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AT&T says it's not an attempt to make more money

As online movie rentals and video streaming services are starting to boom in popularity, one aspect of these services that many users don’t think of is the bandwidth needed by the ISP providing the internet connectivity.

John Donovan, AT&T chief technical officer, has indicated that AT&T will begin testing usage-based internet pricing starting this fall. Donovan asserts that the tests of usage-based pricing is not an attempt to make more money, but is simply required to add more network capacity.

Donovan told Wired.com in an interview, “It's almost a taxation issue. Traffic on our backbone is growing 60 percent per year, but our revenue is not.” From that simple statement it’s hard to support Donovan’s previous claim that the testing of usage-based Internet pricing isn’t an attempt to make more money from its users.

Donovan says that usage-based pricing trials are an attempt to encourage more efficient use of a customer’s bandwidth capacity. To a users that may simply sound like another way to say the ability to punish heavy bandwidth users.

Donovan mirrors statements made by Time Warner when it tried to justify the abhorrent new usage-base pricing of its trial in Beaumont, Texas with regards to the small percentage of customers that use the majority of its bandwidth.

According to Donovan, 1% of AT&T customers account for 20% of its network usage and the top 5% of its users account for 40% of its usage.  The problem with statements like these is that most internet users know many subscribers simply don’t use the internet that much. If you take into account a customer that simply sends and receives email and surfs the occasional webpage compared to the customer who watches streaming shows on Hulu or rents movies on Apple TV is doesn’t seem like a fair comparison.

Maybe only 5% of AT&T’s customers actually use their connection frequently. The rub for many users is that it seems AT&T and other internet providers are simply trying to find ways to get people to use what they pay for with less frequency.

Donovan does point out that he doesn’t view AT&T customers, under any circumstances as pirates. AT&T declined to comment on pricing or bandwidth caps for its usage-based service trials or in what markets the trials would begin.

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Ha
By 67STANG on 6/9/2008 12:19:58 PM , Rating: 2
So glad I cancelled my AT&T DSL connection last year...(because it was so unreliable).

Just crossing my fingers Comcast doesn't follow suit.




RE: Ha
By Souka on 6/9/2008 12:26:48 PM , Rating: 2
I suspect all carriers will do so for their basic "unlimited" service.

Either you get service with a monthly cap, plus $$ per GB over that.... or you pay extra $$ each month and don't have the limit.

I know it sucks, but it does make sense.... I just hope they either give users enough data/month so it's not a pain, or somehow allow certain types of data to not be counted (such as HD movies from Apple).

Perhaps "free" data during certain hours/days like most cell phones do now (eg, "free nights and weekends")


RE: Ha
By CSMR on 6/9/2008 12:40:26 PM , Rating: 2
Not sure about the apple deal, that would be anticompetitive.
But yes to off-peak hours. There should be a much lower price during these hours.


RE: Ha
By 67STANG on 6/9/2008 12:44:15 PM , Rating: 2
A good point for debate is whether or not current customers can have their service agreement modified to allow this rape. I don't see how this can be legal, unless of course there is vague language allowing for this. Now that I think of it, I would guess there probably is.


RE: Ha
By artemicion on 6/9/2008 1:13:24 PM , Rating: 4
Yes, I am guessing that there is no clause in your user agreement with AT&T where AT&T agreed to furnish you with the same service at the same price for all eternity. Just like you probably did not agree to subscribe to AT&T for all eternity.

I have no idea why I'm sticking my head into this debate, but I'm going to toss out a hypothetical anyway.

Hypothetical A:
What if through some hypothetical system of careful auditing, AT&T guaranteed that the amount of money they take in from subscribers is the same whether they charge you a flat monthly rate or a usage-based rate (let's say either way they average $30 per customer) - would you still regard that as consumers being "raped"?

Hypothetical B:
What if instead the amount of money AT&T takes in is actually LESS than what they would take in by charging a flat monthly rate (let's say AT&T would take in a total of $30 million using their current scheme, but would only take in $25 million from subscribers using a usage-based scheme)? Say, AT&T is willing to take in less money because the usage-based rate policy allows them to lower costs and thus realize the same amount of profits with lower revenue? Would you still regard that as consumers being "raped"?


RE: Ha
By 67STANG on 6/9/2008 1:53:04 PM , Rating: 2
Hypothetical A: Yes...do you really think they are going to go through all of the steps do instate this without the promise of a payoff?

Hypothetical B: Yes...they won't make less..users will still pay the same flat fee, they'll just pay additional money when they go over their limit.

They are simply trying to do what cellular companies are now moving away from: Unlimited Usage. This is a throwback to dialup ISP's that charged for monthly overages in usage.

Being "Raped" by AT&T (or any ISP that tries this) is signing up for an unlimited service (like all of their current customers have) and then having their plan modified so they can be nickeled and dimed.

Why repeat the past? Why not just call a spade, a spade? They are trying to stomp out file sharing users (without being criticized for traffic filtering) and are punishing everyone.


RE: Ha
By artemicion on 6/9/2008 4:59:03 PM , Rating: 4
Ok, let me start off by making it clear - I'm on the same side as you. I use a lot of bandwidth, so personally, I would prefer unlimited plans. But speaking of calling a spade a spade, I fully acknowledge what my spade is called: SELFISHNESS.

I don't want to pay more for internet. Bottom line. Plain and simple.

I don't claim that AT&T has to price one way or another.

I fully acknowledge that by fighting for what I want, I'm basically screwing over every 'lite' internet user who would pay less than what they are paying right now under a usage-based scheme. I fully acknowledge that those 'lite' users are subsidizing my internet use, I like it, and I want it to stay that way.

But I will not acknowledge that AT&T is doing anything wrong looking to switch to a usage-scheme. I'm not going to play dirty and accuse them of wrong doing.

Firstly, I think you're confusing issues. Yes, AT&T is a monopoly in some areas and their pricing practices should and probably are closely scrutinized by the relevant government agencies. However, the possibility of AT&T engaging in monopolistic pricing activity and AT&T changing its charging scheme to usage based are two separate issues. As my hypotheticals illustrates, they could very well be doing the latter without doing the former. *COULD* they be doing both? Yes, but I haven't seen any evidence of it YET.

