use 12GB per month, on rare occasions, I get up to 15GB. going over 150GB per month is just totally ridiculous.)
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And you know this how? The reality is, 150GB costs ISPs pennies. Look it up. So what would 500 GB, or 1TB cost them? A few pennies more?

The restrictions don't need to be there.
 
verteron said:
I am going to buck the trend here. Let's say the ISP has 100Mbps to divide among 100 customers. Each gets 1 Mbps and is charged $10 a month. You want faster connections? They are giving you better speeds when the bandwidth is available. So, 100 customers, 10 Mbps intermittently, and still $10 a month.

They always oversell, just like airlines, as it is less cost-effective not to. If you want more than 1 Mbps continuous, then you need to pay more than $10 per month. If you are not willing to do that, then what ISP wants you? Why should they care about the 2%?

150/250 GB sounds pretty good to me, at least it isn't 5 GB like the phone plans. At least TRY and see it from the other side every now and then. :rolleyes:

And DSL is a more stable connection usually. Since Cable shares with other customers and TV channels, the network just is not built point-to-point. There are just many more network issues to contend with.
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Great bring it on. Just stop advertising my 1mbs connection as a 10mbps connection then whine when I use it that way.
 
Budzman said:
could you even download that much with DSL since its so piss ass slow.
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Um, yes? We have 6 MBps DSL through AT&T and logged 267 GBs last month (no UVerse available).

Regardless, we're jumping ship to Earthlink (lesser of two evils). 250GB cap there. No other reasonably priced options available. :(
 
verteron said:
And DSL is a more stable connection usually. Since Cable shares with other customers and TV channels, the network just is not built point-to-point. There are just many more network issues to contend with.
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And I hate to break it to you as soon as you hit the DSLAM you are shared just like cable.
 
dgingeri said:
honestly, if someone is going over 150GB per month, they're 'hogging the road' just like someone driving a 4 lane wide supertruck down an interstate. they should be removed for the sake of all other customers.

If ISPs were to build their infrastructure to give every customer full speed and fully unlimited connections, they'd have to charge about $2000 per month for the connection. If you want to download 150GB of data per month, get a business connection with that capacity. (On a side note, I have a Hulu account, a Netflix account, download Linux ISOs for work, and play WoW on a regular basis, and I barely use 12GB per month, on rare occasions, I get up to 15GB. going over 150GB per month is just totally ridiculous.)
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You own lots of stock in ATT/Comcast/Charter or the like?

Please show my your model pointing at the $2k/month fee.

If the likes of South Korea can provide better quality/faster internet to everyone at a lower price and we (the 'West') can not something is seriously wrong.
 
no more fapping to moving talkies anymore. Sigh, back to old static pictures.
 
You are downloading 24x7x30 ?

Chas said:
Great. So long as I don't use it like anything but a 56K modem, I'm fine.

150GB = 5GB/day = 208~MB/hour = 57KB/Sec

I really wanna know how the fuck this is going to "win over more customers".

Maybe in some stupid suit's drug-addled hallucinations?
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SirMaster said:
UVerse is DSL (VDSL or ADSL2+ depending on where you are) and they have 24Mbit down available.
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I'm at around 1.1TB/month or so w/ 24Mbps U-Verse. Only options here are Comcast and U-Verse...probably going to drop to the 12Mbps tier come May, and use the $20/month savings to pay for overages, giving me 350GB/month at half the speed for the same price I pay now :(

I live with three other roommates, and combined Netflix/Hulu/other streaming all adds up. Guess we'll just ration better.

About the only thing AT&T could do better than Comcast right now is making a bandwidth monitor dashboard available now, instead of waiting a year like Comcast and making users guess/be savvy enough to run a router that measures bandwidth utilization.
 
Elf_Boy said:
If the likes of South Korea can provide better quality/faster internet to everyone at a lower price and we (the 'West') can not something is seriously wrong.
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The United States is a much larger country landmass-wise with an aging and honestly shitty infrastructure. South Korea is much denser and enjoyed the advantage of building their infrastructure with modern technology in mind.

