AT&T To Impose Caps, Overages [ Edited ]

[trparky]

Notices To Go Out This Week, Capping Begins May 2

Broadband Reports (aka DSLReports) has learned, and has confirmed with AT&T, that the company will be implementing a new 150GB monthly usage cap for all DSL customers and a new 250 GB cap on all U-Verse users starting on May 2. Starting on March 18 (this Friday) and continuing through March 31, AT&T users are going to be receiving notices informing them of the change in the company's terms of service, AT&T spokesman Seth Bloom confirms to Broadband Reports after we initially contacted him last Friday. According to Bloom, the cap will involve overage charges. However, only users who consistently exceed the new caps will have to deal with these charges. 

This is how it will work: only users who exceed the new usage cap three times will be forced to pay overages. Overages will be $10 for every 50GB over the 150 GB or 250GB limit they travel. AT&T claims their average DSL customer uses around 18GB a month, and these changes will only impact about 2% of all DSL customers -- who the company states consume "a disproportionate amount of bandwidth."

"Using a notification structure similar to our new wireless data plans, we'll proactively notify customers when they exceed 65%, 90% and 100% of the monthly usage allowance," AT&T tells us. The company also says they'll provide users with a number of different usage tools, including a usage monitor that tracks historical usage over time, and a number of different usage tools aimed at identifying and managing high bandwidth consumption services.

Regular readers will recall that this isn't AT&T's first experimentation with usage-based-billing. The company conducted trials of capped services and overages in Reno, Nevada and Beaumont, Texas in 2008. Those trials involved users facing caps ranging from 20GB to 150GB -- and per gigabyte overages up to $1 per gigabyte. The efforts were discontinued in early 2010. In contrast to those trials, which involved capturing nearly all users in an overage net -- this effort is aimed squarely at what AT&T considers consistently heavy users.

"We are committed to providing a great experience for all of our Internet customers," AT&T tells Broadband Reports. "We will communicate early and often with these customers so they are well aware of their options before they incur any additional usage charges," the company says. "Importantly, we are not reducing the speeds, terminating service or limiting available data like some others in the industry.
"

[lanbrown]

People wanted net neutrality, well, they got it.

It is funny that "cord cutters" promote their ideals and they are some of that 2% as they use the Internet for the majority of the content.  Cord cutting just got more expensive.

[trparky]

I'm not necessarily a "heavy" user but I have been known to use quite a lot of bandwidth.

First and foremost, I am not a file sharing fiend (I don't even use file sharing services due to the legality of using those service) and I don't suck up the usage of NetFlix either.  I occassionally use NetFlix maybe once or twice a month but never more than five times a month.  I do however have four users in the house and three of them are heavy Internet users.

This is most likely going to effect me since my household uses the Internet quite a lot for both downloading and online gaming.  Again, all downloads are legal content (usually from iTunes).

I have a feeling that when this goes down I'll be calling Time Warner in my area and dropping uVerse service.  I am NOT going to be paying for overages just because I have three heavy Internet users.  

[Loyal Servant]

Less than a week after I get set up AT&T is going to impost a CAP?

I guess I cancel Monday.

Too bad, I liked the service.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Exclusive-ATT-To-Impose-Caps-Overages-113149

[trparky]

This is a company that has continuously made bad business decisions and continuously alienates their customer base.

First AT&T Wireless with not sufficiently upgrading their wireless networks and then waiting until the "last minute" to do upgrades because the people complained of either slow data or massive amounts of dropped calls. Then another bout of alienation, low data caps for smart phone users. Now they are implementing caps with their DSL/VDSL Internet service users?

What is it with this company in which they are trying their very best to be the last place service provider? Who is in charge of this company? Business school rejects?

Seriously, this company has shot themselves in the foot so many times I'm surprised they have anything to stand on anymore. What are they standing on? Their bloody stumps?

[lanbrown]

People wanted net neutrality and they got it.

1)  How much transfer allotment do you need?

2) You don't think that the others are not doing the same?