Secondly, AT&T isn't trying to stomp out file users. If anything, after they start charging on a usage basis, they are going to actively encourage file sharing. I guess they are "stomping" them out in the sense that they are changing their business practices because of their activity. But let's say I open a buffet. Let's say I'm doing fine for awhile, but that Fatty McFatty moves into town and just eats everything in sight. So I look at my accounting reports and figure I'll make more money by switching to an a la carte scheme. I'm I "stomping him out"? I guess, in the sense that his activity made it more profitable to switch to a different scheme. I don't necessarily have anything against him, but you'd better believe that I'm out to do whatever it takes to maximize my profits. Am I well within my rights to do so? Damn straight. Am I doing anything "wrong" by doing so? Hell no. Is he gonna be pissed? Yup, just like you. Why? Because he's SELFISH and wants Skinny McSkinny to subsidize his meals.
They aren't "punishing" anybody with either payment scheme - skinny guys aren't punished by eating at the buffet, and fat guys aren't punished for eating a la carte.

So yes, let's call a spade a spade. Why do we want AT&T to stick exclusively with unlimited usage plans? Because we're selfish and we want other subscribers to subsidize our usage of the internet.


RE: Ha
By Reclaimer77 on 6/9/2008 5:07:13 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
, I would prefer unlimited plans. But speaking of calling a spade a spade, I fully acknowledge what my spade is called: SELFISHNESS.


Its not selfish to want what you pay for.

quote:
I don't want to pay more for internet. Bottom line. Plain and simple.


Who does ? We're already paying too much of a premium for the mediocre broadband we have now.

quote:
I fully acknowledge that by fighting for what I want, I'm basically screwing over every 'lite' internet user who would pay less than what they are paying right now under a usage-based scheme. I fully acknowledge that those 'lite' users are subsidizing my internet use, I like it, and I want it to stay that way.


Those lite users would never notice the supposed slowdown that your actions are causing in the first place though. Don't buy into this guilt trip tactic.


RE: Ha
By artemicion on 6/9/2008 5:39:13 PM , Rating: 3
Ah. Tactics. Ok. Let's talk tactics.

quote:
Its not selfish to want what you pay for.

This assertion is non-responsive to anything I said in my post. We're not talking about wanting what we pay for. We're talking about arguing between two different schemes for charging customers. Where scheme A charges Adam and Bob $5 each, and scheme B charges Adam $7 and Bob $3, I would say, yes it would be selfish for Adam to insist on scheme A, especially if Adam is using more of whatever he's buying.

quote:
Who does ? We're already paying too much of a premium for the mediocre broadband we have now.

Here, you chose to argue against something I put out there as an obviously true assertion in order to build toward an argumentative conclusion. I don't know why you singled out that particular part of my post. There was nothing controversial about it. But then you went on to attack two irrelevant issues: paying too much, and quality. Both are issues that are independent from the SCHEME chosen to charge for internet service unless you build an argument that one scheme or another will necessarily result in a further detriment in quality - which you didn't, and which I don't see as obvious enough to leave out. Paying too much I would argue is irrelevant because I don't think it is accurate to say one who pays for what one uses is paying "too much". Sure, the company can OVERALL overcharge all its customers, but again, that's an independent issue (charging by basis doesn't necessarily result in that conclusion). Perhaps your argument would be more clear if you clearly defined what is "too much".

quote:
Those lite users would never notice the supposed slowdown that your actions are causing in the first place though.

I'm not even sure what you're arguing here. By referencing "slowdown" are you making some kind of argument about quality of service? Again, that's irrelevant. Further it's irrelevant whether lite users "notice" anything. The bottom line is that supporting more bandwidth costs more money to provide, so using up more bandwidth drives up the cost of internet. I think lite users are well within their rights to want to pay less because they don't drive up cost as much. Or maybe you're trying to say since grandma doesn't know as much about computers as we do, she should be subsidizing our internet bill. Ouch.


RE: Ha
By Nyamekye on 6/9/2008 7:51:35 PM , Rating: 2
You're certainly a master at argument and discussion. But trying to persuade the other party with a long drawn out flame war is unnecessary - even if you are in the right.


RE: Ha
By Klober on 6/10/2008 3:45:11 PM , Rating: 2
I'd like to touch on 2 of the points you made. First:
quote:
We're not talking about wanting what we pay for.

I disagree. We actually are talking about wanting what we pay for - I pay for unlimited data transfer at 7Mbps/512Kbps and I believe I have a right to receive that since that's what I'm paying for.

Second:
quote:
Perhaps your argument would be more clear if you clearly defined what is "too much".

Well, to this comment I have quoted the following information from http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~PF2K-WLKN/inetjfaq.htm... :
quote:
FTTH (Optical Fiber To The Home) is provided to large condos in major cities. A 1Gbps fiber typically connects to VDSL (very high speed ADSL), providing 100Mbps service to up to 8 or 16 users from about ¥4,500 a month. Non-shared connections (to houses or wooden apartments) start from about ¥7,000 a month. NTT B FLETS FTTH allows you to connect to two providers simultaneously if you wish. (FTTH setup fees are usually waived if you apply via your provider). (There are just under 8M FTTH users in Japan).

From http://www.oanda.com the currency conversion is ¥4,500 ~= $42.67 and ¥7,000 ~= $66.38. So, 1Gbps for ~$43-67/month. Compared to ~$35-40/month for 7Mbps? Yeah, I'd say "Who does ? We're already paying too much of a premium for the mediocre broadband we have now." is a pretty accurate statement - on both the "too much" and the "mediocre" fronts.

If needed I can find some pricing on South Korea and elsewhere, but I don't think they're going to help anyone arguing that what we're already paying is "reasonable", much less what is being proposed.


RE: Ha
By 67STANG on 6/9/2008 7:35:51 PM , Rating: 2
Sure they're doing something wrong. I don't know how much you comprehend business, but every business decision comes with the intension of raising the bottom line. Period.

You haven't seen them doing both yet, but you will. It plain to see by their intended actions...

Yes, they are trying to stomp out file sharing. How much file sharing do you think people will do once they start getting charged? My guess is that it will drop by AT LEAST 50-70%.

With how crumby our bandwidth is already compared to the rest of the developed world, for AT&T to try to pull Dial-Up pricing on their broadband customers is a shame.

Your analogy of the buffet doesn't work. There's no installation, food monopoly and also there's the fact that if you changed the buffet to a'la carte because of McFatty, you'd be sued and shut down by McFatty for discrimination.

By the way, I don't think having an unlimited broadband connection and expecting to pay X amount of dollars every month for it is selfish. Nor do I think my unlimited cell phone plan is selfish.


RE: Ha
By artemicion on 6/9/2008 8:54:06 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
Sure they're doing something wrong. I don't know how much you comprehend business, but every business decision comes with the intension of raising the bottom line. Period.