This same argument applies to European countries where gigabit fiber is available to homes. They are smaller and have heavily subsidized telecom. The "oh they (European/Asian nation here) have it but we don't wahh" argument needs to go die in a fire.
 
verteron said:
DSL is a single channel connection to the DSLAM, from there it is combined with some other link, such as a T1, T3, or fiber. It is shared as much as ANYTHING is on the internet, but not like cable. Cable has a loop. Your entire neighborhood can run off of one channel and one subnet, and one idiot can plug his router in backwards and knock everyone on his loop off. And I am not just saying, this actually happens here. Although, they are taking steps to correct the subnet issue.

The DOCSIS 3 upgrade is being rolled out here, but the cable loops are too big. DOCSIS 3 requires no more than 4 nodes, we have 10 currently.
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How does one plug in a router backwards?
 
UVerse = DSL

DSL is actually not that bad of a technology, it has just been so poorly implemented by ISPs in the US that it has gotten a bad name. UVerse is delivered over ADSL2+/VDSL, yet they have resorted to calling it "UVerse" because nobody would buy it if they called it DSL.

At any rate, I hope they are only referring to their traditional "DSL" services as I am a UVerse customer myself :(
 
Elf_Boy said:
How does one plug in a router backwards?
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No idea, especially with a cable modem, but just like our little SOHO routers, it could be trying to DHCP it's companions on the same loop.

OldSchool said:
At any rate, I hope they are only referring to their traditional "DSL" services as I am a UVerse customer myself :(
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Like, did no one read the article? "AT&T DSL" gets 150GB/month, "AT&T U-Verse" gets 250GB/month. Every 50GB you go over gets a $10/overage.

I can only assume that means 0.0000001MB to 49.9999999GB over is an extra $10, 50.0000001GB over is an extra $20 overall. It is AT&T after all.
 
Oops, sorry OldSchool, thought [H] linked to Engadget. They detail both services and their new caps. :)
 
movax said:
The United States is a much larger country landmass-wise with an aging and honestly shitty infrastructure. South Korea is much denser and enjoyed the advantage of building their infrastructure with modern technology in mind.

This same argument applies to European countries where gigabit fiber is available to homes. They are smaller and have heavily subsidized telecom. The "oh they (European/Asian nation here) have it but we don't wahh" argument needs to go die in a fire.
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Yes there are topographical and demographical differences. That doesn't change that we have a technological advantage. Reading up, I see remarks about the poor internet availability in Oakland, Ca. That being a very dense residential area in the most populous state. In the bay area cities run together with no gaps and Oakland is at he center of the east bay conglomeration. By your argument the internet there should be the best in the country.

The 'other' countries in question had hurdles to overcome we do not. Despite that they were able to upgrade their infrastructure and we seemingly can not.

Then again we have greedy American corporations and they do not.
 
Ughhh I need to look at my current usage but I am probably over that... Well it looks like it is back to Roadrunner for me, I just switched to UVerse 2 months ago because they offered a single connection that was as fast as the 2 cable modems I had from time warner.
 
Elf_Boy said:
Yes there are topographical and demographical differences. That doesn't change that we have a technological advantage. Reading up, I see remarks about the poor internet availability in Oakland, Ca. That being a very dense residential area in the most populous state. In the bay area cities run together with no gaps and Oakland is at he center of the east bay conglomeration. By your argument the internet there should be the best in the country.

The 'other' countries in question had hurdles to overcome we do not. Despite that they were able to upgrade their infrastructure and we seemingly can not.

Then again we have greedy American corporations and they do not.
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Most densely populated areas in the US are just as fast as the South Korean densely populated areas. When they aren't, go take a look at the local restrictions to competition made by the government.
 
dgingeri said:
honestly, if someone is going over 150GB per month, they're 'hogging the road' just like someone driving a 4 lane wide supertruck down an interstate. they should be removed for the sake of all other customers.

