Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2011 > April > 27 > Entry
Reminder: AT&T home broadband caps start next week
This got lost in the shuffle a bit when it was announced in the middle of South by Southwest Interactive, but starting Monday, AT&T will begin limiting the amount of data home DSL and U-verse Internet customers use before they are charged overage fees.
The limits, 150 gigabytes for slower DSL users and 250 GB for U-Verse customers, will mean that if a customer goes over that amount of bandwidth per month, they’ll receive two notifications from AT&T, then be charged $10 for 50 GB of extra data.
To put that in context, a single HD-quality movie download from iTunes can typically be as large as one gigabyte. E-mail, light web surfing and music downloading doesn’t use lots of bandwidth, but movie streaming, video chatting using applications like Skype and transferring large files do. AT&T says that it expects 98 percent of its users won’t be impacted by the bandwidth caps and has offered a tool at myusage.att.com to monitor how much data is being used.
Of course, this might remind you of Time Warner Cable’s attempt to put bandwidth caps on its Road Runner service in 2009. That effort was eventually shelved when customers protested the move and said they would take their business elsewhere. The Road Runner bandwidth limits were much smaller, but of course use of online video services like Netflix and Hulu have exploded since then. Time Warner Cable has said it has no plans to reintroduce the capping idea.
We’ll have more on this in a piece I’m working on for the May 2 edition of Tech Monday. If you’re an AT&T customer and are concerned, let us know in the comments. One novel idea I’ve seen from the watchdog website Stop the Cap: switching to a comparably priced business DSL plan, which doesn’t appear to have the same bandwidth caps as home accounts will.
Update: 10 a.m., May 2: the Tech Monday column which elaborates on this issue has been posted and ran in today’s newspaper.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Post your comment Categories: Austin, Internet, Movies & DVDs
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By Charis Fleming
April 30, 2011 7:08 PM | Link to this
As of this moment, I'll be contacting my son-in-law to let him shop for a new Internet account for my home. I will not be held hostage by the "We may be the only phone company in town, but we try not to act like it" attitude from days of old. AT&T...you are NOT the only game in town. Get over yourselves.
By Don
April 29, 2011 8:59 PM | Link to this
Omar,
I think the numbers you've been given may underestimate the size of a movie download. HD movies purchased on iTunes can easily be 4 or 5 gigabytes (including the SD copy that Apple throws in for later use on portable devices).
The bigger impact may be on TV series. If you buy a TV series from iTunes in HD, you get about 40GB all at once. That's a serious chunk of your monthly usage allocation.
By jlbs1972
April 28, 2011 2:38 AM | Link to this
such customer service . . . so glad I did away with at&t over a year ago!
By Omar Gallaga
April 27, 2011 5:16 PM | Link to this
Direct from an AT&T representative: "In regards to the usage tool, customers can log in today to check their usage at MyUsage.att.com. We are also making a data calculator available for customers to estimate their usage, and that will be available before Monday.
Some customers may not see any usage details for their account listed in the online tool, or they may not be able to access the tool. If that's the case, they should not worry - they will not be charged if they exceed the monthly threshold. Remember, AT&T will communicate with customers directly numerous times if they approach the usage allowance and before any overage fees are applied."
By Omar Gallaga
April 27, 2011 1:53 PM | Link to this
A person I interviewed for the story was able to access their usage info for the last few months within their online AT&T account info under "My Usage." I'll check and see if that link for myusage.att will be live before Monday.
By ruben
April 27, 2011 1:45 PM | Link to this
Not concerned as much as annoyed. I'm a 18 MBps U-Verse customer and this is the thanks I get? Waiting for the other shoe to drop when they announce account "upgrades" which promise a "cap-free" experience. Until then, I get to live in a paranoia of wondering if I'm in the 2% at the end of every month, reminding myself constantly to check some usage tool to make sure I don't have sticker shock come bill.
FYI, as of the time of this posting, the usage tool isn't live.
By Sam Caldwell
April 27, 2011 1:37 PM | Link to this
The link myusage.att.com is still under construction as of 27 April 2011 and as such does not work.
...What did you expect from AT&T. There is a reason I refer to them as "Another Trouble Ticket."
By AMC
April 27, 2011 1:32 PM | Link to this
Why even have the higher DSL speed? You can only use it for 75 hours/month.
By Alex
April 27, 2011 1:02 PM | Link to this
This aggravates me. I use Skype a lot and stream movies all the time. When I signed up for AT&T U-Verse almost a year ago, I wasn't told that I would have to watch how much bandwith I use (or be concerned about it in the future). Maybe AT&T should worry about fixing their cellphone service, or lack thereof, before they mess with the internet.
By Is 250 GB really a limit?
April 27, 2011 12:59 PM | Link to this
I admit I DL a good amount of movies, but I doubt I come anywhere close to a 250 GB amount in a months time... I guess I could check my uTorrent program to find out, but seriously anyone DL'ing over that is watching way too much p0rn! :)
By Bob
April 27, 2011 12:56 PM | Link to this
When I tried to get my usage from your link in the story, I get the following message:
"The U-verse data measurement report is currently under construction. When completed, you will be notified if your usage exceeds the allowance. Until that time, U-verse customers should not be concerned about their usage patterns for billing purposes. "
Seems that they'll tell you how much you're using only when it's too late and you've exceeded their limit. Certainly frustrating.
By Sunshine1970
April 27, 2011 12:52 PM | Link to this
I just hope this means TWC won't try something like this (I have Roadrunner) They're probably going to get a slew of new customers out of this deal, and I'd hate for them to then decide they'll do the same thing as AT&T.
My parents live in Missouri, and I told them about AT&T and the caps. They have their DSL service (no U-Verse) Even though they would never blow through the 150 GB cap, they're not happy. They've already had lots of problems with AT&T recently, and had been thinking of switching to Roadrunner. The capping was the last straw. They'll be switching over to Roadrunner in the next few months.
By Beverly Millson
April 27, 2011 12:49 PM | Link to this
I'm a Netflix Roku addict with a U-verse account. Will I have to take a second job to pay for this? I watch some 4-5 movies a week.
By cameron
April 27, 2011 12:48 PM | Link to this
"The U-verse data measurement report is currently under construction. When completed, you will be notified if your usage exceeds the allowance. Until that time, U-verse customers should not be concerned about their usage patterns for billing purposes."