AT&T brings $70/month fiber to Kansas City but there's a major catch

[cliffordcooley]

In all seriousness, data caps don't serve any purpose.

Data caps serve as a time share mechanism. Much like shift work in factory that couldn't house all their workers at the same time. Everyone wants their data when they want it, and 1Gbit's of access rate will allow for it. Data caps will insure everyone manages their data instead of splurging 24/7. Sure no one likes data caps. But if they were not there, those of us who likes speeding would never take our foot off the accelerator. Data caps do serve a purpose, many of us choose to ignore why they exist.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

100% agree with you on this. It's like all these companies had to do is be dirty as heck and when they finally throw the customer a bone, guys like mike come in here and defend that kind of behavior. Since when is $70 a good price for internet or not having your data collected and distributed a privilege?

$70 is a terrible price for 3Mbps. It's a borderline rip off for 15Mbps (what I get for my $65) It's an AWESOME price for 1024 Mbps.

You say 'for internet' like every internet access plan is exactly the same. You're paying for the speed.

 

[Evernessince]

Data caps serve as a time share mechanism. Much like shift work in factory that couldn't house all their workers at the same time. Everyone wants their data when they want it, and 1Gbit's of access rate will allow for it. Data caps will insure everyone manages their data instead of splurging 24/7. Sure no one likes data caps. But if they were not there, those of us who likes speeding would never take our foot off the accelerator. Data caps do serve a purpose, many of us choose to ignore why they exist.

So essentially you're saying that data caps prevent the network from being bogged down by "accelerator" crazed people.

The problem with your theory is that it doesn't reduce congestion during prime time, the only time of the day where network usage is actually a problem. People getting back from work aren't going to adjust their relaxation time. If the network was never built to handle all those people at once, it's going to choke at this time of the day, data cap or not. So tell me, what's the point of throttling users during time periods in which the network in under-utilized anyways?

 

[Evernessince]

$70 is a terrible price for 3Mbps. It's a borderline rip off for 15Mbps (what I get for my $65) It's an AWESOME price for 1024 Mbps.

You say 'for internet' like every internet access plan is exactly the same. You're paying for the speed.

Hiho Captain Obvious!

$70 is a great deal perhaps in comparison to other american ISPs. That's not really a good measuring stick though, seeing as the market is pretty much carved up by the ISPs. You can keep on believing that your are getting a good deal until you actually start to look around the world and see that 3rd world countries have 1Gbps for $10 month. Fiber has been around for a long time and it's complete rollout in america is long overdue.

 

[cliffordcooley]

The problem with your theory is that it doesn't reduce congestion during prime time, the only time of the day where network usage is actually a problem.

I can't believe you said that, while ignoring the fact it would be worse if people were not restricted.

 

[RustyTech]

Does the 1TB apply to the entire family or to the connection is general? Yes, rhetorical question.
We see people using upward towards 500GB by themselves, how about a family of 4? Family of 10?

Having a data cap is a bad idea.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Hiho Captain Obvious!

$70 is a great deal perhaps in comparison to other american ISPs. That's not really a good measuring stick though, seeing as the market is pretty much carved up by the ISPs. You can keep on believing that your are getting a good deal until you actually start to look around the world and see that 3rd world countries have 1Gbps for $10 month. Fiber has been around for a long time and it's complete rollout in america is long overdue.

America is 3.1 Million square miles without Alaska. That's a lot of fiber.
3rd world countries have 1Gpbs connections for the entire country? I thought 3rd world meant they were still working on keeping the lights on. And $10/month? There those American Dollars or 3rd world country dollars?

Since I'd feel bad if I didn't fulfill my 'Captain Obvious' character....
"Grammar, the difference between knowing you're sh!t and knowing your sh!t."

 

[captaincranky]

Does the 1TB apply to the entire family or to the connection is general? Yes, rhetorical question.
We see people using upward towards 500GB by themselves, how about a family of 4? Family of 10?

Having a data cap is a bad idea.

1 TB I doable in a corporate setting, or possibly even a small business setting. OTOH, an individual using over 400GB of data a month, really needs to lay off illegally torrenting movies, music, and porn, and do something else for the last few days of the month.

America is 3.1 Million square miles without Alaska. That's a lot of fiber.
3rd world countries have 1Gpbs connections for the entire country? I thought 3rd world meant they were still working on keeping the lights on. And $10/month? There those American Dollars or 3rd world country dollars?

Theoretically, since the American dollar is at , or near, the strongest currencies in the world, that would make the exchange rate for dollars very favorable. So, if we weren't paying for corporate jets for millionaires used to schedule conferences in the Bahamas, outrageous salaries, and wall to wall road block advertising on all the major networks, we should be paying relatively LESS for internet, speaking directly to the exchange rate.

 

[Darth Shiv]

It doesn't cost them more money to deliver more data. They only pay a fixed cost when the network requires an upgrade, otherwise an underutilized network is just wasting money. If they cannot deliver 1 Gbps speed, why bother listing if you're just going to cap it anyways?

If you are talking localised, you are correct (e.g. to your neighbour who is also AT&T) but for uplink, actually yes it does cost more. They don't own all the pipes for their service across the globe. For overseas connections for example, they pay for bandwidth allocations.

In principal, AT&T could have arrangements where they are not charged for bandwidth to/from other carrier customers. I don't know all cases in practice but it is possible that to other states, cities etc, they do pay for bandwidth allotments.