AT&T Monthly Caps & Cutting The Cable

[sholling]

With so many here cutting the cable I thought I'd pass this on. According to DSLReports AT&T is going to be the first major US DSL internet service provider to cap monthly downloads. For now the caps are high enough that the only ones likely to get hit by overages are users of streaming movie services however I'll be shocked if the caps don't drop to half the current level over the next couple of years. And I'll be equally shocked if the rest don't follow suit soon. How many 1080i moves is that per month? I don't think I'll be investing in Netflix stock anytime soon. Full Report

This is how it will work: only users who exceed the new usage cap three times -- across the life of your account, not per month -- will be forced to pay these new per byte overages. Overages will be $10 for every 50GB over the 150 GB or 250GB limit they travel.

This is the same ISP that once flirted with the idea of charging Amazon, Google and other large Internet companies for access to AT&T's DSL customers. Shades of AOL.

 

[its phillip]

AT&T blows. So glad I didn't switch to U-Verse. My ISP has no monthly caps on data and doesn't charge for hardware/installation like AT&T wanted to.

 

[Hi Ho]

AT&T is not the first to do this Comcast started doing this a couple years ago with a 250GB cap. I find this trend to be disturbing.

Why do these companies feel that they must limit the possible uses of the internet instead of expanding their network to meet demand. Imagine if you bought a car and the manufacturer said you could only drive 200 miles a week. Why? No reason. We just feel like charging you extra.

That's how absurd these caps are. They are nothing more than a money grab. We are moving backwards here in the US while places like Korea enjoy 100mbps down AND up for less then what we pay for a capped 16mbps down/3mbps up. It's pathetic!

By 2012 Koreans Will Get 1Gbps Broadband Connections

I feel lucky I don't live in an area served by one of the giant ISPs. My local ISP has no caps but I still get nowhere near the speeds enjoyed by those in many other countries.

 

[sholling]

AT&T is not the first to do this Comcast started doing this a couple years ago with a 250GB cap.

AT&T is the first large DSL ISP to set caps. In their case AT&T chose not to invest in fiber optics and instead pocketed all of the tax incentives that they've been given for building out upgrades over the last 50 years. AT&T is just dreaming of their good old days when every customer paid a monthly fee for phone service, plus BS fees, plus per minute charges for calling much further than across the street. Now they're looking for ways to either get back to that business model or become a walled off AOL like AT&T-land where every seller pays them a fee for access to AT&T's customers.

 

[just-some-guy]

sign of the times. and it is only going to get worse.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I am not sure when but Comcast has and had a limit of 250gb of download with no fee for overage just termination of service, I think.

I think I may need to move to Korea Close to the DMZ

 

[just-some-guy]

I am not sure when but Comcast has and had a limit of 250gb of download with no fee for overage just termination of service, I think.

I think I may need to move to Korea Close to the DMZ

iirc. i can get an upgraded package. but i hardly use 2gb a month.

 

[highfigh]

I wonder if they plan to allow us to see how much bandwidth we have used in each billing cycle. Maybe some kind of big thermometer, like in the old cartoons- when it's getting close, a face appears at the bulb end, becomes swollen and red, sweating and frantic before popping.

 

[wormraper]

I wonder if they plan to allow us to see how much bandwidth we have used in each billing cycle. Maybe some kind of big thermometer, like in the old cartoons- when it's getting close, a face appears at the bulb end, becomes swollen and red, sweating and frantic before popping.

of course not. that would mean that we would KNOW when we are about to go over and cut back instead of just letting you silently slip over the limit and have a nice fat bill at the end of the month

 

[3db]

I'm not supporting this cap thing at all but I'm wondering.....realistically, how many flicks espically HD flicks can one stream before the cap goes into effect?

 

[GO-NAD!]

You guys aren't alone facing this issue. We're facing the same cr@p up here.

http://www.cbc.ca/money/smallbusiness/story/2011/02/08/f-dianne-buckner-internet-usage-based-billing.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/03/01/clement-talks-ubb.html

I guess it really is two issues -
1) Should people who up/download miniscule amounts of data have to subsidize those who are "bandwidth hogs".
2) Is the actual price per Mb fair? Are all users being gouged?

Personally, I use very little bandwidth. I'm a bit underwhelmed by Netflix's offerings up here, so I'm not bothering with that. I also don't do any music downloading. So, usage based billing would be in my favour - although the actual prices charged per unit of data seem to be out of line to me.

 

[highfigh]

of course not. that would mean that we would KNOW when we are about to go over and cut back instead of just letting you silently slip over the limit and have a nice fat bill at the end of the month

OK, but I refuse to spend $100/mo on my cell phone plan and to save money, especially after accumulating a ton of "rollover minutes that never go away but somehow always do", I switch to a lower number plan. Since they always remove some of the rollover minutes when I need them, I always end up with a bill that shows me going over the total allowed. How they time this so accurately, I don't know. I tell them that I think it's wrong that they do this and that I know the customer survey showed ATT coming in dead last and that I have no problem taking my cell phone and internet business somewhere else, so they always remove some of the charges and make sure to ask if i have been completely satisfied, blah, blah, blah. They'll end up doing the same thing with internet use. They'll never go to a true "pay for actual use" plan because they can grab more money if they have plateaus.

As they say, "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission".