Going into business with the intention of raising the bottom line is "wrong"? What, pray tell, is the "right" reason for going into business?

quote:
Yes, they are trying to stomp out file sharing. How much file sharing do you think people will do once they start getting charged? My guess is that it will drop by AT LEAST 50-70%.

The only point I'm making here is that there's a distinction between AT&T's desire to lower bandwidth usage and the desire to "stomp out file sharing". AT&T doesn't care about file sharing (at least that's not their primary motivation for going usage-based). AT&T is not, and is not related to, the RIAA. They are only indirectly concerned with file sharing because there's a link between file sharing and bandwidth usage. I feel like tech sites say "file sharing" because it evokes the imagery of the evil RIAA in people's minds which is an unfair characterization of AT&T's business interests.

quote:
Your analogy of the buffet doesn't work. There's no installation, food monopoly and also there's the fact that if you changed the buffet to a'la carte because of McFatty, you'd be sued and shut down by McFatty for discrimination.

Tell me exactly why the analogy does not work because AT&T has a monopoly? I've already explained that one away but if you've got a counter-argument I'd like to hear it. Explain the relevance of "installation" too. Oh and while you're at it, tell me, what theory of tort would McFatty sue hypothetical me for changing a buffet to a la carte in order to realize greater profit? (Here's a hint: "discrimination" is not a tort.)

quote:
By the way, I don't think having an unlimited broadband connection and expecting to pay X amount of dollars every month for it is selfish. Nor do I think my unlimited cell phone plan is selfish.

I'm glad you brought up cell phone plans. Cell phone companies do NOT have a monopoly on cell phone service. So how are THEY distinct from the analogy to the buffet? Do you seriously want cell phone companies to ONLY offer unlimited plans? I don't understand why people assume that if this happened it would automatically be cheaper than what they're paying now. There is no cell phone monopoly so I think we can assume cell phone companies price as low as possible to stay competitive. Further, I think we can assume if everybody had an unlimited plan, overall usage will go up. And I think we can assume if overall usage will go up, cell phone companies are going to have to charge more in order to build a network that can withstand the additional strain. And I think, unless you use your phone more than the average person, you're going to end up paying more if everybody was forced to buy an unlimited plan.


RE: Ha
By pnyffeler on 6/9/2008 12:47:50 PM , Rating: 2
Another option is to simply cap uploads by users. Pirates & heavy Bit Torrent users put a huge strain on infrastructure because they're downloading & uploading all the time. If you cap uploads, you don't injure people who are doing "legitimate" things on the net, including email, web surfing, or downloading movies from iTunes.


RE: Ha
By harshbarj on 6/9/2008 1:21:01 PM , Rating: 5
What counts as "legitimate"? I create a lot of large video and audio file and upload them to my website nearly daily. All are owned by me and as such are legal for me to upload. I pay $60 a month for unlimited 13/1 (d/u) transfers and that is what I should get 24/7! I realize I’m not always going to get that speed but my ISP should never be the cause for slowdowns.


RE: Ha
By xRyanCat on 6/9/2008 1:25:57 PM , Rating: 2
Bit Torrent is used for many legitimate things. Capped uploads would kill Bit Torrent because Upload and Download speeds are directly proportional to each other. It would also kill people that do things like off-site backups, web site admins, etc.

The fact is, your ISP could care less if your using Bit Torrent for pirated material, they just don't want to any type of strain on their network.


RE: Ha
By StevoLincolnite on 6/9/2008 4:25:06 PM , Rating: 2
Hows this for a rude awakening.

Australia's Largest Internet Service Provider is Telstra, and yet the largest ADSL 1 Plan is 1.5mb with a Download limit of 25gb, with a 256k upload speed, where the upload data is also counted in the download data, yet people still manage to download movies, and music.

Once you have reached your download limit, you are then throttled down to 64k speeds.

Thus it probably won't damage "Illegal" torrents all that much, people will just be wiser where they spend there bandwidth, much like fuel where people are wise on where they drive, and where to buy.


RE: Ha
By FITCamaro on 6/9/2008 12:58:58 PM , Rating: 2
As long as the caps are high enough that the average gamer/iTunes user/netflix streamer/youtube lover doesn't hit them, I'm fine with caps. But this would have to be in the hundreds of GB. 50GB ain't going to cut it. 150GB maybe. But that doesn't really even consider HD content either.

And if I have to pay extra for an uncapped connection, I also better get a faster speed.


RE: Ha
By Staples on 6/9/2008 2:07:22 PM , Rating: 3
An you were rated down for what?

I agree. 150GB minimum and I would not mind.

And for those delusional people claiming that the majority of BT is used for legitimate purposes, in most these cases, I the files are hosted on web servers. Who in their right mind would chose to download over BT than 700Kb/sec? I sure would not. Sure lots of companies put trackers out there in hopes that people will use them and take away some of their bandwidth costs but if you actually look at the numbers, 90% or more of geek users will chose direct download. For non geeks, probably 96% or more.


RE: Ha
By sinful on 6/9/2008 2:27:48 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
And for those delusional people claiming that the majority of BT is used for legitimate purposes, in most these cases, I the files are hosted on web servers. Who in their right mind would chose to download over BT than 700Kb/sec? I sure would not. Sure lots of companies put trackers out there in hopes that people will use them and take away some of their bandwidth costs but if you actually look at the numbers, 90% or more of geek users will chose direct download. For non geeks, probably 96% or more.


I don't think you quite grasp the concept.

Company A goes out and buys bandwidth. Let's say they buy enough bandwidth to upload at 50K/s. Then, they host a .Torrent file.

Company B goes out and buys bandwidth. They buy enough to upload at 100K/s, and just host it via the web.

Now, company A's connection will be slow at first; However, once seeded sufficiently, people would be able to download at the maximum speed of their connection via bittorrent.
i.e. suppose 8 people download the .torrent from Server A. Also, suppose each person has an upload of 7K/s.

By the time 8 people are seeding, you now have 8*7K/s = 56K/s + the original 50K/s.
So, now Company A is sharing files at 106K/s.

Needless to say, it's not long before their upload speed greatly exceeds Company B's bandwidth. In addition, they're doing it cheaper too, so lower costs for you.

In fact, the more people that download, the faster company A's connection gets!

Meanwhile, Company B's bandwidth goes down as more people download.

It's no wonder most savvy companies encourage .torrents - it can save them tremendously on bandwidth costs, and result in a faster download too.


