AT&T To Introduce Broadband Caps 538
rekenner writes "In the upcoming weeks, AT&T customers are going to start receiving notices that their broadband services are going to have a monthly cap, starting in May. DSL users will have a cap of 150 GB per month, while U-Verse users will have a more 'generous' cap of 250 GB per month. However, unlike other caps, it won't be until your third month of overage, on the life of the account, that you'll be charged an overage. Thanks, I guess."
What's average Netflix datarate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And once again... (Score:2, Insightful)
150? 250? You guys are getting off easy. They just added a cap up in Canada for Bell DSL at 20gb a month. Then expect you to pay like30-50 bucks for it.
90/150 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And once again... (Score:2, Insightful)
How exactly is it false advertising to tell users exactly how much bandwidth they can use and then allow them to use that amount of bandwidth? It was false advertising when the advertising said unlimited when it really wasn't. Now they're calling it limited and giving you what they say they will. Just because you want something different doesn't make what they're doing wrong.
Re:And once again... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the magnitude of the cap. It's that bandwidth - which is a momentary capacity, not a "month cycle" capacity - is being charged that way.
This ain't electricity or water, where there is a certain central pool quantity to draw from. It's on or off.
Add to this the fact that NONE of these dishonest fuckers in these companies give you a good way to track "usage", and it gets worse.
Add in the fact that they are all doing this not to "manage slowdowns" but instead to try to push people back into buying "on demand TV" and "premium cable TV packages with rental DVR" and it's clear: this is not what they say it is. This is pure greed on their part.
Re:What's average Netflix datarate? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the bright side, since so many companies (Netflix, Google, youtube, any "cloud computing" company with large data usage etc.) have built their business model around the assumption of easily available and cheap bandwidth, we might start seeing companies (i.e. entities with real money and legal power) suing each other to keep internet neutrality, rather than ordinary citizens trying to push it through representatives that still think it's got something to do with their household plumbing. Or if not, at least it'll give up-and-coming broadband providers a better business justification to invest in their own infrastructure.
Fingers crossed that we're a step closer to opening up the relative crap-opoly that is ATT/Comcast in so many regions of this country.
Why do you tolerate this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't understand why americans tolerate ISPs enforcing ridiculous caps. From a swedish perspective it seems kind of backwards, I don't really know of any ISPs here that have caps and it really seems like a concept take from the early days of consumer broadband (mid-to-late 90s there were a few swedish ISPs that tried the whole thing with caps but they were pretty much forced into obscurity since most ISPs didn't cap).
Re:What's average Netflix datarate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what is to be done? (Score:5, Insightful)
False dichotomy.
There is a third answer: The people who supply the pipes keep up with the current state of the art. They are not doing so. They are not reinvesting in their infrastructure and the result is lesser quality and rationing.
Frankly, what the telecoms charge for overages on caps is highway robbery. It has been demonstrated that it's simply cheaper to send a SSD via snail mail and *destroy the drive* after than it is to go over the ridiculous caps that are appearing in Canada. And we're starting to see this in the US as TFA indicates.
We here in the US threw tons of money at the broadband providers during the Clinton administration and all they did was give it out to their shareholders. They continue to refuse to reinvest, and prefer to kill the goose for short term gain. We are falling behind Europe and Asia in terms of broadband, and will soon be a backwater similar to Africa if the telecoms get their way.
This is what you get when you utterly refuse to regulate once the telecoms become regional monopolies or duopolies. There is no more competition, so the raping of the customer goes on.
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BM
Re:What's average Netflix datarate? (Score:4, Insightful)
I meant that the newer companies would be utilizing the judicial branch of our government more, rather than the (often intentionally) uninformed and ineffective legislative branch to address this issue.
This isn't about bandwidth, it's about usage (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wonder.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's average Netflix datarate? (Score:4, Insightful)
A cap is network neutrality.
Because they can't say "You can only use Netflix if you pay us a fee", they'll instead put a blanket cap on usage.
And that's exactly as it should be.
Re:And once again... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry buddy, but you're full of shit. AT&T actually removed the word "unlimited" from their broadband advertising months ago. Remains to be seen whether these new caps will be explicitly referenced in new advertising (I highly doubt they will be) but honestly I see no problem with doing so. You're not required to include every detail of your service in an advertisement, you just can't include false details. If a consumer makes bad assumptions and doesn't bother to learn what they're actually signing up for, that's their problem.
