Groups ask FCC to investigate AT&T broadband caps

[OhioChick]

Source: ComputerWorld

May 6, 2011 02:42 PM ET

DG News Service - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission should investigate AT&T's new broadband caps and ask questions about why the company needs them, two broadband advocacy groups said.

AT&T's broadband-use caps went into effect Monday, with a 150 gigabyte-per-month limit for DSL (digital subscriber line) subscribers and 250 gigabytes for its U-verse subscribers. The caps raise several questions about AT&T's networks, said Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative in a Friday letter to the FCC.

The AT&T broadband caps are "particularly aggressive," said the letter, signed by Harold Feld, legal director at Public Knowledge, and Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative. The broadband provider plans to charge subscribers an extra $10 per 50 gigabytes after they exceed the caps three times.

"Unlike competitors whose caps appear to be at least nominally linked to congestions during peak-use periods, AT&T seeks to convert caps into a profit center by charging additional fees to customers who exceed the cap," the letter said. "In addition to concerns raised by broadband caps generally, such a practice produces a perverse incentive for AT&T to avoid raising its cap even as its own capacity expands."

Read more: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9216480/Groups_ask_FCC_to_investigate_AT_T_broadband_caps

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Meanwhile...

AT&T Users Already Complaining About Inaccurate Meters

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=439&topic_id=756226

[ChromeFoundry]

1. all their customers will leave...

they will whine to the government.
Government will give them a bailout.
CEO will get another big bonus.
Capitalism goes on.
Customers fucked over again.

[cstanleytech]

2. Easy for you to say but hard for some people like myself to follow

when they are the only option in the area.

[ChromeFoundry]

6. self-delete

ever get the posts you are posting on confused? lol!

[OhioChick]

9. LMAO.....

You been doing a bit of boozing, have you? Suckin back on grandpa's old cough medicine?

:rofl:

[laylah]

7. Or the "lesser of two evils". nt

[boppers]

8. What area? If there's phone, there's likely unlimited T-1 service.

You'll have to pay for that privilege, of course.

[cstanleytech]

10. Small town outside Augusta GA

Other than satellite internet which is even worse than ATT right now there is nothing else here atm until the county gets done running its data line they are laying.
What angers me is ATT for years claimed that they didnt have to cap because they didnt have the problems cable internet has now they claim they do have the problems with certain customers hogging bandwidth so the feds need to nail their ass to the wall for either lying about that and make them pay all their customers for it or they are lying now in which case they need to nail their ass to the wall.

[boppers]

12. They figure only 2% of their customers hit the cap.

Bandwidth usage has been outpacing new infrastructure for a while, so it's concievable that they're telling the truth in both cases, but simply planned poorly.

It will be interesting to see what the FCC finds if they start digging....

Oh, and you didn't say how far out, but try starting here:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Augusta+T-1

Most T-1 (and higher) vendors don't sell the same way as "broadband" ISP's, you generally have to seek them out.

[cstanleytech]

14. How much should it cost do you think? I cannot afford much more than what I a currenlty

paying with ATT.

[RKP5637]

3. Yep, either way, #1 priority will be to fuck over customers! n/t

[cstanleytech]

11. Which is why the bid from ATT to purchase T-mobile should be rejected imo

as should any other major purchase by ATT.

[RKP5637]

13. Exactly. We used to stop monopolies, but that seems to be a thing of the past. Now

the US seems to love monopolies and the citizens be damned.

[Lasher]

4. This calls for antitrust envorcement if anything ever did.

They are trying to block the natural evolution of broadband providers competing with one another by establishing programming oligopolies to keep cable TV service artificially and extraordinarily high. Netflix should compete with others for that side of the market while telecommunications service providers provide the pipes.

But broad band caps is the kind of thing you see when the free market really isn't free.

[cstanleytech]

5. I agree but also disagree because someone has to pay for usage of the

bandwidth, I dont like the low arbitrary cap though and I hope something can be done especially for those like myself who have no other option.