RE: Ha
By heeros1 on 6/11/2008 2:48:38 PM , Rating: 2
It depends on the file size. if your just going to download some drivers then Direct downloads would be faster in most cases, but if you're downloading Linux distros, or Online games, or big videos, it can be very frustrating to watching an initial 800KB/s download degrade to a 100KB/s download. when with bittorrent the speed will increase if there are enough seeds


RE: Ha
By MScrip on 6/10/2008 1:12:40 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
And if I have to pay extra for an uncapped connection, I also better get a faster speed.


Well then that doesn't really solve the problem. The true pirates and people who hog all the bandwidth will pay more and continue to use up all that bandwidth... while mom, pop and grandma get a cheap $9.99 plan because all they do is check e-mail.

I thought the whole reason for capping usage is because they're running out of bandwidth. But, the way I see it, for every one super-user, there's 20 light-users who barely use their internet at all. But they all pay the same price. So they are actually making more money on the light users right now.

If they made a super cheap plan for light users, I think they would lose more money. There aren't enough heavy users to make up for that, even if the heavy users pay for overages.


RE: Ha
By jimbojimbo on 6/11/2008 4:41:31 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly. If they are proposing to charge by the GB but are doing so not to increase income, they'd better decrease the amount low useage users pay. That's the only way you can keep a net average bandwidth / income ratio the same.


RE: Ha
By MrBlastman on 6/9/2008 1:08:10 PM , Rating: 2
It certainly does not make sense for the consumer!

If you are a phone company, or a internet service provider, then it makes sense to the bottom line, that is all.

This is essentially going the opposite direction that the phone companies have been going. They have been upping the amount of minutes they give you for the same price (land lines are unlimited nowadays)... ISP's want to charge you the same... for less.

Lets rewind time for a minute and go back to 1996 - on dialup, I'd use up over 80-100 megs of data a DAY gaming, not downloading, not surfing, doing nothing but gaming. This was on a 33.6 modem.

So lets see, I'd hit 2 or 3 gigabytes a month, easy. I have no clue what I use up now gaming but the ISP's won't care - data is data. This was through Mechwarrior and FPS games, not even MMO's.

I hope everyone boycotts this plan as it can only get worse from here.

"free" data during certain hours/days - oh get real! How can you find this reasonable? The last thing I want is to be nickel and dimed to death on my internet bill.


RE: Ha
By Alexstarfire on 6/9/2008 2:02:26 PM , Rating: 1
Of course it makes sense to them, they will get more money out of it. Some people may find this useful, but I doubt it'd be that many. Sure, those who don't use a lot of bandwidth might see a price decrease, but with all those $14.99-$19.99 "broadband" connections they have I doubt they'd see much a difference to warrant such ridiculous behavior from their ISP. I for one wouldn't tolerate this kind of bullsh!t from my ISP. While I may not be the one paying for internet in this household, my parents do, I know my dad would be on my side. You should see the amount of stuff he uploads to his school website just for his class, and he only has one mind you. He has slideshows, podcasts, videos, downloads, etc. This would effectively kill his type of teaching, and he is one of the most popular teachers in the entire school, Georgia Perimeter College. His method is also highly effective.

As I said in the last article, this is retrogressive, not progressive. We shouldn't be taking this kind of step back in time. Just because the ISPs failed to build an infrastructure that would support what they already promised, unlimited service, doesn't mean that the end consumer should end up suffering because of it. If they actually built up the infrastructure and needed to pay it off, then I couldn't be so mad at them, the money has to come from somewhere you know. The best way to do this would to get the government to finance them, then once built have the consumers pay it off via this style, BUT ONLY UNTIL IT'S PAID OFF. That'd have to be stated right in the contract. Course, that's never going to happen. EVERY COMPANY WANTS IT'S CAKE AND TO EAT IT TOO.


RE: Ha
By tdawg on 6/9/2008 3:21:04 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Perhaps "free" data during certain hours/days like most cell phones do now (eg, "free nights and weekends")


I remember this back when my dad first got Compuserve access from work. We had to watch the clock and couldn't use this until it hit the cheaper hours.

These limits are backward-thinking, not forward-thinking. Nobody exclaims excitement that they have to worry about on-peak vs. off-peak hours on their cell phones. I definitely do not want my internet access governed by some arbitrary limit and then hit me with extra fees if I exceed them.

I know bandwidth isn't free and ISPs need to worry about cost overheads (especially with anal shareholders looking over their shoulders), but I think they should look at other methods than pulling money solely from the end-users pockets.


RE: Ha
By Polynikes on 6/9/2008 1:34:37 PM , Rating: 2
Don't hold your breath. They'll follow eventually.


RE: Ha
By crleap on 6/9/2008 3:32:16 PM , Rating: 2
yeah, cuz comcast doesn't historically take every opportunistic gouge or stab at its internet customers. if it sees at&t doing it and it's bad for us as subscribers, of course comcast will follow suit. $$$$$$$


RE: Ha
By laok on 6/9/2008 6:30:13 PM , Rating: 2
If ATT does it, comcast will sure come to this measure soon. U will run out of options.


RE: Ha
By Wererat on 6/10/2008 10:45:23 AM , Rating: 2
Hmm, I cancelled Comcast in favor of AT&T because Comcast was frequently down - here AT&T has been up 100%.

A quick search will show that Comcast has already been 'trialling' their own methods:

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200823/11...


Won't they make less money?
By Sylar on 6/9/2008 12:22:08 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
the top 5% of its users account for 40% of its usage


Those top 5% who uses 40% of the bandwidth will stay with or switch to other ISPs for the unlimited plan while the 95% who uses less than what they currently pay for will save.




RE: Won't they make less money?
By rdeegvainl on 6/9/2008 12:25:56 PM , Rating: 5
Can't switch if there are no other providers in your area.


RE: Won't they make less money?
By Sylar on 6/9/2008 12:41:38 PM , Rating: 2
I have not heard of AT&T being the only provider in any area. However the case you're right, we know that for a "type" of provider such as cable internet access, there is only one provider in a given area but you didn't think about alternative ISPs. I mean if I were one who uses a ton of bandwidth/month such that I could be charged hundreds/month. I would sooner sacrifice my bandwidth speed and swith over to dsl.


RE: Won't they make less money?
By FITCamaro on 6/9/2008 2:04:05 PM , Rating: 2
AT&T is DSL.

And it won't matter if you switch. You can be damn sure that if even one company makes this a nation wide initiative, the rest will follow suit. They are salivating at the profit potential here. Because they know average people have no clue how much bandwidth they use. So people will sign up for the lowest cost plan and have "overage" charges every month.

And the worst part is, once they all do this, they have even less incentive to upgrade their systems. Because it will cause internet traffic to fall. People won't be going on YouTube all the time anymore. People won't stream via netflix.