 

[3db]

OK, but I refuse to spend $100/mo on my cell phone plan and to save money, especially after accumulating a ton of "rollover minutes that never go away but somehow always do", I switch to a lower number plan. Since they always remove some of the rollover minutes when I need them, I always end up with a bill that shows me going over the total allowed. How they time this so accurately, I don't know. I tell them that I think it's wrong that they do this and that I know the customer survey showed ATT coming in dead last and that I have no problem taking my cell phone and internet business somewhere else, so they always remove some of the charges and make sure to ask if i have been completely satisfied, blah, blah, blah. They'll end up doing the same thing with internet use. They'll never go to a true "pay for actual use" plan because they can grab more money if they have plateaus.

As they say, "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission".

Wow that sounds like Bell Canada up here. We once accepted some free trial channels on XpressVu and Bell told us that we would be charged but would have the charges revoked if we declined them at the end of the trial. Well it took a few monthes for Bell to finally wipe clean the charges by refunding us.

Does it have to be this difficult?

 

[MDS]

Everyone would like the ideal of unlimited data usage at low to near zero cost both for our home internet connections as well as for our cell phones. But, the reality is it costs the providers boat loads of money to constantly upgrade their infrastructure. Better to charge more to those who use the most rather than hit everyone with high fees.

I pay for the lowest data cap for my cell phone on AT&T. It is $15 for 2 MB and so far I haven't exceeded it in any month. I thought I might be always surfing the web on my phone when I am out but it turns out I just don't use it all that much.

I do think there should be 'rollover data' like rollover minutes so you could be frugal in the first few months and accumulate more data rights so you could use it more heavily the next month. I doubt they will ever adopt such a plan though and if they did, the rollover data would expire every rolling 12 months just as it does for rollover minutes.

 

[yepimonfire]

With so many here cutting the cable I thought I'd pass this on. According to DSLReports AT&T is going to be the first major US DSL internet service provider to cap monthly downloads. For now the caps are high enough that the only ones likely to get hit by overages are users of streaming movie services however I'll be shocked if the caps don't drop to half the current level over the next couple of years. And I'll be equally shocked if the rest don't follow suit soon. How many 1080i moves is that per month? I don't think I'll be investing in Netflix stock anytime soon. Full Report



This is the same ISP that once flirted with the idea of charging Amazon, Google and other large Internet companies for access to AT&T's DSL customers. Shades of AOL.

thats not really that big of a deal IMO, comcast has the same 250GB cap. 250GB is really a lot of data even for those who do stream video. unless your streaming 2-3 HD movies a day every day from netflix it more then likely won't go over. i do think having a cap is stupid, especially in this day and age.

 

[yepimonfire]

I am not sure when but Comcast has and had a limit of 250gb of download with no fee for overage just termination of service, I think.

I think I may need to move to Korea Close to the DMZ

they don't have fees, they will send you a letter with your bill several times before they threaten to terminate the service. i seriously doubt comcast would terminate something that brings in money though

 

[sholling]

Everyone would like the ideal of unlimited data usage at low to near zero cost both for our home internet connections as well as for our cell phones. But, the reality is it costs the providers boat loads of money to constantly upgrade their infrastructure. Better to charge more to those who use the most rather than hit everyone with high fees.

Bandwidth is actually dirt cheap for the telcos. I know I'd love to be able to sell all I wanted of a product with a 90% profit margin.

http://www.dslprime.com/dslprime/42-d/4148-costs-and-caps

Bandwidth costs in the U.S. are between 2% and 5% of what we pay for broadband, a very minor part of the cost. So when the Washington Post suggested "It's expensive to run a broadband network," as a legitimate reason to block Netflix and other video I thought to revisit the actual numbers.

Broadband is an extraordinarily profitable service. Top Wall Street analysts John Hodulik of UBS and Craig Moffett of Bernstein both report broadband margins of 90% based on official company filings. My own figure is more like a 75% margin because I allocate additional costs, but either implies running a broadband network is actually inexpensive in relation to the price charged.

More here.

 

[audiofox]

I think this push is less about bandwidth usage than it is a "prevent defense" against content providers that compete with AT&T, TWC, etc for their other core services (ie, cable TV, PPV, premium channels)-if they charge for "excessive" bandwidth usage, and the only way to exceed those limits is to stream video with a service like Netflix, they accomplish their goal without having to make it an overt attack against those content providers-a back door defense, if you will. Since they need much of the same infrastructure for these core services, I tend to agree with Sholling in that the infrastructure cost to the providers is not the issue-having the infrastructure for CATV services gives them much of the high cost infrastructure (ie, fiber and/or cable lines and the equipment/facilities required to support those lines) they also need for internet services.

 

[highfigh]

Wow that sounds like Bell Canada up here. We once accepted some free trial channels on XpressVu and Bell told us that we would be charged but would have the charges revoked if we declined them at the end of the trial. Well it took a few monthes for Bell to finally wipe clean the charges by refunding us.

Does it have to be this difficult?

The harder is it to get it back, the fewer people are willing to jump through the hoops. I just had ATT wireless reduce my bill by $195 for overages because the person on their end the last time didn't tell me that my rollover minutes wouldn't come with my when I changed plans, DirecTV reduced the charges because I'm not going to pay $100/month with no pay channels or PPV (only HD service and normal programming with 4 receivers) and after my ATT DSL gateway took a dump, the customer retention person removed the normal charges for that and also told me about the promo for rates.

They want our business but they want us to work for it, apparently.

 

[MDS]

They want our business but they want us to work for it, apparently.

I learned that recently with Time Warner. I called to ditch HBO, Cinemax, and the 4 channel Encore Movie package because I find that there is rarely anything to watch. I said I want to reduce my expenses and the customer service rep offered me an $89 deal for the same digital cable/HD service I had before (down from $109).

So they can charge less, but they won't unless you call.