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

Arg!! I live in Canada and my isp (shaw) charges me $60/month for what they call 'extreme1' internet servive. They already throttle the hell out of me, I barely crack 2mb down. Most days its under 1mb!!! Now the slap a 100Gb monthly cap and plan to charge $1-2 per addational Gb! Yhea, real extreme shaw. Asshats. :mad:
 
Geeks should march to all teleco headquarters and demand their internet back!
 
Look, if Samsung can build and transport 2TB of storage to me for $70 (3.5 cents/gb), I don't see how an ISP can justify charging me more to send it to me via electrons.

But if they want to portion out bandwidth a la carte I don't want to deal with any more of this monthly fee bullshit. I'll pay for the GBs I use just like any other utility...
 
beowulf7 said:
Can you break that contract without paying an ETF?
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I dunno...my new building doesn't have cable yet (Crapcast). DSL is the only game in town. I don't mind the download limit...I tracked myself last month..I only did 80 GB and I'll never download that much in one month again.

My big thing is online drops. When I used to have Comcast, I would drop from BF2 servers and other online game servers all the time...nice going a strafing run with your Cobra...or being in the middle of a dogfight or something then seeing "connection to server lost...retrying".

With AT&T I have good pings and I haven't been dropped from an online server once..knock on wood. :D
 
spacing guild said:
I dunno...my new building doesn't have cable yet (Crapcast). DSL is the only game in town. I don't mind the download limit...I tracked myself last month..I only did 80 GB and I'll never download that much in one month again.

My big thing is online drops. When I used to have Comcast, I would drop from BF2 servers and other online game servers all the time...nice going a strafing run with your Cobra...or being in the middle of a dogfight or something then seeing "connection to server lost...retrying".

With AT&T I have good pings and I haven't been dropped from an online server once..knock on wood. :D
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OK, so you're satisfied w/ your ISP and the BW cap isn't a big deal to you. That's fine, as long as you're aware of it.

When I e-mailed my HOA, one guy wrote back and said he wasn't aware of the cap and asked me what that meant, so I explained. He thought speed would be affected, but I said it shouldn't. However, his monthly bill could be due to overage charges.

Then, I saw my neighbor doing yard work today and asked him about his Internet. I guess he's not on the HOA e-mail distribution list for whatever reason, but I explained to him about my research and he said he'd be interested. He also has AT&T DSL and was unaware of the upcoming BW cap.

We both agreed that if Charter cable, that's available less than a mile away from our dev., came to our HOA, they could easily get half the households to switch. If anyone from Charter is reading this, take action!
 
I tried to find out what my current usage was this weekend and was unable to do so. The link that was posted a few pages back redirected me to the standard account login page and when I went to the link that said usage details it said that I have "unlimited" service and that usage details were unavailable... :(
 
OldSchool said:
I tried to find out what my current usage was this weekend and was unable to do so. The link that was posted a few pages back redirected me to the standard account login page and when I went to the link that said usage details it said that I have "unlimited" service and that usage details were unavailable... :(
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It says that for me too..Try BitMeter...it's a good little app to monitor your daily, weekly and monthly usage.
 
spacing guild said:
It says that for me too..Try BitMeter...it's a good little app to monitor your daily, weekly and monthly usage.
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I'll look into that. I guess it'd need to be installed on every computer in the household. But certain Wi-Fi devices, like Internet radio players (e.g., Logitech Squeezebox Boom) can't be metered like that.

OldSchool, I bet AT&T is still debugging their crappy metering system. They have less than a month to work out the kinks.
 
spacing guild said:
When I signed up for AT&T 6MB DSL in Nov. last year, they bragged about no download cap, also.
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yes but the 28 page TOS agreement that no one bothers to read most likely said they're allowed to change their services at any time without anything you can do about it, except maybe letting you out of any 24 month commitment that you might have.
 
sfsuphysics said:
yes but the 28 page TOS agreement that no one bothers to read most likely said they're allowed to change their services at any time without anything you can do about it, except maybe letting you out of any 24 month commitment that you might have.
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That last part is huge. They should allow one to break the contract if they change the terms. But then again, like you said, they're huge ToS could say they can change the terms, steal your first-born child, etc., and most people wouldn't even have read about it to say "no".
 
