Any of you use AT&T for your home Internet service? Well you better start paying attention to your usage because it looks like the company will impose data caps on its DSL and U-Verse Internet services. According to DSL Reports, DSL users will “enjoy” a 150GB monthly cap, while U-Verse users will get 250GB. Users will be charged an overage fee of $10 per 50GB, but only if they’ve exceeded the cap three times.
While some people feel that these caps are pretty lenient, I believe that’s just short term thinking. Data caps get in the way of innovation and restrict what users can do with the Internet. Streaming HD games, movies, and television is becoming more common all the time. The value of services like Hulu, Netflix, and Onlive takes a dive if customers can’t take advantage of their unlimited offerings due to data caps.
When you throw in the American telecom industry’s general lack of competition and carriers unwilling to spend money to fatten their data pipes, the caps seem even more bogus. Having said that, I know that most users aren’t aware of their usage and don’t care about bandwidth caps or shaping. What do you think of AT&T’s upcoming practice? Is it outrageous? Or are you fine with it?
Oddly enough their UVerse TV isn't consumed in your cap…eventhough it's on the same pipe. Just another way to get people funneled into their pay tv service.
Congestion on dsl is laughable though. There isn't a shared loop there since you have a connection to the CO which then goes out to the backbone and on ATT that would be unimpeded due to their size. See uverse funneling.
I wouldn't call it odd. I think it's bs.
@Ray
Yeah BS is right. Comcast and Charter don't charge for passing their soft caps and will only throttle or send a notice if your node is incredibly busy.
Less of an issue if any with Docsis 3.0 upgrades
I'm not a fan of this at all, I have some big issues with this because it will only limit the possible growth of unlimited usage plans for other services dealing with video and games. It also sets a dangerous precedent for the future of internet service plan costs.