More broadband caps in the US, AT&T starts today

Be glad you don't live in South Africa. Americans and EUropeans have luxury when it comes to broadband speed/access. In South Africa our ISP's rates 9Gb useage per month as abuse. If I was on a 150Gb p/month cap and had to pay $10 p/50Gb overuse I would jump with joy ! In South Africa we are still in stone age as far as speed concerned. in most parts of the country you are lucky to even get a 4mb ADSL, but in real world it rarely gets faster than 512k. Despite several new direct fibre cable links (in 2009, 2010 & 2012), more than 20Tb p/sec, we are still one of the slowest and most expensive when it comes to ADSL in the world.

Many people here doesn't even know about the existance of Youtube ! Our cellphone comapnies now offer 42Mb wireless (real world speeds of 24mb) on a 2.3Gb p/month cap !!!
 
As someone who works for an ISP and who has seen the changes made in the UK to the company i work for due to the cost of upgrading the network to host the services we are using today to the tune of around £1,000,000 a DAY, this doesn't really surprise me. Would you expect to use your gas, electric, telephone, car etc for a few hours a day and expect to pay the same as someone who uses it 24 hours a day? I think not, your bandwidth costs money to provide as do the support people you call FREE on 24/7/365 in my companies case if you need help with the service. If the cheap deals are gone welcome to reality and try to watch TV where it is generally best suited, on your TV, use a Digital Video recorder to record your shows.
 
Guest said:
Be glad you don't live in South Africa. Americans and EUropeans have luxury when it comes to broadband speed/access. In South Africa our ISP's rates 9Gb useage per month as abuse. If I was on a 150Gb p/month cap and had to pay $10 p/50Gb overuse I would jump with joy ! In South Africa we are still in stone age as far as speed concerned. in most parts of the country you are lucky to even get a 4mb ADSL, but in real world it rarely gets faster than 512k. Despite several new direct fibre cable links (in 2009, 2010 & 2012), more than 20Tb p/sec, we are still one of the slowest and most expensive when it comes to ADSL in the world.

Many people here doesn't even know about the existance of Youtube ! Our cellphone comapnies now offer 42Mb wireless (real world speeds of 24mb) on a 2.3Gb p/month cap !!!
Click to expand...

Seems like using a pigeon would be faster. =)
 
Here in New Zealand we have always known caps - in fact the fact that AT&T is lowering to 150GB blows me away - what I wouldn't give for such a large amount of data for an affordable price!

Until the last year or so most ISPs offered 3GB - 40GB (expensive!). As it is, with my ISP I get data in 25GB chunks, at NZD$30 a pack (currently about USD$24). Before this it was $12 for 10GB.

I think AT&T customers are pretty lucky...
 
Guest said:
Here in New Zealand we have always known caps - in fact the fact that AT&T is lowering to 150GB blows me away - what I wouldn't give for such a large amount of data for an affordable price!

Until the last year or so most ISPs offered 3GB - 40GB (expensive!). As it is, with my ISP I get data in 25GB chunks, at NZD$30 a pack (currently about USD$24). Before this it was $12 for 10GB.

I think AT&T customers are pretty lucky...
Click to expand...

I don't live in New Zealand and neither does anyone who currently lives in the U.S., so keep your bandwidth sob story to yourself.
 
ha ha

suck it down - only habitual thieves need 150GB.


some people have to live with 1GB :p
 
This is about making more money and little else. Otherwise, why not just throttle the 2% that are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth? Also, the additional 100GB cap room for U-Verse customers smacks of anti-competitive business practice.

Fortunately there are alternatives to AT&T, I switched to the Clear 4G plan last month and have 6 Mbs service with no data cap for $45 a month. Also, by purchasing the router up front I had the option of going with a month to month plan instead of a long term service agreement.
 
oh no not this, how could they take my internets, n0o0o0o.
Deal with it, in some areas, the max you will get is a 9gb cap, and here its already 150-250gb for you chops hahahaha.

Stop whining.
 
My complaint is AT&T implemented this half baked. Checking to see how my use compares using link provided in revised terms of service "under construction" and "do not be concerned" rather than usage data. Support could not get actual usage either. This is like have a cell phone plan only to find out usage when minutes are near the monthly limit.
 
Stop worrying about it.... if the limits end up being restrictive then it won't be long before you're able to buy a unlimited package similar to the way cell phone packages work. I'd like to know what I use before I care about this. Considering an HD movie is 5GB/2 hrs, 150GB a month is about exactly 30 movies, or 1 a day. Who even has time to watch a movie every day? And there's no way an MMO or anything else can reach that rate of usage.
 
I've been contacted by comcast twice and even shut off for exceeding their cap. Once I remind them that I pay 300usd a month between phone internet and tv from them they quickly turn it back on.
 
MilwaukeeMike said:
Stop worrying about it.... if the limits end up being restrictive then it won't be long before you're able to buy a unlimited package similar to the way cell phone packages work.
Click to expand...

I don't know much about cell phone policies, but I thought that AT&T doesn't offer unlimited plans anymore. I thought Verzion was ending theirs (maybe already did). Not sure about the others.
 
As an AT&T customer, I can tell you why I believe they are doing this. In the past 2 months, 8 AT&T sales people have been at my door trying to get us to switch to U-Verse. This is an attempt to get AT&T customers who currently just have a landline and DSL to switch to a Landline, Cell, DSL, and TV bundle for $125 a month. They spent money to upgrade areas so they can accommodate U-Verse and people already have phone, dsl, and satellite TV services that they like.
 
This is disturbing news! But I don't think this topic has much to do with me, for I think I'm having to live with caps, seeing that I'm a Comcast customer and I think they cap me out at or around 250Gig's per billing period.

Now I did see something that someone posted about this and it got me thinking. I think someone said something about "streaming video" off the Internet, as something that is added up towards a cap limit? I'm a total Hulu and Fancast and You Tube watcher, so ever time one of those sites streams video in my direction it's getting added up some how? Does that streaming video get added up and taken into consideration towards my possible 250 Gig per billing period limit?

I wonder if there is a monitoring tool one could use to keep track of all those Gig's of bandwidth being used, as to ensure one doesn't exceed their limits. If so, I want that tool!
 
What? those caps are NOTHING compared to what we have here in Australia, less than 3 years ago $100 per month would get you only 50GB p/m and if you use over the monthly capped, your internet speed gets slashed to 64kbps (no joke!) now since they changed the plans a bit I pay $90 for only 150GB per month but my speeds will still slash to dial up speeds after I go over the monthly limit.
 
Zen said:
Now I did see something that someone posted about this and it got me thinking. I think someone said something about "streaming video" off the Internet, as something that is added up towards a cap limit? I'm a total Hulu and Fancast and You Tube watcher, so ever time one of those sites streams video in my direction it's getting added up some how? Does that streaming video get added up and taken into consideration towards my possible 250 Gig per billing period limit?

I wonder if there is a monitoring tool one could use to keep track of all those Gig's of bandwidth being used, as to ensure one doesn't exceed their limits. If so, I want that tool!
Click to expand...

Yep, it counts.

There are lots of programs that will keep track of how much you download. Here is an example: http://www.bwmonitor.com/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
AT&T wireless service outage is impacting many US customers
Replies
8
Views
232
Mark Fuller
M
midian182
AT&T confirms data leak affecting 73 million customers - after spending two weeks denying it
Replies
5
Views
129
Karlos95
Karlos95
Daniel Sims
The FCC now defines broadband as 100 Mbps at minimum – 25/3 Mbps was simply not...
2
Replies
35
Views
538
Hotlynx16
H

Latest posts

Back