I have a pfSense box at the front of my network so I can track it that way. I just wanted to see if their assessment of my usage greatly differed from that.
 
i'm trying to see how much i can download.

last month, i topped 150gb.

I will try to continue to max out my bandwidth just to spite them.
 
dr.kevin said:
i'm trying to see how much i can download.

last month, i topped 150gb.

I will try to continue to max out my bandwidth just to spite them.
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Run BitTorrent all day. And download, delete, download, delete, etc. various Linux builds. :cool:
 
Pretty sad this bandwidth shit is supposed to activate in a week and I still haven't received anything in the mail or email and when I log into www.MyUsage.att.com I still get a message that the service is down.

"The U-verse data measurement report is currently under construction. When completed, you will be notified if your usage exceeds the allowance. Until that time, U-verse customers should not be concerned about their usage patterns for billing purposes.

To learn more about how to manage your usage, please visit www.att.com/internet-usage"

I may be switching from AT&T U-Verse very soon...
 
I just wish I had Comcast to switch to when ATT implemented these caps in may.. That being said I wish ATT actually offered DSL or Uverse in my area :-/ All i have is a half ass verizon wireless service capped at 20 gigs.
 
[AK]Zip;1037166252 said:
Pretty sad this bandwidth shit is supposed to activate in a week and I still haven't received anything in the mail or email and when I log into www.MyUsage.att.com I still get a message that the service is down.

"The U-verse data measurement report is currently under construction. When completed, you will be notified if your usage exceeds the allowance. Until that time, U-verse customers should not be concerned about their usage patterns for billing purposes.

To learn more about how to manage your usage, please visit www.att.com/internet-usage"

I may be switching from AT&T U-Verse very soon...
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I checked that out too, got the same message, and no mail from AT&T about the cap.

I'm trying to see if FIOS is in my area. I live in LA, you'd think they'd want to put it in these affluent coastal cities. But the stupid website can't find my address so it looks like i'll have to call them. The only other option here is Time Warner.
 
[AK]Zip;1037166252 said:
Pretty sad this bandwidth shit is supposed to activate in a week and I still haven't received anything in the mail or email and when I log into www.MyUsage.att.com I still get a message that the service is down.

"The U-verse data measurement report is currently under construction. When completed, you will be notified if your usage exceeds the allowance. Until that time, U-verse customers should not be concerned about their usage patterns for billing purposes.

To learn more about how to manage your usage, please visit www.att.com/internet-usage"

I may be switching from AT&T U-Verse very soon...
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That's cold! :mad:


Dear AT&T Customer;

Please don't worry about overages, use as much as you want...we'll just let you know how much you've gone over...and bill you for it, just as soon as we get off our greedy butts and get around around to it.
Notice that until further notice you ca not log into www.MyAbusage.att.com and check your usage, this (in)convenience is solely for our benefit and not yours.

Remember, do not be concerned about your data usage until it's too late.

Love ya like a cell mate

AT&T
 
That is about as accurate as it gets, but as far as I know until that site is usable they don't have anything to stand on in trying to charge me more for usage or even send me a warning so I guess I will continue doing what I am doing until the time comes.
 
[AK]Zip;1037168074 said:
That is about as accurate as it gets, but as far as I know until that site is usable they don't have anything to stand on in trying to charge me more for usage or even send me a warning so I guess I will continue doing what I am doing until the time comes.
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And then when they do that you'll be calling shens. If I were you I wouldn't trust their system anyways, get yourself a ddwrt router and monitor your own bandwidth. Failure to inform oneself is not an excuse. In the end you are responsible for your own usage so I would be pro-active.
 