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-Cable-Expands-Metered-Billing-101655

[lanbrown]

You don't think TWC and the others are not doing the same thing?

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-Cable-Expands-Metered-Billing-101655

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

I know that Comcast, Charter and some other ISP's already have internet caps in place.  I imagine that other ISP's who do not currently have caps, will head in the same direction. Perhaps this news isn't that tragic.

[Loyal Servant]

The backlash against TWC caused them to stop and backpedal.

Thing is... they are deploying DOCSIS 3 in my area and as of now have no cap and probably don't need it with their new found capacity.

Thing is, I actually liked UVerse.. a lot.

I am not willing to tolerate a cap however when there is someone else in town that is NOT capping.... they win.

It's the principle of the thing, I feel baited and switched because this is not something that was in place when I signed up a week ago.

[lanbrown]

They will be imposing caps, don't be naive and think that they won't.  That "capacity" in on a local side and not the larger footprint.  That capacity starts at the node to the subscriber and nothing more.  They still have to get data to the node and then you still have to get the Internet traffic to the Internet.  Think of the node as a DSLAM.

DOCSIS 3.0 does nothing but provide more capacity at a certain part of the network.

Go to TWC, but prepared for caps to hit there as well.  You cannot run from the inevitable.

[Loyal Servant]

They have every reason to do so now that their only competitor is doing it.

Thing is, they are actually using this as a selling point!

http://img7.imageshack.us/i/uversenocap.png/

See item#2, bad spelling and all.

From here:

http://www.att.com/u-verse/explore/resource-landing.jsp

Thing is, I just got installed and it cost them a heap of money to do it.

Now they have to come take it out and it's a big time loser for them.

2 techs 8 hours to install me is not cheap.

The problem is that too many people tolerate it until they get snagged.

While there is a show in town that is not playing these games I will use their service.

I am certain I will win the battle but lose the war.

It's a matter of principle... I signed up and less than a week later the terms change.

That's a bait and switch and while they are within that right I am within my rights to make it expensive for them.

[SomeJoe7777 ACE - Geek]

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lanbrown wrote:

People wanted net neutrality and they got it.

1)  How much transfer allotment do you need?

2) You don't think that the others are not doing the same?

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Time-Warner-Cable-Expands-Metered-Billing-101655

---

Net neutrality has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of total data caps, and to imply that it does is pure FUD.

By AT&T's own admission, the average DSL user uses 18GB of total data transfer per month, and they also state that only 2% of their customers will be affected by the total data cap.  Let's average that out and see exactly how much total data transfer AT&T will save on their network assuming that the caps cause everyone who is over the limit to no longer be:

We'll assume that the average user who exceeds the caps are very heavy downloaders, and exceed the cap by a decent amount (say 50GB).  For DSL, the cap is going to be 150GB, for U-Verse it's 250GB.  Let's assume this 2% of users uses 200GB on DSL and 300GB on U-Verse per month.

The total data over 100 users is then:

98 * 18 GB + 200 GB + 300 GB = 2264 GB.

Averaging that over 100 users is: 2264 / 100 = 22.6 GB per month.

Forcing the 2 users to observe the bandwidth cap makes the total data per month per user:

98 * 18 GB + 150 GB + 250 GB = 2164 GB.

AT&T reduces the total data transferred over the network by:

(2264 - 2164) / 2264 = 4.4 %.

The imposition of caps saves AT&T less than 5% of total data transferred on the network.  Combine that with the fact that no Internet Service Provider has ever once shown with hard data that there is any type of congestion issue, the conclusion is that the caps have absolutely nothing to do with the network capacity.

Instead, what the caps are for is a direct barrier to market for TV services delivered over the Internet, which directly compete with AT&T's own offerings.  It's plainly anti-competitive and a huge conflict of interest.

Stop professing the company line of FUD that includes the non-viable net neutrality argument as well as the congestion argument, because neither have any shred of truth.