The crappyness of this idea (for consumers) is astounding. I mean look at something even as simple as Windows updates. I mean can you imagine people being afraid to download and install the latest patches because they don't want to go over their limit? The fact is that nearly every program out there today uses the internet. And people use the internet for almost everything as well. If they do this they will, in effect, be killing the internet for a lot of Americans.

And all this is the fault of ISPs lack of ability to plan for the future. They dropped the ball. They didn't upgrade. They've had huge profits for years. And with no real competition. Now they want to go back to the dial up mentality for access of paying for a certain amount of usage. Hell, even the dialup system was better. At least then it was you had as much bandwidth as you wanted, just you were limited on time.


RE: Won't they make less money?
By dagamer34 on 6/10/2008 9:19:55 AM , Rating: 1
The real problem with charging for data is that it effectively breaks net neutrality. You end up charging more for ANY data that isn't yours. A movie from AppleTV will effectively cost more than the same movie from your ISPs Video-on-Demand service. It kills any services that want to stream data over the internet.

Expect the EFF to fight over this shit.


RE: Won't they make less money?
By mindless1 on 6/11/2008 12:26:06 AM , Rating: 2
They have incentive to upgrade their system with this plan. If they are not able to meet bandwidth demands, they can't bill as many overages because the customer can't downnload as much, as fast.

I'm not defending the plan, but they're going to keep upgrading their network no matter what.


RE: Won't they make less money?
By Noya on 6/9/2008 2:40:27 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
while the 95% who uses less than what they currently pay for will save.


Save? Are you on crack or a shill for the ISP's? No one is going to save, a service company NEVER drops it's prices, they only increase.


RE: Won't they make less money?
By mindless1 on 6/11/2008 12:42:04 AM , Rating: 2
There might conceivably be some grandmother somewhere that mostly uses email, who could end up with a lower bill. Regardless, we can see their move as a grab for addt'l revenue so it would be true that somebody has to pay more - and if those highest bandwidth consumers move to a different ISP because of it, they'll have to charge even more to those who use less bandwidth than the largest consumers.

That will effectively happen anyway because those largest consumers won't both stay and continue using so much bandwidth, thus we could expect their pricing tiers will have to charge more for at least some of the below 95% group.


RE: Won't they make less money?
By JustTom on 6/9/2008 2:53:41 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Those top 5% who uses 40% of the bandwidth will stay with or switch to other ISPs for the unlimited plan while the 95% who uses less than what they currently pay for will save.


Assuming their numbers are correct those 5% of users leaving AT&T would probably be a money maker for AT&T. Losing 5% of their users for a 40% drop in bandwidth is a pretty good deal for an ISP.


Makes sense
By CSMR on 6/9/2008 12:36:25 PM , Rating: 2
Usage based pricing definitely makes sense.
It is just silly economically to have a fixed price.

The only reason it's not there is that consumers are simple and can't work out how much they will use/spend. And a fixed price is definitely simple. But there are ways around this.

It is a competitive market and the fixed cost component (if it even exists) be lower than in a flat rate service.
That will get more people onto broadband.

Happens in the UK and some of the best services operate this way (although the market generally could be more competitive). And obviously business services will tend to be priced this way. Same goes for phone services, there are not many payg services in the usa.

But it's not as if this is a big new concept needing innovative thinking and extensive trialing. You go into a supermarket and buy five loaves of bread, it costs more than if you bought only one. Makes sense.




RE: Makes sense
By OddTSi on 6/9/2008 1:10:40 PM , Rating: 3
I absolutely don't mind a pay-for-what-you-use scenario, but I absolutely abhor the suggestions by all these ISPs that they'll be going to cell phone-like price plans. They will charge you a flat monthly fee to get a certain amount of bandwidth and then you pay a penalty for anything over that.

Why don't they go to landline-like price plans? You pay a few bucks for a standard connection fee, and then you pay $0.xx/GB you use that month. That way if you only check email and do basic stuff you likely won't pay over $10. This way everyone pays for what they use and nothing more. And "more" is exactly what 95% of the internet users are paying now. Doing things this way all of them would end up paying less per month.

But seeing how stupid cell phone users are not just in being completely willing to stick with these retarded pricing plans but to sign 2-year contracts with them, I think we're all doomed to suffer the "pay $xx/month for Y amount of GB and a giant penalty for anything over that" crap.


RE: Makes sense
By Digimonkey on 6/9/2008 1:12:04 PM , Rating: 2
You're not paying the supermarket a fixed fee a month to shop there, and there's always alternative supermarkets to shop at if the price for bread is unacceptable to you at a certain store.

Things like this have the ability to hamper growth and innovation on the net. Companies will be less likely to push a technology that will increase the consumers bandwidth bill.


RE: Makes sense
By dagamer34 on 6/9/2008 1:39:02 PM , Rating: 2
The real problem why most downloaders resist a "pay as you go" plan is that regardless of what kind of billing ISPs create, it is designed to get people to pay as much as they can. When you start changing $1 per GB, a $3.99 movie rental off of AppleTV weighing in at about 6GB now costs twice as much. In fact, you start getting into an unfair promotion of the ISPs own services. And that's where it starts to get shady.


RE: Makes sense
By Kashman on 6/9/2008 1:48:45 PM , Rating: 5
Your grocery store scenario doesn't make sense..
I'm not technically buying packets from my ISP I am paying for them to transport it for me.
Its like having to pay more for the cab ride to and from the store because I bought 5 loaves of bread instead of 1.
If there is a line of people waiting for a cab, the cabbie doesn't charge me more because I have a ton of groceries, I'm next in line and he takes me. If the line is too long he needs to make more cabs(bandwidth) available to service his customers or they will take a bus or another cab company (if they are available)


RE: Makes sense
By CSMR on 6/9/08, Rating: 0
RE: Makes sense
By Icelight on 6/10/2008 1:09:23 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
You go into a supermarket and buy five loaves of bread, it costs more than if you bought only one. Makes sense.


That is a horrible example and doesn't match this scenario at all. A better example would be:

You go into a Supermarket and buy a loaf of bread. Let's say this brand contains 20 slices of bread in each container. The Supermarket calculates that, on average, people only use 8 slices of bread before throwing it out. A few buyers, however, use the entire loaf of bread! How dare they! They purchased the loaf of bread with the 20 promised slices...but the Supermarket never said it was okay to use all of them! The Supermarket then decides to charge overages for every slice of bread eaten beyond the eighth slice.