I already have a router that keeps track of my usage so I know how much I use. The thing is that I hear that their system was incredibly inaccurate showing differences of up to 20%.
 
mynamehere said:
That's cold! :mad:


Dear AT&T Customer;

Please don't worry about overages, use as much as you want...we'll just let you know how much you've gone over...and bill you for it, just as soon as we get off our greedy butts and get around around to it.
Notice that until further notice you ca not log into www.MyAbusage.att.com and check your usage, this (in)convenience is solely for our benefit and not yours.

Remember, do not be concerned about your data usage until it's too late.

Love ya like a cell mate

AT&T
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Dear AT&T Customer,

Thanks for the $10,000,000,000 in net profits we make every year we make off of you. Sure is a lot of money isn't it? But it's certainly isn't enough money to make us improve our networks or anything; that would cost at least a hundred kajillion grillion dollars, so we're just making pennies by comparison.

Rest assured we are making every effort to fight off government regulation to ensure our continued abusing of your sweet, tight anus. We have an army of people convinced that "stopping us from screwing you" would be the same as "OMG LENIN, STALIN AND HITLER COMBINED IT'S 1984 ALL OVER AGAIN ORWELL SAVE US!"

If you need a tool demonstrates how little you get for your money, please visit www.MyHopelessLament.att.com . And don't try anything funny. We're accounting for every byte you use, and even some ones you don't.

Thanks again!

-AT&T
 
What a rip off.

With my Verizon FIOS 25mb/per second download speed it doesn't take me long to reach 150GB.

Glad I have Verizon FIOS. :)
 
Between myself and my roommate we probably run through 500GB in downloads a month. On my main PC here I show 30gb/270gb ul/dl for April, that doesn't count my other computers, 360, roommate's PC and PS3 (although the PS3 may not be using much lately). I do subscribe to the best internet I can get (though it still doesn't meet the FCC's definition of broadband), and if they feel the need to limit me beyond that I guess I'd probably just cancel my service however far into the month their bandwidth cap lasted me and ask for the pro-rated amount back.
 
Yeah. The usage page still being down 2 days before the cap starts is real convenient. I doubt I hit the 250 cap, but would still be good to know where I stand. The cap pretty much kills most plans people might have to cancel tv service and just subscribe to hulu and netflix.
 
odoe said:
Yeah. The usage page still being down 2 days before the cap starts is real convenient. I doubt I hit the 250 cap, but would still be good to know where I stand. The cap pretty much kills most plans people might have to cancel tv service and just subscribe to hulu and netflix.
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I wish it was a 250 GB cap (like Comcast). It's only 60% of that; 150 GB. :mad:
 
They already do this where I live, I pay extra to have the cap set at 120gb, if I go over it they either charge me extra or cripple my non-domestic traffic. The worst thing is there is no alternative to dsl since fiber optic cable hasn't been connected in most of the city.
 
You know the only thing that will stop this is CO-OPs. Just like with power in my area, the people own the company, any profit at the end of the year is reinvested or refunded.

Greedy ass clown providers.
 
I just got my bill for the past month. It's over $60 for DSL and basic phone service. WTF?! Ridiculous. :mad:
 
beowulf7 said:
I just got my bill for the past month. It's over $60 for DSL and basic phone service. WTF?! Ridiculous. :mad:
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I haven't had a landline phone since 2002, bit back when I did I recall it being almost $60 a month just for the basic phone service alone (without long distance).

This was the biggest reason I just dropped it.
 
odoe said:
Yeah. The usage page still being down 2 days before the cap starts is real convenient. I doubt I hit the 250 cap, but would still be good to know where I stand. The cap pretty much kills most plans people might have to cancel tv service and just subscribe to hulu and netflix.
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Think this is a coincidence?

They WANT to stop people from using these services.
 
All consumers have to do is vote with their wallet, the more customers AT&T lose, the better off everyone are.
 
I ended up switching back to Charter as well, but I opted for a business plan. This should keep me off the cap radar and I should get better trouble resolution too. (should being the key word)

I trust Charter's uptime so much that I went ahead and splurged on a 4G mobile hotspot, to serve as a backup at home and also set me up on the road.

Bye-bye AT&T..
 
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