[RCSMG ACE - Master]

Is the issue that most people are going to exceed the caps on a regular basis?  We have Netflix but watch it about two or three times a month.  I edit video and sometimes download and upload video footage.  I don't know how much bandwith I use and don't know how to find out.  But if we exceed the caps we won't be charged until we do it 3 times.

I won't be going to another provider because there is more at stake than just bandwith caps.  I guess everyone has to do what is best for them.  But if most of the other service providers are adding caps the subs will either change their change provioders to the one that doesn't have caps, change their internet useage, or pay more money.  IMO

[lanbrown]

It has everything to do with net neutrality.  The FCC slapped the hands of Comcast as they were trying to control bit torrent traffic.  So since they can't protect the network from the actions of a few from impacting all of the other subscribers, caps will be used.

There is a problem with your math, you think the 2% only use slightly more.  Know why AT&T Mobility imposed the caps?  Some of those 2% users well well above 100GB and some were above 200GB.  They were using their iPhoney as a hotspot for everything including an Xbox.

Your 50GB additional is way too low.

[RonV]

This stinks.  We are a family of 7 and we watch a lot of movies via the internet and our average usage is about 275 GB per month.  We are also paying about 65 a month for their 18 mbps plan.  To make things worse AT&T wont work with Level 3 which is the CDN that is the backbone for CDN's such as VUDU and Netflix.   I think I will be going down to their lower end plans because why pay for speed if it just gets you to the cap faster?

Also how can we trust them to truly monitor usage?  Comcast already has issues with their portal displaying different usage stats vs. the local router.  Why is this.  Because your router blocks inbound requests but Comcast's proxy still treats is as delivered data, and they still count this towards your bandwidth?  Also what about all the other useless internet crap such as flash or video ads that are forced on us though yahoo?  I've been lucky enough to have my own DNS that I can forward these requests to a dummy web site but what about those who can't?  This will also "bloat" your usage.

[Loyal Servant]

I never considered the fact that the Chinese are constantly bombarding firewalls looking for ways in.

That is surely going to count against your usage.

How can they accurately count what is 'YOUR' usage vs. unwanted ingress?

[SomeJoe7777 ACE - Geek]

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lanbrown wrote:

It has everything to do with net neutrality.  The FCC slapped the hands of Comcast as they were trying to control bit torrent traffic.  So since they can't protect the network from the actions of a few from impacting all of the other subscribers, caps will be used.

There is a problem with your math, you think the 2% only use slightly more.  Know why AT&T Mobility imposed the caps?  Some of those 2% users well well above 100GB and some were above 200GB.  They were using their iPhoney as a hotspot for everything including an Xbox.

Your 50GB additional is way too low.

---

Even if that's true, there's still no evidence at all of congestion.  Suppose those people use 500GB (double the limit).  Capping them still only reduces the total monthly bandwidth usage by around 20%, which still isn't significant enough to point to a capacity issue.

You, as many other people do, are confusing the concept of Net Neutrality with bandwidth management.  The two concepts have nothing to do with each other.  They are two different things with two different stated purposes.

Caps are one method used for bandwidth management.  You use more bandwidth, you pay for it.

The concept of Net Neutrality states that there shall be no difference in the quality of service provided that depends on the contents of the packet.  The ISP should not discriminate against this traffic or that traffic because of any particular reason.  Discrimination of the traffic could be:

- Refusing to deliver a particular packet

- Delaying the delivery of a particular packet

- Modifying the contents of a particular packet

- Imposing additional costs to deliver a particular packet

None of these are the ISP's job.  There is no difference in cost to the ISP to deliver packet A vs. packet B, therefore there is absolutely no legitimate reason to discriminate against packet A but not packet B.

[lanbrown]

They can't tell what is requested and what is not.  The Chinese do not do full port scans; waste of time.  If they did, it would be 4MB of data.

Just wait for IPv6, ports scans will be a thing of the past as you will have the Internet squared and then some for your allocation.  A port scan would take a very, very longtime.

[lanbrown]

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SomeJoe7777 wrote:

---

lanbrown wrote:

It has everything to do with net neutrality.  The FCC slapped the hands of Comcast as they were trying to control bit torrent traffic.  So since they can't protect the network from the actions of a few from impacting all of the other subscribers, caps will be used.

