Bandwidth Cap Analysis: Why Bandwidth Caps Are Robbery

[DonNewcomb]

I think one thing to consider is that ISPs make more money having 4 customers than just one. Say I lived in an apartment and got together with the three neighbors adjacent to my apartment. If they each give me, say $15/mo, I'll get the 24 Mbps Internet service and let them have the WPA key. They get a deal at $15/mo and I get a deal. As long as no one does anything illegal everyone is happy, except the ISP who is now facing 4x the traffic for a single charge. By placing a cap on the bandwidth the ISP is making this scenario less attractive. I now can't be sure that one of my neighbors is not a bandwidth hog. Unless I implement my own throttling and capping the one could run my scheme into the red.

The other thing is that the ISPs want to discourage practices like running SMB and RFS over the WAN.

I don't really object to caps as long as they are well above what I would reasonably be expected to use.

[DK88]

Just before I switched to U-verse, when the 150GB cap was implemented, my DSL went waaay over the limit (I think over 500GB) and resulted in a huge bill.

I know this is, like, my opinion, man-- but I think the 150GB is too low a cap for DSL, and 250 would be too low for U-verse.  I'd consider my household average-- not too much downloading (no bulk torrenting or such), a lot of internet usage, and two game consoles running online multiplayer games and Netflix-- and I know that Netflix alone eats up quite a few GBs pretty fast.  Netflix by default will run streaming video in HD when possible, so if you're watching a couple TV shows/movies a day, your allowance is up by the first week of the month.

[jdkII]

While that is true we are faced with another problem in your beloved free enterprise.  AT&T and Verizon have a monopoly and are fixing pricing and policy to match each other so we don't have competition or freedom of choice.  You can't get great nation wide coverage accept through the big capitalist monopolies.  We need some Government regulatory protections.  People want to let everything up to the Corporations with little or no regulations.  This is one of the million reasons we are forced to control those who will not control themselves.  All this just to get an even and fair playing field. AT&T sucks.

[jdkII]

You are falling for a load of crap with your "data hogs" comment. There is no such thing as a data hog. AT&T put our that crap and you are swallowing it and spitting it back into our faces. AT&T puts our products that use the data and then we are penalized for using it? They advertise about surfing the we and video conferencing and we are supposed to be "data hogs" for actually using it? Over?

[jdkII]

Yes that is how Capitalism works.  Capitalism is like Cancer...there is no cure and you have to live with it and manage it.  If you let Cancer or Capitalism to its own device they both kill you (the host).  Both will take advantage of an unguarded situation and blank you every single time.

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

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jdkII wrote:

While that is true we are faced with another problem in your beloved free enterprise.  AT&T and Verizon have a monopoly and are fixing pricing and policy to match each other so we don't have competition or freedom of choice.  You can't get great nation wide coverage accept through the big capitalist monopolies.  We need some Government regulatory protections.  People want to let everything up to the Corporations with little or no regulations.  This is one of the million reasons we are forced to control those who will not control themselves.  All this just to get an even and fair playing field. AT&T sucks.

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I'm not sure what you are talking about, but I think you need to be on the Wireless forum.  This is the forum for U-verse customers.

[xexyl]

I assume you refer to me (i seem to remember mentioning data hogs but even if I didn't I have used the idea in the past). I'm not even sure why I'm bothering to respond, but here we go. Data hogs. Do you know what I'm even getting at? You think you understand it (what I meant) but you likely do not. Why? Because there's many interpretations (and the fact I wasn't referring to any specific one also is amusing), that's why. I should point out that I don't like caps either. But fact is there's a lot of variables. AT&T invented data hog concept? Really? I'm calling nonsense on that one. Whether they use it or not is another story. But considering there's definitions outside of telecommunications (or interpretations)... And while it isn't the same exact thing, I'm reminded of backscatter. I'm also reminded of so many network administrators failing to control spam, being an open relay, running unpatched software and other things. But you know something? That is what we call LIFE. It's not always easy, it's not always fair and that's how it is. Either deal with it or don't. But fact is, resources are not unlimited in any way. Not just technology but real life. Water. Oxygen. Food. Bandwidth isn't any different. If it was then we'd all have OC's fed to our homes. Or while we're at it, let's go beyond OCs! Good luck with that.

