AT&T tests limits on subscribers' Web use

Updated at 7 p.m. PT to indicate customers will have a tool to measure their usage.

In an effort to keep "bandwidth hogs" in check, AT&T is testing the idea of placing limits on how much Internet data its subscribers can transfer each month.

The test, which began being applied in the Reno, Nev., area on Saturday, limits customers of AT&T's slowest DSL service to 20 gigabytes of monthly data transfers, while users of the fastest service will be limited to 150 gigabytes. Customers will have access to an online tool to track their usage and will receive notification when they reach 80 percent. Those who exceed their limits will be charged $1 per gigabyte.

Existing subscribers will be assigned the 150GB limit regardless of their subscription level. The limits will apply only to new subscribers in the Reno area.

The caps are intended to discourage heavy users, such as virtual reality gamers and file swappers, from causing network congestion. AT&T estimates that just 5 percent of its subscribers use up to 50 percent of the network's capacity.

Regular Web and e-mail use shouldn't come anywhere close to the limits, but regular users of streaming services such has Netflix could test that limit. A standard length movie downloaded over the Internet requires about 2 gigabytes.

The test follows new plans introduced last month by Comcast, the nation's second-largest Internet service provider, in which subscribers would get a 250 gigabyte limit. Users who exceed that limit would reportedly face fines or possible suspension of their account.

Time Warner Cable and FairPoint Communications are also reportedly exploring instituting traffic limits.

[nicmart]

In principle I have no objection to what AT&T and Comcast are doing, but I wonder if consumers receive clear notification when they approach or exceed the limits. It will be interesting to see how this impacts the growth of movie downloads and streaming from companies like Apple and Netflix.

[The_dude_in_the_back]

No offense to nicmart, however, don't you think you are being a bit short sided? Ten years ago, the caps would have been set at 50 megs and 1 gig. Services like Netflix, CNN, Youtube, indeed, the entire web, rely on the fact that the service providers will reinvest their profits into infrastructure, which they have not done.

ISPs can not be trusted to simply "do the right thing". What seems like enough bandwidth today could be choking the internet to death tomorrow.

[crusadex]

Can you say monopoly.A move like this would detract people from using online movie services.I am sure ATT is trying to use this to funnel trffic to it's own VOD service.

[dlipsitz]

It not only will impact the growth, it will likely end those services entirely. AT&T's own VOD service will likewise take a huge hit, as will every other content provider. Even the ISP's themselves will have to dramatically scale back their content.

Remember what the internet was about 15 years ago? That's what will happen, in order for ISP's and content providers to survive and keep attracting customers and visitors. Online shopping? Gone. YouTube? Gone. News video, audio, and pictures? Gone. The 8 million wireless data subscribers who just got capped at 5GB? Gone. WiFi hot spots? Gone. Online education? Gone. Telecommuting? Gone. Streaming audio and VOD? Gone. Online bill paying and banking? Gone. All those new advances in computer and cellular wireless technology? There won't be any more, because no one will want them since there is no more content.

All those content providers put out of work? They'll be competing for your job.

[volterwd]

1. Dont call it unlimited
2. Give a tool perhaps an link on your webpage to check. your usage.
3. Keep the usage reasonable (dont drop that 150 to 20)

If you do it... then you will be fine.

[crusadex]

A better idea would be for everyone to start canceling their ATT service to send them a message.This cap isn't about ATT being overloaded,it's about killing the competition.My money can go somewhere else if thats how they want to play.

[sanenazok]

Oh crap....I just checked in DDWRT...I have the second cheapest DSL and used 22GB of downloads last month...guess I would have to upgrade!

[rmorganMN]

As a developer/distributor of video on the web I am really concerned that ISP's are going this route. We have finally gotten to a point where we can stream or download very high quality video to our consumers and now you are going to penalize the consumer for viewing our content. This is going to set the developers and distributors backwards. There will be no HD content available for users in the near future if corps like ATT, Comcast and Frontier start throttling the bandwidth. They should have thought about this while the developed the backbone, not after the fact. It is all a money game for them.........

[SoonerLater]

How much did you spend to build the backbone you depend upon for delivery of your content? Your company is apparently financially vested in using the resources of other companies. Is it all a money game for you?

[billmosby]

Maybe your business planning process should have considered the availability of the one resource your company absolutely depends on for its functioning- bandwidth. Air Liquide can get away with assuming its raw material is infinite, but you cannot.

[mikeburek]

@SoonerLater - Unless he's stealing wifi from his neighbors, he's paying what his ISP has decided is his fair share. If everyone who used the internet had to invest in the backbone, then we'd still be using landline telephone without an internet. How much did you invest into the worldwide backbone to access the internet? He is paying for a service already, so he's not mooching off of other companies. Did you pay CNet for the ability to post a comment on their servers? Or are you voicing your opinion using someone else's resources?