There is a problem with your math, you think the 2% only use slightly more.  Know why AT&T Mobility imposed the caps?  Some of those 2% users well well above 100GB and some were above 200GB.  They were using their iPhoney as a hotspot for everything including an Xbox.

Your 50GB additional is way too low.

---

Even if that's true, there's still no evidence at all of congestion.  Suppose those people use 500GB (double the limit).  Capping them still only reduces the total monthly bandwidth usage by around 20%, which still isn't significant enough to point to a capacity issue.

You, as many other people do, are confusing the concept of Net Neutrality with bandwidth management.  The two concepts have nothing to do with each other.  They are two different things with two different stated purposes.

Caps are one method used for bandwidth management.  You use more bandwidth, you pay for it.

The concept of Net Neutrality states that there shall be no difference in the quality of service provided that depends on the contents of the packet.  The ISP should not discriminate against this traffic or that traffic because of any particular reason.  Discrimination of the traffic could be:

- Refusing to deliver a particular packet

- Delaying the delivery of a particular packet

- Modifying the contents of a particular packet

- Imposing additional costs to deliver a particular packet

None of these are the ISP's job.  There is no difference in cost to the ISP to deliver packet A vs. packet B, therefore there is absolutely no legitimate reason to discriminate against packet A but not packet B.

---

That is because they have continued to spend more and more money on network upgrades.  At some point, they need to do one of two things; caps or raise prices.  What would you rather have?  Price increases across the board or having that 2% paying more?

AT&T is working on 100GigE backhaul links to replace 10Gig and 40Gig links they currently have.

The congestion is not at the DSLAM but in the core.  If they are like other large ISP's, they are seeing 50% or over data growth year over year and at times over 100%.

So, you don't see congestion because they are trying to stay ahead of the curve, eventually you start to lose money as the money being spent on the upgrades is not being recouped before the next upgrade is required.

Your ideas of network administration is flawed, seriously flawed!  Comcast got sick of upgrading their network to accommodate that 2% and decided to do something about it and that was the traffic causing the problems and would invoke congestion like symptoms before congestion occurred.  The FCC didn't like that, so caps have been done.  So nothing is done to any of the traffic but now when people go over the limit, Comcast can easily do whatever they want to the customer.  The FCC under their net neutrality guidelines also allows traffic management to be used at times and that the ISP must be open about their policies.  That was the major issue that Comcast had; they were not open about it.

[antlive84]

How do I know how much data I am using per month?

Thanks for your help.

[trparky]

Apparently they will provide some kind of meter to measure bandwidth usage. But if it's anything like the bandwidth meter that AT&T has on the wireless side (which has been proven to be wildly inaccurate), I don't put much faith in AT&T.

[Loyal Servant]

Your right they do not do full port scans.

However, looking at my logs for the last fwe days I can see no less than at least 200+ requests each for ports 8080,1080,80,443,445, and the list goes on.

At one time I actually did graph this data on my router when we had TWC and they were talking caps a few years ago and it came out to something like 4 or 5 gigs a month at that time.

What I am seeing here in the logs on the iNID could add up to a couple hundred megs a week.

There are pages upon pages of data here... 222.66.235.174 (China..) is a repeat offender in the last 20 minutes.

Should AT&T customers have to pay for people in China scanning for proxy servers?

I understand why they are looking for proxy servers but all those bytes add up... and since as an AT&T customer you only get so many of those bytes you have to conserve them, right?

If I hit 251 gigs used I have to pay for the overage portion despite it being data not solicited or requested by me?

Yes I am splitting hairs...... but sicne we cannot reliably determine what data is yours and what is not yours why impose draconian caps?

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

SomeJoe, can UVRT be used to track internet only bandwidth usage?

Thanks!

[SomeJoe7777 ACE - Geek]

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texasguy37 wrote:

SomeJoe, can UVRT be used to track internet only bandwidth usage?

Thanks!

