AT&T Embraces BitTorrent, Considers Usage-Based Pricing

Wired is running a story about AT&T's chief technical officer, John Donovan. He contrasts his view of BitTorrent and P2P in general against the controversial policies adopted by other ISPs. Donovan also explains why AT&T is considering usage-based pricing, citing the cost of network upgrades which only affect a small number of users. AT&T is expected to test the new pricing scheme later this year, which should give them plenty of time to see how Time Warner's customers respond to the idea. "'I don't view any of our customers, under any circumstances, as pirates -- I view them as users,' Donovan said. 'A heavy user is not a bad customer.' What he wants to do is gently encourage more efficient usage of his network, and usage-based pricing may be one of the ways that happens. Such measures may not even be necessary, as Donovan admits that users self-adjust their habits to take advantage of off-peak times. For instance, he said, BitTorrent on the company's network peaks around 4 a.m., when other traffic is at an ebb. Overall P2P traffic accounts for about 20 percent of the network's usage, Donovan said."

Re:Been Done

[Yer Mum]

No, this is rather like those night usage electricity tariffs for washing machines, dishwashers, etc...

For home packages the ISP just needs to set a low peak cap during the evening and a high off-peak cap during the rest of the day (e.g. ADSL24 in the UK [adsl24.co.uk]).

Whatever protocol you use (BT, eMule, or HTTP download) doesn't interest the ISP, all they want to do is move non-interactive usage to off-peak times so that interactive usage during the evening works for everyone.

Most users will understand if things are set things out clearly at the start instead of suddenly receiving a fair usage warning e-mails when some mysterious unknown limit is hit. Indeed many P2P users may choose an ISP with this kind of peak/off-peak tariff as they know exactly what they signed up for.

Re:Why?

[Artuir]

What, you can't be arsed to even read the summary now?

Re:We have this in Australia...

[jonwil]

Even in America, bandwidth isn't free.
ISPs cant go on offering "unlimited" bandwidth anymore, they really have 3 choices: 1.Tell people that they only get a certain amount of bandwidth per month (i.e. the .au model) and charge people based on that number 2.Give people "unlimited" bandwidth (with no caps) but limit their usage (blocking BitTorrent for example) so they cant actually USE the bandwidth they are given (i.e. the Comcast model) or 3.Give people totally unlimited bandwidth with no restrictions on BitTorrent etc and watch as the ISP goes out of business because everyone is using far more bandwidth than they are paying for (and the ISP doesn't have enough money to pay its bandwidth bills)

Re:We are going backwards .

[Jurily]

I'm switching providers next month, my new connection will be 20M/20M, truly unlimited (already tested, thanks to my neighbor), for [4500 HUF = 28.8765 USD] a month.

And I'm not even in the developed part of Europe, either.

My current connection is 5M/1M, for [6900 HUF = 44.2773 USD].

Re:IDIOTS !! was that too hard ?

[JesseMcDonald]

So you also want to pay per mile of road you use?

You do pay for roads by the mile, more or less. Road maintenance is funded via gas taxes, so you pay more for driving more. The alternative model is toll roads, which also charge in proportion to distance traveled.