@billmosby - Do you think Amazon has a contingency plan for the post office suddenly charging customers $5 to receive any packages after the 1st one, on top and regardless of the shipping that Amazon pays the post office? Sure they have plans for gradual fluctuating postage prices, but not when the customer is hit with a 3rd party charge that Amazon has no control over and which will cause people to stop using mail order. Does your monthly budget consider the possibility that every person you call on the phone for more than 5 minutes will get a bill from the phone company, even though both of you already pay for service?

[John_PRoss]

Come on, do the bus companies pay any local government agency for access to high quality roads. Does Microsoft pay anything to my ISP for the megabytes and megabytes of software patches I have to download to keep my XP and Vista machines safe to use? If you want this sort of reliance on 3rd party services to continue on a paid-for-use basis then all phone and car navigation systems should pay the US Army for use of the 26 GPS satellites that almost everyone in the developed world uses.

[manualfunky]

you poor things.. this already happens in Australia and New Zealand and our broadband only goes up to around 20mbit we've never had unlimited broadband except on dial-up which is still available... mind you we still dont get netflix, amazon unboxed or anything other than purchasing movies from itunes, which in reality would take about 5 hours to download at HD quality on a good connection in both countries anyways. very rarely does my 20mbit connection get above 500kbps download speed. oh to live right next door to an exchange for that magical speed

[jinx101a]

Who cares about New Zealand and Australia? Just because you have caps doesn't make it in your best interest or make it Ok for these companies to implement it for us. The reason why it's not Ok is because it's not a free market. New companies can't startup and compete because of the way the government gives telecoms permissions to run cables over public land.

The other reason it's not Ok is because of the anti-competitve actions these companies practice. For instance, if I use Vonage's voice over IP for a telephone service, it goes against my cap. If I use Comcast phone... it doesn't go against my cap. That gives them an unfair advantage.

Further, any country with a cap will fall behind the curve on technological advances in regardes to the Internet.

[mikeburek]

You poor things... In China, you can't criticize the government at all.

Do you know anyone who wanted to start on online business but didn't because they knew people wouldn't be able to spare the bandwidth for their site?

If the caps didn't exist, would a local company have other roadblocks to creating a local version of online video delivery? Are copyright holders likely to allow or deny such delivery?

Are there sites you want to visit, but don't have enough monthly transfer to squander it on?

[baltm604]

This is real simple, AT&T, Comcast and the rest want to sell you pay per view and television packages.

The best way to do this is prevent you from getting your content wholesale from netflix, or directly from the creator of the content.

Caps are barriers, and will just drive of all the costs of media and content, not just internet access.

[jinx101a]

@baltm604: You're exactly correct. In some cases, this is clearly anti-competive. In other cases, it becomes a gray area. Either way, the consumer loses.

[Braveswin]

>> This is real simple, AT&T, Comcast and the rest want to sell you pay per view and television packages.

Exactly. See nail..take hammer...hit it on head.

[ramsey987]

rmorganMN hit the nail on the head. Those that don?t yet download their movies and currently feel safe by the caps, will later kick themselves when they find the future roll out of HD movie delivery stopped dead in its tracks by telecoms who are simply angry they aren?t the supplier of the actual movie. Anything that stands in the way of moving technology forward is a step backward.

Those that are OK with the caps are the same ones that were OK with ?dial-up? and a 20 Meg hard drive. They don?t get it. Just because it?s OK for you today, use your head and think about what you?ll need next year. Without a wide electronic highway in place, the future cool HD delivery will never make it to your door.

[McPlot]

Face it, even with streaming videos from Netflix or other sites, the average user is not going to get anywhere near 250GB that a company like Comcast sets. But, those transferring pirated moves and software back and forth leaving their computers on 24/7 to do so, may run into issues. With any internet service provider, 3% to 5% of the users use 85% to 90% of the network.

I read an artical that Comcast stated that only 1% of their users currently reach 250GB anyhow.
So I agree on limiting the bandwidth. Help stop pirate software, movies, music, and the spread of child porn. (yeh, I said it. Bit torrent is a MAJOR way chid porn is spread.)

I have two computers, two video game systems online, and I use NetFlix streaming video service and I have never had a complaint from my ISP.

>and I use NetFlix streaming video service and I have never had a complaint from my ISP.

Keep that attitude and eventually you will get a complaint. What happens when NetFlix delivers HD content and your usage goes up, but because you think it is OK now your ISP then says "No HD for you, you use too many tubes, unless you buy only from us!"

[wdhbro]

This isn't aimed at 'pirates' or 'file swappers', who typically use nothing like the bandwidth legitimate users consume these days. Anyone who gets all their news and entertainment from the net on a DSL connection will be using 5-20Gb a month, before they add services like Netflix. My Netflix use is about 30Gb a month minimum to watch one or two shows a day, and that's what ATT are trying kill, or cash in on if they can't kill it. It doesn't cost them anywhere near $1 a month to supply 1Gb of bandwidth. In other industries we call that "price gouging" and government needs to step in to stop this piracy.

[muzakaz]

yeah... that is the truth. These powerful entities, want to change the power play. I'm Netflix here. Clearwire, sucks. They want more, for everything, and don't add up.

It's all a ponzey scheme.

what do ya do?

I know what I'd like to do.