By glennpratt on 6/9/2008 5:28:06 PM , Rating: 2
Dallas, TX - Glennpratt, consumer, plans to cancel AT&T service this fall. In an interview, Glenn said, "It's almost a taxation issue. The apartment complex I'm in gets a nice kickback from Ma Bell, while I get service that is more and more disappointing. I have more options on where my taxes go then where I get broadband service from - I at least get a vote with the government."

Thankfully, I'll be moving soon - then I'll at least get to pick my connection hoarding overlord - AT&T, Verizon or Time Warner... oh joy.




By cmdrdredd on 6/9/2008 9:46:26 PM , Rating: 2
At least Verizon, if you can get FiOS, is super fast and relatively cheap compared to cable.

I wish FiOS would come to my area.


By glennpratt on 6/9/2008 11:41:19 PM , Rating: 2
Except Verizon blocks ports that I'd like to use for my own website/blog, which I think is unforgivable.

There routers also suck, but that's a minor complaint.


By Oregonian2 on 6/10/2008 3:28:28 PM , Rating: 2
I've got FiOS coming in on Friday of this week (scheduled anyway). I understand one can use a common alternative port for http other than port 80 that Verizon blocks on the uplink (I don't recall the numbers).

But that said, I don't think it's a big deal. For about $4/month (or less with coupons and such) one can just get web hosting at godaddy.com or other places. I think Godaddy's cheapie service has a limit of maybe 300-GB of traffic a month, but for a website/blog it'd have to be really popular to use that -- and their access bandwidth to users is probably a lot higher than a FiOS uplink (mine will be only a 15/2 setup). And they'll charge very little for an associated domain registration.

I'm still poking along with 768/128 DSL, which will be irretrievable after Verizon tears out my copper cable upon FiOS installation.


By glennpratt on 6/10/2008 5:10:36 PM , Rating: 2
I've had FIOS before and I've installed it at a half dozen locations so I'm well aware of the issues and workarounds.

That said, I think blocking port 80 is a bad precedent. It's just as bad as blocking blocking bittorrent in my opinion. There are plenty of legitimate uses for personal websites, and it's frustrating that ISPs want to prevent me from having one. Some applications like Windows Home Server try to setup a home website for you by doing all the dirty work of Domain registration, port forwarding, etc automatically, which, of course, fails silently on FIOS.

It's just another frustration, and all the major ISPs come with one.


By Oregonian2 on 6/10/2008 8:08:59 PM , Rating: 2
Windows Home Server automatically does a Domain registration? What kinds of name does it pick? "Youwannasee.tv"?

:-)


By glennpratt on 6/19/2008 1:15:16 AM , Rating: 2
We'll you can get one from Microsoft for free, <whatever>.homeserver.com, or you can pay for a domain with some built in providers.


By Oregonian2 on 6/23/2008 6:45:35 PM , Rating: 2
Interesting.... although I think that's called a sub-domain, not a domain, exactly.


I really hope this doesnt go live
By tastyratz on 6/9/2008 12:22:23 PM , Rating: 3
As if the us wasn't already 16th place with internet services a choke hold could be a nice finishing touch.

Hey how bout this, did you ever consider that maybe your INFRASTRUCTURE isn't large enough?

no no couldn't be our bandwidth. No its not for profits at all,

Much faster connections for less money in other countries are fairy tales for us here. The USA online presence is slowly turning into a bedtime story.

I suppose AT&T is going to announce next they plan on taking the Time Warner route back to the 90s with 768kb "high speed"




RE: I really hope this doesnt go live
By bupkus on 6/9/2008 12:36:10 PM , Rating: 5
Somewhere in the far east: "Finish your bandwidth, little Xinhua... you know there are people starving for bandwidth in America."


RE: I really hope this doesnt go live
By saiga6360 on 6/9/2008 2:32:32 PM , Rating: 2
LOL

This should be a 6.


By Scrogneugneu on 6/9/2008 10:16:32 PM , Rating: 2
Agreed. 6 indeed.


Rollover?
By vapore0n on 6/9/2008 1:08:40 PM , Rating: 3
Since ATT/Cingular has rollover minutes on their cellphone plans, are we going to see rollover Kilobytes?

It feels as if we are going in reverse in the tech industry.




RE: Rollover?
By xRyanCat on 6/9/2008 1:27:59 PM , Rating: 2
Your sentiments are shared.

Given the abysmal shape of ISP service in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world, this is the last thing we want.


BS!
By amanojaku on 6/9/2008 12:21:49 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
onovan asserts that the tests of usage-based pricing is not an attempt to make more money, but is simply required to add more network capacity.

Donovan told Wired.com in an interview, “It's almost a taxation issue. Traffic on our backbone is growing 60 percent per year, but our revenue is not.” From that simple statement it’s hard to support Donovan’s previous claim that the testing of usage-based Internet pricing isn’t an attempt to make more money from its users.


In other words, AT&T is run by morons who promise more than they can deliver. The network architects can't predict capacity growth (networking 301) and the CFO's can't come up with anything better than shoving a CAT6 up our arses.




RE: BS!
By bodar on 6/9/2008 3:32:24 PM , Rating: 2
All those people who are becoming more tech-savvy and utilizing the full potential of their internet connection -- as opposed to just "email and MSNBC" -- are screwing with their bottom line. Their business model is based on the premise that most people will pay the same fixed-rate as everyone else, but will barely use it. This is a cash-grab, pure and simple.


victim$
By chromal on 6/9/2008 1:47:03 PM , Rating: 2
Wow. I guess this will make pingflood DoS attacks a lot more expensive to be the victim of. I wonder how long it would take a compromised box on a fast connection flooding my Internet line to rack up a $1000 monthly bill's worth of ICMP traffic.




RE: victim$
By jimbojimbo on 6/9/2008 2:25:43 PM , Rating: 2
Don't like someone? Find their IP and if it's on the AT&T network, do like above post. The only way around this is every time you shut off your computer you'd better shut down your DSL modem as well.


Long term evil
By djc208 on 6/9/2008 2:35:50 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
Donovan told Wired.com in an interview, “It's almost a taxation issue. Traffic on our backbone is growing 60 percent per year, but our revenue is not.” From that simple statement it’s hard to support Donovan’s previous claim that the testing of usage-based Internet pricing isn’t an attempt to make more money from its users.


That statement proves it's all about the money. The big problem here is that the ISPs don't provide the content, they provide the pipeline for it. If a utility company has to upgrade their distribution system for additional capacity it's paid for by the additional useage that capacity is designed to support.

This would be like the phone company trying to charge you for the number of words they have to transmit between you and the person you're talking to. You're not buying the content here, you're renting the bandwith you're using.