If ISPs were to build their infrastructure to give every customer full speed and fully unlimited connections, they'd have to charge about $2000 per month for the connection. If you want to download 150GB of data per month, get a business connection with that capacity. (On a side note, I have a Hulu account, a Netflix account, download Linux ISOs for work, and play WoW on a regular basis, and I barely use 12GB per month, on rare occasions, I get up to 15GB. going over 150GB per month is just totally ridiculous.)
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Your friggin serious?
https://epbfi.com/ - $350 for ONE GIGABIT... A person on that plan could hit 150GB in around 25 minutes if they managed to max out that speed. And another tidbit for good measure... If you were to download all of the DVDs from the current Debian Stable branch, you'd run 1/5th of that cap... 31GB to be exact. Just because you still rely on a typical cable box for all of your media consumption doesnt mean the rest of us do. Just have to wait and see how you feel about a 150GB cap when you actually use streaming as your main source of entertainment and not an alternate form.
 
Yes, torrenting/seeding 24/7 can make you use 1TB+ a month.
 
dgingeri said:
honestly, if someone is going over 150GB per month, they're 'hogging the road' just like someone driving a 4 lane wide supertruck down an interstate. they should be removed for the sake of all other customers.

If ISPs were to build their infrastructure to give every customer full speed and fully unlimited connections, they'd have to charge about $2000 per month for the connection. If you want to download 150GB of data per month, get a business connection with that capacity. (On a side note, I have a Hulu account, a Netflix account, download Linux ISOs for work, and play WoW on a regular basis, and I barely use 12GB per month, on rare occasions, I get up to 15GB. going over 150GB per month is just totally ridiculous.)
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you're out of your mind bro.....you're missing something

I have a 360 that plays on Live and streams HD Netflix content in the main living room, a Wii that streams to the kids HDTV, a desktop, a laptop, two Android handsets, and a Vonage phone for our "home phone" plus the occasional network activity from the BluRay player......we use way more than that in a month...way way way more.....actually i need to do another audit on my DD-WRT router to see what it has been running lately but im willing to bet you on an active day there's a good 5Gb transferred in/out of my house combined, just a guess at the moment till i can look at it
 
obs said:
They're only going to cancel service if this actually effects them.
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And for the wide majority of customers, like 90%+ of customers, it won't.

So everyone here who cares, being more informed and sensitive than the 90%+ of said customers, loses (though it can be argued even that a bunch of us here wouldn't lose anyway because we don't come near to reaching said cap).
 
dgingeri said:
honestly, if someone is going over 150GB per month, they're 'hogging the road' just like someone driving a 4 lane wide supertruck down an interstate. they should be removed for the sake of all other customers.

If ISPs were to build their infrastructure to give every customer full speed and fully unlimited connections, they'd have to charge about $2000 per month for the connection. If you want to download 150GB of data per month, get a business connection with that capacity. (On a side note, I have a Hulu account, a Netflix account, download Linux ISOs for work, and play WoW on a regular basis, and I barely use 12GB per month, on rare occasions, I get up to 15GB. going over 150GB per month is just totally ridiculous.)
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Download at home from a TechNET/MSDN sub and then let us know... That alone can eat up multiple GB's of download. Linux ISO's as you mentioned can eat up the GB's as well. I just reloaded Everquest II Extended, took ~12 GB to download. Game patches for games can be 200 MB+, esp. first time patching. Then you factor in all the other downloading. It's very very easy to hit 150+ GB/month for those of us who actually *use* our connection to its fullest. If you are using a fat pipe connection to check your emails and that's it, of course you won't hit that cap.
 
These people whining about having a 6Mbs DSL connection should be just a little happy about it being that high. DSL service in many areas is still under 1 Mbs. Last year my mom's DSL took a leap from 512Kbs to 768Kbs! Woohoo, she's in the fast lane now baby!!! :eek: She's right across the street from the vault, so she gets top speed available, not the slow end of things.

I'm sure she'd be totally exstatic if she were getting 6Mbs.

Wasn't all that long ago that cable was under 6Mbs.