[brutusandsven]

Excuse me but who is determining: "Regular Web and e-mail use shouldn't come anywhere close to the limits"?

AT&T of Steven Musil?

If I make use of CNET's and other company's video services on a daily basis, I easily go over 100GB in a month. I guess I'm not a "Regular Web User".

It bothers me when "reporters" just reiterate the garbage in a press release as fact. Where are the numbers, who is the source.

By the way, what is AT&T's slowest DSL service, I pay for a line rated at 3000Kbps Down/512 Kbps up and the maxium I have achieved is 2200/318 can I expect a refund?

This is just manuver by AT&T so when it offers on demand video, it will be cheaper because their source will not count towards the cap. And so it goes.........................

[ramsey987]

NetFlix users are NOT downloading HD content. Again, ill informed people are thinking they have all the bandwidth they need. HD files are massive. Don't think your tiny standard def movies are what you'll want to be watching in one or two years. You'll hit the cap once you advance to HD delivery. AppleTV users, who have HD delivery now, would already be worried by the move to cap bandwidth.

[Rawnchie14]

XBox360 users will receive HD movie streaming from NetFlix very soon too. People who think 250gb cap is enough, are foolish to let fatcat money gouging corporations stunt technological growth in the internet, just so they can dominate the market and exploit their customers.

Corporations that provide services don't want to grow, or develop their technology. They want to sit on old tech and pull down as much money from it as possible, keeping innovative technology down as long as possible in the process. So shooting down streaming video with bandwidth caps works to save their current on demand system and broadcasting cable channels (particularly the movie channels).

Maybe they should rethink their business stance rather than shutting down competition with sneaky underhanded tactics like these. Comcast/AT&T - damn glad I'm not associated with them anymore.

[the_redistributor]

If I were NetFlix, I would be worried. Just as they are about to go to full digital downstreaming, this is announced.

[tlj0001]

When all is said and done this sucks! I am a user who actually uses my services to the fullest working remotely, watching Netflix movies, downloading Linux distributions, and so on. With work along I can hit the 150G cap just retrieving and sending needed files. I personally feel the cap should be whatever download/upload speed you pay for.

Every company is starting to complain about their network utilization/congestion as though they had not ideal that as the internet became more useful people would use it. I personally think they are trying to squeeze the customer for more money. My mother and grandmother do not just use the internet to check email and surf the web anymore.

This is another example of the customer getting screwed and not having any other real options . . .

[crusadex]

I think it is more of an effort to sqeuze out online competition.ATT has a big interest in selling it's own VOD products and keeping internet companies from broadcasting TV online.A cap like this would effectivly shut down any online competition.

[CaptainMooseInc]

All I can say is, "Don't do it AT&T!!!"

I dropped Comcast and went to AT&T U-Verse once I heard there were no bandwidth limitations. I broadcast a live 24/7 webcam (soon to be multiple) from home, and use a legal distributed computing project called Majestic-12. I can use the 10mbps/1.5mbps I have at full capacity and tear through 150GBs in no time flat.

I seriously hope this gets called off. It's going to suck if I have to pay for a T1 or better connection from home.

[Morndenkainen]

They pull this in my area, I will not only cancel my wireless broadband, which i get through ATT, but also my cell service, HD Sattelite, and will switch back to comcast/verizon. a 250gb/month is kinda pathetic, but still reasonable, it turns into about 25 HD movie rentals a month plus a little extra for online gaming, downloads, and general web browsing.

[celticbrewer]

It only says DSL. I wonder if it'll affect U-verse. I wonder if the Reno, Nev test area has U-verse available to most homes. This sounds like a ploy to move people over to the new service.

20 gigs monthly transfer is rediculous! As an AT&T DSL customer, the upstream speeds are pretty pathetic, so I don't think file sharing is really the issue here. It's painful enough uploading photos, I couldn't imagine sending video, music, and pirated software.

Thankfully, I love my blu-ray and can wait the whole 18 hours for netflix to send me one in the mail. I have no interest in streaming anything (SD or HD) from netflix.

[dragonbite]

No! I just moved from dial-up to DSL and the only thing available is the low-speed so this would mean I would be forced to either

1. limit my usage to the 20GB range
2. calculate my usage and determine if it is cheaper to go with more expensive Cable Modem!
($10+$50 = 20 GB (base) +50 GB = Cable, so if I use 70 GB it will be worth moving to Cable for me and I would get larger bandwidth!)

[Thomas, David]

I SMELL BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY!!

Comcast, Cox, AT&T, etc. squashed all of the ISPs that came before them. Now that they are left unchallenged, they are ready to do business how they really planned, not how they advertise.

INDEPENDENT ISPs COME BACK WITH BIG BACKING.

[Stang5150]

Well I guess I'll have to be like Elaine from Seinfeld with the sponge. "Is this download/stream worthy???"

[mjschumaker]

The same people who are content with broadband limitations would scream bloody murder if the state closed down their six lane expressway into a two lane road that slowed down their daily commute to a crawl. They'd also scream bloody murder if the state reduced the speeds on the expressways to 35 MPH.