[jdkII]

At&t does not buy bandwidth the same way you do.  At&t is the bandwidth supplier and you are getting bandwidth from a company playing the bandwitdh game with you.  I am an ISP supplying websites to companies and I am on servers that have no caps and charge me nothing no matter how much bandwidth I use.  I could go buy many other servers that do charge for bandwitdh because some other companies are playing the bandwidth game.

[jdkII]

Also, AT&T themsleves put out products (smart phones with apps like family tracking and navigation, business services like VOIP, movies you can rent from U-verse and others) that use more and more bandwidth all the time.  Then they have the nerve to put out propaganda like calling us "data hogs" and "data abusers" just for using the very products they put out that use the data?  How stupid do they think we are?

[xexyl]

So since they're the supplier, that means they can supply unlimited in throughput, amount and all that then ? Where can I get that deal? Anyway, you say they won't charge you but if you used so much that it saturated other customers (or even cpu load really high) I bet they wouldn't be so kind. Tell me, what's their throughput, average even, and then tell me how much you use per month or even less than a month? Actually. Don't. I don't care any more and I have far more interesting things to do. But shortly: resources aren't unlimited whether you believe they are or not.

[dustinTh]

Yea 250 GB for U-Verse how many people have U-Verse? I am capped at 150 GB. I watch netflix in my spare time and download an occasional game then I am over the 150 GB without knowing how to fix it because I have been doing the same routine for so long it gets annoying when I keep getting emails that I am at 90% when they dont tell me how to do anything about it just bill me $10...

P.S. Before someone tells me to ask them... I have plenty times they always send me to a website that comes up as an error and takes them an hour and 7 transfers to do absolutely nothing.

[JefferMC ACE - Wizard]

I assume they sent you to the link below?

http://www.att.com/esupport/internet/usage.jsp

This will give you some idea of how your usage adds up.  The easy answer would be to quit using it when you get the e-mail.

AT&T reported "We now have 6.8 million total U-verse subscribers at both video and high speed Internet" in their Q2 financial reports.

[ScottMac]

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jdkII wrote:

Also, AT&T themsleves put out products (smart phones with apps like family tracking and navigation, business services like VOIP, movies you can rent from U-verse and others) that use more and more bandwidth all the time.  Then they have the nerve to put out propaganda like calling us "data hogs" and "data abusers" just for using the very products they put out that use the data?  How stupid do they think we are?

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U-verse delivered video products (and U-verse voice) do not count toward the "bandwidth consumed" number ... only Internet.

U-verse (phone and video) are carried on separate networks (separated at the Central Office to / from their respective networks).

[AKS1234]

OK so let me get this crystal clear. Att says you can send (1000) 1 page emails 75 movies to hit the limit.  The info on that is a video really!!

First you cap us with a crappy limit. Then you charge for overages from what you just picked as a number. How can you change the contract we had to start with with out any other choice than to pay it or drop it.

How does ATT plan to keep customers and try to keep in the black. Oh ya that is right due to people like myself have no choice if I want to get any access to the net.

Thanks     

[Edited to comply with Guidelines] 

[JefferMC ACE - Wizard]

The bandwidth cap was announced 18 months ago.  It is still unenforced today.

What, exactly, are you upset about?

[RCSMG ACE - Master]

Maybe the caps are for specific customers (you know who you are), and if you don't fit into that group just do like the rest of us who haven't had caps imposed on.

[formercanuck]

Personally, I'd be more upset about being shown usage for the WAN side which might include DSL ATM overhead on tx/rx.

[sproctor61]

We just signed up, our install date is the 22nd.  I am concerned about the cap as well.  Our old provider could not give me a idea of my monthly usage with them, as they don't cap.  Has anyone been billed for a overage yet or are they still not billing people?