Though I do find it amazing that Verizon is now offering 10-15Mbs down 1Mbs up DSL in some areas. At this rate DSL will overtake my Fios connection. If it costs less I may just have to "downgrade" at that point.
 
nobody_here said:
while that may be true on paper, i've been using cable from different ISP's in two different states at three different address in the last 10 years and i have never had a problem caused by any spiking ......DSL on the other hand, when i used it at my parents house acted exactly as you describe, it was slow, fast, slow.........never consistent, but on it's fastest day it was dog slow compared to my always fast cable connections
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It's mostly dependant on the ISP, since it’s all shared at some point.
A good cable implementation is going to be better than a poor DSL system.

I have Cox, and I rarely have a noticeable bandwidth problem. I live in an area built 35 years ago, with a lot of the older, original homeowners still around.
They don’t use much bandwidth (if they even have internet), so more for me 
I know people who live in newer areas, where most people are in their 20’s & 30’s, and they complain about internet slowdowns.

As for Caps, Cox does have a cap of around 200GB, but they don’t seem to enforce it unless you are way over for multiple months.
I have yet to have them notify me that I’m over the cap, even though I know I HAD to be over just based on the downloads I made on a given month.
They have yet to provide any way to monitor bandwidth usage in this area, so it would be hard for them to enforce the cap.
 
I never been against "reasonable" bandwidth limits that solely try to prevent bandwidth hogs from slowing things down for everyone else. I rather have heavy bandwidth users buy into higher tiers or be motivated to cut down on their usage than having it be the wild west where my connection slows to crap during peak hours. And doing some rough estimates in my head, 150 gigs seems reasonable.
 
150 GB / 30 days a month = 5 GB/day / 5 hours of average use each day (more on weekends, less on weekdays) = 1 GB/Hour / 60 minutes per hour = .0166667 GB/Minute / 60 Seconds per minute = .00027777778 GB/Second * 8 (plus proper conversion) = 2.2846505 Mbps

My wife and I don't have cable. Some people have the TV on all day. Ours is typically turned off 95% of the time. We have Internet. This is our source of "entertainment". What people often use the TV for, we use the Internet for, plus standard Internet uses. Movies, news, shows, games, communication (except for the cell phones).... It all goes back to the 'Net.

Two people using 2.28 Mbps shouldn't be so bad considering that much of the time is spent using lightweight and static sites. I don't game ALL the time, but it would be interesting to see exactly how much bandwidth my gaming does per second. Looks like I might be doing some packet sniffing in the near future. I may have to look at not hosting as many LAN parties in the future (although the wife might not see this as a negative thing).
 
eon said:
I never been against "reasonable" bandwidth limits that solely try to prevent bandwidth hogs from slowing things down for everyone else. I rather have heavy bandwidth users buy into higher tiers or be motivated to cut down on their usage than having it be the wild west where my connection slows to crap during peak hours. And doing some rough estimates in my head, 150 gigs seems reasonable.
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Dude, people have to be able to download their entire steam library or stream and torrent 24/7 or the world is unfair.
 
obs said:
Most densely populated areas in the US are just as fast as the South Korean densely populated areas. When they aren't, go take a look at the local restrictions to competition made by the government.
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Oakland is a very "Progressive" area, even for California.
They had Jerry Brown (now the governor of California) as thier mayor for 8 years (1999-2006).
His mismanagement and big goverment solutions failed Oakland, just as they failed California the 1st time he was governor.

People out here never learn, and we will all be suffering from his failed policies yet again.
 
So, does anyone else not see the full article when the click Steve's link? Can someone cut+paste it here, or at least any part about U-Verse? I have their fastest U-Verse package in my area and regularly exceed 400-500GB a month, I am curious how this will impact me.
 
They are TERIFFIED of things like Netflix, Hulu, and ESPN3. It is getting the point were people do not need the 2000 channels that you watch 5 of and have to pay an arm and a leg for.

A few more moves by the sports industry to deliver their content over the web and its over.
 
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