Re:I wonder.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Not really. All they have to do is say the cap applies to data sources external to the AT&T network, since they have to pay transit costs.
All AT&T sourced data -- servers directly on their network, such as their IPTV servers -- don't apply to the cap since it is all internal.
Re:What's average Netflix datarate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Net Neutrality?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's this got to do with Net Neutrality? It's throttling back traffic and charging for overage - it's a Business Model - not entirely unlike how they charge for Long Distance.
It's Net Neutrality because they are not throttling or capping their own competing services, while they are capping Netflix. AT&T has just announced that they, like Comcast, are the gatekeepers of the Internet, and have free reign to control how much you say, who you say it to, and where your information comes from.
Re:And once again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Silly consumer - You don't.
We all need to learn to ignore that whole YouTube fad thing and come to terms with the fact that only big Hollywood money can make "real" content. Just sit back, relax, have a can of government-permitted intoxicant, and watch whatever your push-content provider has decided to make available to you.
Re:What's average Netflix datarate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Possibly because this isn't really about bandwidth.
The same can be said of cable tv providers (Score:5, Insightful)
AT&T U-Verse traffic is not included in the cap.
AT&T not counting their U-Verse video traffic is effectively the same as Comcast not counting their video bandwidth too. It doesn't matter if the service provider delivers their own video content via IP multicast (U-Verse), RF (Comcast) or discs strapped to trained pigeons.
Any download cap by any ISP who also provides video service is anti-competitive.
Re:Slippery Slope? (Score:5, Insightful)
If - And I mean that as a really big "if" - You have the great fortune of having more than a single broadband ISP in your area, you might choose to switch between them when one misbehaves. When both demonstrate the same contempt for their customers, what then? Go back to dialup, crippling yourself just to teach 'em a lesson?
Market pressure only works when you actually have something resembling an open marketplace. When only two long-entrenched players offer what you need, they just take turns seeing who can screw you harder.
Re:What's average Netflix datarate? (Score:5, Insightful)
But Uverse video is NOT delivered the same way as Netflix, iTunes, and the rest... It's not competition; Uverse programming is "broadcast" in a very traditional sense, you watch what's on the stream coming down the pipe and while you have control over *your* stream you have little/no control over all the streams of content coming from the very center. They distribute a LOT of hardware and connectivity to make that all possible, and while I am not trying to defend them or over-hype their service, it is really fundamentally *not* just another source of IP information.
Netflix, hulu, and the rest need to realize that IP unicast from a central hub for TV programming is fundamentally flawed, and start aggressively peering with service providers like AT&T to get a content source *inside* the network where it won't be capped (and where, conveniently enough, its VERY VERY efficient since it saves gateway bandwidth for unique data services that actually NEED it.)
Re:Why do you tolerate this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Its because there are certain American's (who happen to be a large voting group) who confuse the idea of a competitive market with laissez faire capitalism.
This leads to the twisted logic that because competitive, free markets bring efficiency, lower prices, and innovation, any regulation of private enterprises is bad, even if there is barely a market due to government sanctioned monopolies.
Re:What's average Netflix datarate? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're arguing semantics. You apparently haven't been seeing the commercials about getting movies /before/ Netflix through U-Verse. U-Verse competes with Internet video services. They provide a mix of free samples and paid downloads on demand.
It doesn't matter if they deliver it by carrier pigeon, fleet of station wagons or multicast over twisted pairs of copper. They are providing the same demand based service in addition to their broadcast streams.
Not that it matters, but they also push a DVR service as well that can stream from a central DVR to STBs (setup-top box). The DVR's search feature integrates the broadcast lineup (so you can record it) and on demand offerings (so you can buy it).
Re:What's average Netflix datarate? (Score:5, Insightful)
A) None of the major IP video services use a single hub. They all run through massive proxy systems like Akamai. Content already lives very close to its end point.
C) AT&T isn't much more "inside" their own network then the likes of Netflix and Hulu already are via Akamai and such.
B) You can't get "inside" AT&T's network in the way you're talking about, at least not without paying extremely huge fees to AT&T that'd verge on a protection racket. And again, the difference isn't technically much different then what the major video streaming companies are doing today via Akamai. There is no big win there; The REAL issue is the last mile, which is exactly the same for AT&T as it is for Netflix et al.
AT&T isn't doing this to encourage competition to move to more efficient methods, nor are they doing it to address their own peering costs (already bought and paid for). It's an overt move to use their position as bandwidth provider to promote their content business...by disenfranchising the competition.