The sneaky part is while the limits might be fine for the majority of people today, these companies are smart enough to know that in the not too distant future more and more people will hit these caps, which is where the real money will come from.




Fine do a Tier Based System for Broadband
By sapiens74 on 6/9/2008 4:40:15 PM , Rating: 2
Tier 1
Low User who checks email, looks at websites, uses a couple of GB per month
$14.95 - $19.95 per month

Tier 2
Moderate User who downloads demos, plays online games
Set cap to 80 GB per month
$24.95 - $29.95 per month

Tier 3
Unlimited user who like their pron, games, Itunes, Netflix on Demand among other things
No Cap
$39.95 - $59.95 based on bandwidth allocatation

guaranteed bandwidth depending on speed




By Darkefire on 6/9/2008 5:08:53 PM , Rating: 2
Tack on an extra $20 to those prices and you've got their evil plan down pat. It's sickening to think that instead of investing money for infrastructure upgrades to support more people/better service (and thus make more money), they're instead going to bleed people dry without having to make any changes at all. That's bad business practice and bad economics any way you slice it. If any other industry tried to pull this crap, they'd go under in a storm of angry customers and stockholders, but for some reason the public is about to let the telcoms get away with this. Unbelievable.


What a RAPE
By HrilL on 6/9/2008 6:20:04 PM , Rating: 2
They claim its not about making more money? I ask how is it not? After seeing what time warner did that is simply the only reason at all. $19 a month for 5GBs and $50 for 40GBs Sure seems like the same prices that they currently charge but as the consumer we get by far less of a value. Some people may think this model will save people that hardly use any bandwidth. But just look at the facts its the same price but with an added restriction. If 5% of their uses are using 40% of their bandwidth then they clearly have over sold their capacity.

The fact is they simply don't want to lose any profit by having to add capacity so they decided the best way to make the same or maybe even more profit is to make the users pay more. So I guess he is right they won't be making more profit just the same amount with the extra revenue used to upgrade their networks.

They shouldn't be allowed to do this. They sell unlimited service for a flat fee and then when people actually start to use their service they decide to charge more for using it. They raked in all this extra cash when people were not using it and that should have been used to add capacity. As end users we shouldn't have to suffer because they made bad business choices and decided to pocket the money that should have been used to upgrade their networks.




RE: What a RAPE
By HrilL on 6/9/2008 6:26:08 PM , Rating: 2
Oh and I just this thought of this to add. Bandwidth is not even something you can control in a lot of cases. You can't stop someone from sending packets to you. Sure you can drop them once they hit your router but they will still use up your bandwidth. I mean if you were to Be DDOS attacked by someone and you had a capped plan you could end up pay $100s for something that was completely out of your control.


Silly socialists...
By seamonkey79 on 6/10/2008 2:25:36 AM , Rating: 2
Stuff isn't free.

If you want more stuff, you pay for more stuff.

The people who don't want as much stuff shouldn't have to pay just because you want to pay less for the more stuff that you want.




RE: Silly socialists...
By MScrip on 6/10/2008 1:30:02 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
If you want more stuff, you pay for more stuff.


So right now, everyone has unlimited internet, whether they need it or not. And we all pay the same price. For years, the ISPs have made money off the people who pay for internet but barely use it.

What about the lady across the street who only checks her e-mail, who pays the same amount as me for internet, while I'm downloading stuff, Youtubing, iTuning, and torrenting?

And not just her, there's plenty of people who barely use their internet. So, the ISPs are making money on all of those light users, despite the one or two heavy users. So wouldn't it even out somewhere?


Adapt or Leave
By UppityMatt on 6/9/2008 12:29:14 PM , Rating: 2
I have a hard time justifying anything other then unlimited bandwidth...there is just too much downloadable content today. Just this weekend i downloaded roughly 12 Gigs of game demos on my Xbox 360 and PS3. The internet companies need to upgrade and stop trying to push blame onto the users and the market taking advantage of a new medium. The internet is here to stay, either adapt or move out of the way.




Not everyone can switch ISP's
By soloman02 on 6/9/2008 12:56:02 PM , Rating: 2
Were I live (Durham, NH), There is only one broadband provider, Comcrap, aka comcast. We have no recourse if comcast decides to do this. So in the end, it hurts the consumer. Do you really think people will switch to Satellite? No, it is too expensive up front and the lag is horrendous for gaming / streaming video.




How it is here
By rhangman on 6/9/2008 1:21:10 PM , Rating: 2
Here (Australia) most people are not on unlimited, several ISP's have offered such plans in the past, but either gone broke or dropped them. I am still on unlimited, but that is only because it is a business plan.

The serious downloaders are most likely using usenet not bittorrent. Hard to max out a connection 24/7 with torrents. Fairly easy with usenet.

Apple TV would be using akamai wouldn't it? So if the ISP hosts akamai servers, then the content should be coming from their own network.

Generally an ISP can change the terms of your contract, they just have to give you notice and a free out if you are on contract.




By jimbojimbo on 6/9/2008 1:23:14 PM , Rating: 2
I see a future increase in everybody's AT&T speeds but not because they want us to enjoy a faster connection. No, they'll raise the speeds so we hit our quotas quicker and start paying for those $/GB sooner.

I'm totally against this but if they implement it they better have a perfect bandwidth meter handy on the DSL modem itself or higher up. If they offer to give us some application we install on our computer to monitor the bandwidth, the company should be burned down to the ground.




More Efficient Use?
By Some1ne on 6/9/2008 1:47:16 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Donovan says that usage-based pricing trials are an attempt to encourage more efficient use of a customer’s bandwidth capacity.


It seems like what they're really trying to encourage is less use. "Efficiency" is just a pointless euphemism that has nothing to do with it in this case.




Alternate Headline
By acejj26 on 6/9/2008 2:20:52 PM , Rating: 2
AT&T Set to Lose Customers This Fall




Advertisement and Spam
By arunvb on 6/9/2008 3:15:07 PM , Rating: 2
If they are going to meter the usage then I am sorry I am going to be even less happy about all the advertisements and the spam / junk that I don't need that will add to my bandwidth because now I have to pay for those.




By nismotigerwvu on 6/9/2008 3:27:49 PM , Rating: 2
The market will simply not allow this to happen. Any power user would know to get away from this as fast as possible. Unless there is a monopoly or some other price fixing actions taken, all of these "trials" will be black eye for the ISP's involved. Comcast or whomever the competition is in the area, would be fools to do anything less than blanket advertising of flat free "fair use" service. They could then have some sort of system in line to curb pirates, but heavy legitimate users should not suffer. Assuming they have the backbone to support the influx of new users, quite a mint could be made here.