---

Yes, provided that all of your Internet-using devices like computers are off of one interface on the RG (such as Ethernet port 2 and/or wireless), and all DVR/STB devices are off of another interface on the RG (such as Ethernet port 1 and/or coax).  If a single interface (such as Ethernet port 3) contains both an STB and a computer, then I can't separate the two.

Looks like I will have to build this feature into UVRT so that people can argue with AT&T about their Internet usage.

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

LOL. You know that will happen.

[SomeJoe7777 ACE - Geek]

---

lanbrown wrote:

That is because they have continued to spend more and more money on network upgrades.  At some point, they need to do one of two things; caps or raise prices.  What would you rather have?  Price increases across the board or having that 2% paying more?

AT&T is working on 100GigE backhaul links to replace 10Gig and 40Gig links they currently have.

The congestion is not at the DSLAM but in the core.  If they are like other large ISP's, they are seeing 50% or over data growth year over year and at times over 100%.

So, you don't see congestion because they are trying to stay ahead of the curve, eventually you start to lose money as the money being spent on the upgrades is not being recouped before the next upgrade is required.

Your ideas of network administration is flawed, seriously flawed!  Comcast got sick of upgrading their network to accommodate that 2% and decided to do something about it and that was the traffic causing the problems and would invoke congestion like symptoms before congestion occurred.  The FCC didn't like that, so caps have been done.  So nothing is done to any of the traffic but now when people go over the limit, Comcast can easily do whatever they want to the customer.  The FCC under their net neutrality guidelines also allows traffic management to be used at times and that the ISP must be open about their policies.  That was the major issue that Comcast had; they were not open about it.

---

You're proving my point for me.

If year-over-year bandwidth increases are 50-100%, thus requiring continuous network upgrades, explain to me how the 2% of customers that I've shown that amount to a mere 20% of that bandwidth are to blame?  They can't be.  It means that 30-80% of the bandwidth increase is from increased use of the network across the board.

I have no problem with costs that are commensurate with usage.  But if that's what AT&T wants to do, then what should then happen is that the lightweight users' costs should go down.

If someone with Max internet can download 250GB per month for $45, then the person with Max Internet who downloads 20GB per month should pay about $5.  (Now that's an exaggeration, because there is a fixed overhead to provide the service in the first place).  But let's call it what it is.  If AT&T wants to implement usage-based billing, then implement it, and give the light users a price cut and charge the heavy users for what they use.  That's the way cell phone billing is priced.  I buy minutes based on how much I talk.  Why shouldn't I buy Internet service based on how much I use the network?

[lanbrown]

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SomeJoe7777 wrote:

You're proving my point for me.

If year-over-year bandwidth increases are 50-100%, thus requiring continuous network upgrades, explain to me how the 2% of customers that I've shown that amount to a mere 20% of that bandwidth are to blame?  They can't be.  It means that 30-80% of the bandwidth increase is from increased use of the network across the board.

I have no problem with costs that are commensurate with usage.  But if that's what AT&T wants to do, then what should then happen is that the lightweight users' costs should go down.

If someone with Max internet can download 250GB per month for $45, then the person with Max Internet who downloads 20GB per month should pay about $5.  (Now that's an exaggeration, because there is a fixed overhead to provide the service in the first place).  But let's call it what it is.  If AT&T wants to implement usage-based billing, then implement it, and give the light users a price cut and charge the heavy users for what they use.  That's the way cell phone billing is priced.  I buy minutes based on how much I talk.  Why shouldn't I buy Internet service based on how much I use the network?

---

No I'm not because your data is 100% unequivocally dead wrong.  You are guessing and estimating.

That 2% is more than 20%.  So you can say all you want, that it is only 20% according to your numbers, but when your numbers are wrong, it is pointless.

Some areas U-verse subscription has doubled year over year.  That same area though, the data growth has been over 500%.  So, your 20% theory is SERIOUSLY flawed.  Use actual number next time and you will find that the 2% is far higher than the 20% you are talking about.

