Topic: AT&T 250gb monthly cap (Read 1813 times)

what is the point of offering higher speeds if you have a cap of 250gb. that looses its incentive.
ISP's should not be allowed to provide tv services, only internet.

companies like at&t is actually trying to compete with Netflix and providing shit internet so people jump to their shitty tv service.

Yeah. Capping (or "lite" HSI) was a hot topic in Canada when the discussion came up here. Capping was popular in the dial-up era, when you bought "minutes," but when cable and DSL came out, I don't remember any company talking about caps. Faded from memory. Pay-per-use billing seems reasonable when the infrastructure is unable to handle the demand, and ISPs regularly oversell their bandwidth by hundreds or thousands of percents. It's very difficult to determine real Internet speeds vs. what an ISP advertises in the US, and they aren't required to provide any type of data on that. Hughesnet, for example, previously sold me an "up to 15mbps" connection, with the idea being that it must be faster than the "up to 10mbps" connection. In reality, speeds while people were home (including myself) was ~3mbps.

The trouble with pay-per-use (or capping) being sold as any type of efficient consumer-oriented "feature," is that it doesn't actually solve the problem with peak times (~3-10pm), when the vast majority of users are online and experiencing poor service. People using an obscene amount of bandwidth per month are most likely downloading files throughout the day (esp. if torrents), not streaming them, but because people stream when they're home, all that streaming at once leads to congestion due to ISPs' abused ability to oversell their bandwidth. So really, bandwidth caps are just another arbitrary limit imposed to get consumers to pay more, but ISPs are trying to keep the discussion about "over-eaters" rather than their inadequate, oversold service.

I'd think if the US really wants to see change, we'd be asking why ISPs, industry-wide, are allowed to advertise a meaningless maximum speed  without giving typical speeds, nor guaranteeing a minimum speed. I'm not saying "there ought to be a law," but if enough people are aware of what ISPs' marketing departments are doing, maybe consumers would be more willing to select a service willing to publish meaningful details about their service instead of their arbitrary speed/volume caps on plans.

your welcome i always just use the logic you get what you pay for if it looks to good to be true it probably is
also in the UK you can get out of contracts that way they have to provide the service you signed up for or better so if you sign up for an unlimited contract they have to provide that if they then later add a limit it renders that contract null and void... they will argue that case but at the end of the day there the ones who broke the contract not you

That sounds more reasonable. Thanks for the answer vm.

ofcorse i am
1. its not me
2. its funny as hell
3. 1 more nail in Americas coffin

most mobile 3G/4G ha e limits in the UK and most broadband connections have a limit of fair usage limit...
but there are easy to find truely unlimited packages with not throtteling at all

Latvia. No caps on broadband or optical connection. Throttling after predetermined amount of GB's on 3G/4G mobile connection but some plans have really unlimited volume on 3G. Tested with 100+GB's up/down per month on 3G. On broadband I sometimes consume 300GB down and 1TB upload per month.

Out of curiosity, does anywhere else other than america have throttling/bandwidth caps like this?

And vm, you really do seem to be getting a kick outta this.  It's something to smile at.

its the way America is going... next youll be giving an arm and a leg in taxes XD i think you should go and overthrow government.... at least then id be able to watch in on my UNLIMITED internet Connection XD

oooo or even worse for you lot petrol prices could go up to $3 a liter (not gallon) like over here in the UK, that really would piss you off

Mentioned elsewhere in the forums mining consumes around 0.125 KB/sec no matter your hashrate with stratum with variable diffficulty, so mining alone would be little affected by a bandwidth cap per month....that is before you hit the cap. I really don't know what degree of fees you'd hit from a measly .125 kb/s when after their 'cap'.

I suppose this is what happens when ISPs in america don't have enough competitors that are willing to advance what they offer (higher speed, and in this case specifically, a lack of a bandwidth cap), and then pressure from anti piracy stuff, even though this affects legit services like netflix and anything that streams. For example, this is what google is doing atm in kansas - offering something far better than elsewhere.

This is really a whole shitty state of affairs altogether.  

it dosnt even less with stratum maybe 1GB per month in extreme miners cases...

all i can say is HAHA

I doubt mining uses very much bandwidth at all.

Holy shit - you get DSL AND cable options where you live in the US? Only in my dreams..... ....  (seriously, I have to use a tethered phone in 3G -- THAT sucks)

US ISP infrastructure is notoriously garbage, and usually there is only one DSL company and one cable company in any given area, but the US isn't densely-populated like in Europe and Asia, so... is what it is. Many flat, farm-y areas usually have a wireless ISP option which is outrageously expensive, but for those in hilly or forested area, may be SoL and need to use Satellite, dial-up, or a cell phone. Bandwidth caps may be a huge problem in the US when considering Bitcoin. Bitcoin-qt loves to upload as much data as possible whenever running, with no option in the GUI to change its behavior, so you need to use an application-level bandwidth throttling utility unless you're on cable or a fast DSL connection (and yeah, 25mbps is really freakin' fast considering the nationwide average is 7.4mbps, and that's a ~25% increase over last year, but mostly because faster options are rolling out in densely-populated areas which already have high-speed options, while rural areas are still neglected). Blocks are growing in size every day, and it's already a major problem. With the blockchain ~10GB in size, it already passes Hughesnet's $50/mo (plus bullshit grey fees) plan's monthly allotment.

thread is about Uverse and DSL there is a new cap. i enjoyed unlimited data thats why we have it. these shitty companies have a monopoly and there is no other option.

Bullshit cellphones have unlimited internet. It may have to do with your provider but listen to this. I have had multiple prepaid no contract phones as well as a few contract services who say it is unlimited internet but it really is not. After you hit their magic number usually about 2 weeks into the month you will experience SLOW connections, so slow and so consistent that it is obvious they are throttling your speeds and in some cases just shut you off until the next billing cycle.

As far as internet providers I have seen a couple where it is written in the contract that there is a limit but that they are not currently holding anyone to it. Comcast is by far the worst when it comes to this on top of their shitty customer service and intermittent connection. Its no wonder they have to have a monopoly in any given area because I don't think anyone would chose them if they had another option with similar speeds.

http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/common-questions-excessive-use/

I hate everything about Comcast they are an evil monopoly. I refuse to give them any business. I sure do miss having fast speeds but with the connectivity issues they always have and then they cut your speeds down to a crawl its not worth the 50 dollars a month. LoL 50 who am I kidding, there is always another 20-30 in hidden fees on top of it all.

I currently have DSL. Sure its slow but it NEVER goes out. Thankfully the phone company in my area is totally rebuilding their network and will be offering HDTV, DSL internet with up to 25meg "about half of cable but its a start" and of course phone.

It seems the internet is getting worse than it already is and going backwards if you live in the us. this will no doubt take a toll on internet currencies such as bitcoin and websites like youtube, netflix, steam and so on.

if you leave a mining rig on 24/7 be sure to pay 10$ every 50gb after the cap.

http://stopthecap.com/2012/07/09/att-cracking-down-on-dslu-verse-usage-while-promoting-no-bandwidth-limitations/

150gb cap for DSL
250gb for Uverse

what is the point of even paying for faster internet if you are going to reach the cap faster.
there is no incentive to get faster service.

no doubt At&t has some hidden contract with time warner or some other television company as well as wanting to charge more for unlimited internet.


Even cellphones have unlimited internet, it makes absolutely no sense to go backwards for a consumer point of view for a home internet to be limited.
i hope more people become vocal to protest this bs.

what are your thoughts.