Games...
By Donkey2008 on 6/9/2008 4:10:09 PM , Rating: 2
How much bandwidth am I using while I play games? I play every night for 1-2 hours (more 3-4 on weekend nights) so I am wondering if I would ever "cross the line" in terms of my bandwidth limit.




By borismkv on 6/9/2008 5:29:40 PM , Rating: 2
I've already lived in a place where this limitation exists. The major cable company in Juneau, Alaska uses a monthly bandwidth allocation scheme. Their charges? 50 a month (1MBPS for 5GB, 60 a month (2MBPS)for 10GB, and 70 a month (3MBPS) for 20GB. If you want unlimited internet usage you also have to buy 80 dollars worth of other services (Internet Phone, Digital Cable, etc) and you still have to add a minimum of 40 dollars a month for 1MBPS unlimited connection. You can bet that AT&T is going to want to tack on some extra charges and requirements for users to get unlimited bandwidth, and it's going to cost a hell of a lot more for the privilege.

This can cause a large number of problems, particularly if customers have wireless connections. There is no way to effectively secure a home wireless connection from being used by someone to leech bandwidth. Someone with the right tools can always get in and chew up your tiny little bandwidth allocation, and it can be difficult at best to track down leechers.

From my own experience with this ISP in Alaska, 2-3 hours a day of WoW takes 3000MB of bandwidth per month. Streaming movies are roughly equivalent to 700MB of bandwidth. Playing Crysis online cost me a total of about 600MB a *day* for 2-3 hours of play. And this is just light usage for me.

Another problem is that this system does absolutely nothing to improve speeds or network reliability. The network speeds in Alaska are in *last* place in the US. Moving to this system will do nothing but stem progress in the US. We're already diving down the lists among connected countries, and the Internet was our baby.

And the Internet is moving into some really bandwidth intensive applications for both home users and businesses. From streaming HD video to off-si te backups over network connections, bandwidth requirements are only going to go higher for the average user. Placing limits on usable bandwidth will do nothing but stall progress as well.
But hey, anything to keep those bean counters happy, right?

This type of move is nothing more than a veiled attempt at getting more life out of horribly outdated equipment. These companies should be pouring money into upgrading their networks, rather than into the CEO's pocket and from there into the purse of a 100,000 dollar prostitute.




Deceptive Excuse
By mindless1 on 6/9/2008 9:02:00 PM , Rating: 2
Traffic is rising 60% while revenue isn't, but neither is cost rising by nearly that much.

AT&T had, as they did always in the past, a need to continually upgrade their capacity. Nothing new about this, it's just an inherant part of their business.




Bad way to go about it...
By cscpianoman on 6/9/2008 11:04:51 PM , Rating: 2
This is going to result in very skewed data. Think about it, I have one broadband service provider to my apartment, just one, and that is Cox. If Cox all of a sudden decided to "test market" this concept at my apartment complex then I have no choice, but to keep them. Given this circumstance I would love to ditch them, but I cannot because I would no longer have internet. This ultimately leads to a test result indicating that the consumer didn't mind, when in reality I would string them all up at the nearest cactus (I live in Arizona). There are hundreds of places across the country that are this limited, ie one high-speed ISP. I would almost want to find out if the "test market" is a one ISP camp or are they actually going to test this where competition takes place. My guess is the former.

I hate to say that this is going to be inevitable, but I'm afraid it is going to be inevitable to have monthly caps.




morons
By GlassHouse69 on 6/10/2008 12:39:36 AM , Rating: 1
fuck att




Why don't they...
By lagitup on 6/9/08, Rating: -1
RE: Why don't they...
By Digimonkey on 6/9/2008 1:01:08 PM , Rating: 2
Probably has something to do with the US being over 20 times larger than Japan. Upgrading an nation wide infrastructure there costs considerably less than upgrading a nation wide infrastructure in the US.


RE: Why don't they...
By Chudilo on 6/9/2008 1:30:34 PM , Rating: 2
Who cares about the whole country?
Let them upgrade the places where they make the most money :)
This a market economy.
If their network can't sustain the bandwidth loads in certain markets then it's the network that's not up to par.
Lots of bandwidth means lots of customers. Charging these customers more for getting the same thing is not going to fly.
If you got one customers using up all the bandwidth then set limits, charging per megabyte is not going to fly either.
When they came up with unlimited plan they though they plenty of bandwidth to spare. Well internet usage is changing it's time to upgrade the hardware as well.
this isn't going to work the way POTS lines did, when a medium sized upfront investment is going to last them 30-40 years.


RE: Why don't they...
By Kira on 6/10/2008 6:07:03 PM , Rating: 2
You are also forgetting that one of the primary motivations for the gov to allow private enterprises was the promise of nationwide broadband - they have given billions in subsidies to telecommunication companies and we are no where near the goals set almost a decade ago by the FCC.

Also I just had to amuse myself over this - we soon will have headlines of users going over their stated limits in the thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. I tend to wonder how it will be viewed by avg Joe who has a compromised machine and ends up paying for someone else's usage? How does AT&T remind him? Would they really call him up and say he we want to remind you that your limit was reached? Please. Its in it for the money and gently reminds users is such a lie


RE: Why don't they...
By Digimonkey on 6/11/2008 8:45:32 AM , Rating: 2
These subsidies you speak of, if you can call them that, were given to startup telecommunication companies or companies just getting in the broadband game where no other broadband service was offered. Basically it's a rural America outreach program, to make sure everyone has the chance to hook up to the net at a decent speed.

However these smaller companies still need upstream providers, such as AT&T or Time Warner, who are the ones complaining about bandwidth issues on their nationwide backbones. Upgrading certain cities or regions won't fix this issue, and running fiber thousands of miles across America and buying new switches/routers to propagate all these new fiber leads takes a substantial amount of money.


RE: Why don't they...
By Kira on 6/11/2008 11:07:40 AM , Rating: 2
Since this discussion is going the right way lets expand on something - why do we have 100 year franchises with auto renewal? In the city I live the community went to clear this matter up with the CCC - city chamber of commerce and was met with stark resistance. At the chamber meeting the commissioners refused to open it up for small business to compete. Attempts to make it a free market is nonsense in my opinion - half the area on the east side of the river is owned by Comcast while the other half is RR. Dsl is not possible because they don't have it in our area yet I can get DSL if I am about two miles from my house (ATT).


"You can bet that Sony built a long-term business plan about being successful in Japan and that business plan is crumbling." -- Peter Moore, 24 hours before his Microsoft resignation











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