So now you want tiered pricing?  That is what they are doing, the heavy users pay more.  Go above the cap and you pay more.

A test was run where an ISP offered more tiers and it didn't go over well.  People didn't know what their bill would be month to month.

If light users want a price cut, don't go with a MAX package when they hardly use it.  Sounds simple to me.

[SomeJoe7777 ACE - Geek]

---

lanbrown wrote:

No I'm not because your data is 100% unequivocally dead wrong.  You are guessing and estimating.

That 2% is more than 20%.  So you can say all you want, that it is only 20% according to your numbers, but when your numbers are wrong, it is pointless.

Some areas U-verse subscription has doubled year over year.  That same area though, the data growth has been over 500%.  So, your 20% theory is SERIOUSLY flawed.  Use actual number next time and you will find that the 2% is far higher than the 20% you are talking about.

So now you want tiered pricing?  That is what they are doing, the heavy users pay more.  Go above the cap and you pay more.

A test was run where an ISP offered more tiers and it didn't go over well.  People didn't know what their bill would be month to month.

If light users want a price cut, don't go with a MAX package when they hardly use it.  Sounds simple to me.

---

It doesn't matter how much more bandwidth those heavy users use.  I'm basing my computations on AT&T's numbers that were put out in the press release.  You're basing things on no hard data that we've seen.  This was my point in the beginning: AT&T claims there is a congestion problem but nowhere is the hard data that backs that up.  Put up the actual numbers that prove it otherwise it's simply corporate spin and bull claims.

What do you mean "so now I want tiered pricing" ?  Where did I say I didn't?  Nowhere.  My argument is not with the caps or the cost, my argument is with the falsification and wild claims of the reasons behind the implementation.

The reason for the caps is to be anti-competitive in the market against companies like NetFlix, Hulu, and anyone else whose product competes with AT&T's.  Plain and simple.

The reason is NOT:

- Net Neutrality

- Network Congestion

- Build out costs

All of those arguments are plain FUD.  AT&T wants to be anti-competitive and has a conflict of interest in implementing caps.  They have a track record of the same: They fought 3rd-party long distance carriers the same way back in the 80's, by attempting to impose ridiculous carrier fees on them until the government stepped in and broke up their little party.  If they're not careful, the same thing will happen here, and the government will split the IPTV company apart from the Internet company.

[lanbrown]

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Loyal Servant wrote:

Your right they do not do full port scans.

However, looking at my logs for the last fwe days I can see no less than at least 200+ requests each for ports 8080,1080,80,443,445, and the list goes on.

At one time I actually did graph this data on my router when we had TWC and they were talking caps a few years ago and it came out to something like 4 or 5 gigs a month at that time.

What I am seeing here in the logs on the iNID could add up to a couple hundred megs a week.

There are pages upon pages of data here... 222.66.235.174 (China..) is a repeat offender in the last 20 minutes.

Should AT&T customers have to pay for people in China scanning for proxy servers?

I understand why they are looking for proxy servers but all those bytes add up... and since as an AT&T customer you only get so many of those bytes you have to conserve them, right?

If I hit 251 gigs used I have to pay for the overage portion despite it being data not solicited or requested by me?

Yes I am splitting hairs...... but sicne we cannot reliably determine what data is yours and what is not yours why impose draconian caps?

---

It will be a non-issue as I believe that all they will keep track of is downstream and the upstream will be "free."  So while you get the port scanners, you don't get what you have uploaded, etc.  So if they don't count the upstream, you will come out ahead.

If you are really worried, when they roll out CGN, get a private IP.  Then you won't see those pesky port scans anymore.

What I wonder is how they will handle the MicroCell users.  I believe the traffic falls under the VoIP side, so it too might be a non-issue.

[kshusker]

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It will be a non-issue as I believe that all they will keep track of is downstream and the upstream will be "free."  So while you get the port scanners, you don't get what you have uploaded, etc.  So if they don't count the upstream, you will come out ahead.

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What makes you believe this? Every other provider I know of who has done one of these schemes charges and tracks for both up and download data.