Philosophy
One wonders what AT&T is trying to accomplish. They are irritating a lot of people including myself. It is good that they are being challenged and criticized.
Two public interest groups asked federal regulators Friday to take a close look at AT&T’s new limits on their broadband customer’s internet usage, saying the caps could undermine the national broadband plan.
AT&T’s caps, which went into effect Monday, limit DSL customers to 150 GB of usage a month, while customers of the more robust U-Verse service (a mixture of fiber and phone lines) are capped at 250 GB a month. Users who go past those caps face overage fees of $10 for every 50 GB.
Online video, backup and gaming services are increasingly popular and particularly bandwidth-intensive. An hour of Netflix can range from 0.3 GB to 2 GB, depending on the quality.
The letter from Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative calls the caps “particularly aggressive” and notes that with AT&T’s adoption of the cap, more than half of the broadband subscribers in the United States are now using a capped service.
“While broadband caps are not inherently problematic, they carry the omnipresent temptation to act in anticompetitive and monopolistic ways,” the group told the FCC. “Unless they are clearly and transparently justified to address legitimate network-capacity concerns, caps can work directly against the promise of broadband access.”
Comcast imposed a 250-GB cap on its cable broadband customers in 2008, after it was censured by the FCC for secretly throttling peer-to-peer services. The company does not charge overage fees. Instead it warns customers and eventually cuts them off.
ISPs that install the caps say they are necessary to keep some users from overwhelming their network at the expense of other users. The problem for ISPs isn’t usually the connection to the internet’s backbone, where rates continue to fall.
Instead, ISPs are facing pressure to increase the capacity of their local connections, and are using caps as a rough attempt to keep usage down.
The groups want the FCC to investigate whether ISPs are counting the data that customers use for the ISPs’ own services, such as Video-on-Demand and internet calling, against the cap. The rationale is that if they are not, the ISPs have an unfair advantage over so-called over-the-top services such as Skype and Netflix.
The groups also suggest the FCC should require quarterly reports from AT&T, and possibly other ISPs, detailing how the caps are working and which ISP-offered services are excluded from the cap. This should include reporting on services, such as voice telephony and video programming, that compete with internet-delivered non–ISP-controlled offerings.
Specifically the groups suggest the FCC find out how often the cap is enforced, what steps are taken to warn customers, what the average penalty incurred by customers is, when and how often a penalty is waived, and what the relationship of enforcement is to times of network congestion.
AT&T did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Philosophy
AT&T, broadband cap and clients
One wonders what AT&T is trying to accomplish. They are irritating a lot of people including myself. It is good that they are being challenged and criticized.
"Investigate AT&T Broadband Caps, Interest Groups Tell FCC"
by
Ryan Singel
May 6th, 2011
Wired
by
Ryan Singel
May 6th, 2011
Wired
Two public interest groups asked federal regulators Friday to take a close look at AT&T’s new limits on their broadband customer’s internet usage, saying the caps could undermine the national broadband plan.
AT&T’s caps, which went into effect Monday, limit DSL customers to 150 GB of usage a month, while customers of the more robust U-Verse service (a mixture of fiber and phone lines) are capped at 250 GB a month. Users who go past those caps face overage fees of $10 for every 50 GB.
Online video, backup and gaming services are increasingly popular and particularly bandwidth-intensive. An hour of Netflix can range from 0.3 GB to 2 GB, depending on the quality.
The letter from Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative calls the caps “particularly aggressive” and notes that with AT&T’s adoption of the cap, more than half of the broadband subscribers in the United States are now using a capped service.
“While broadband caps are not inherently problematic, they carry the omnipresent temptation to act in anticompetitive and monopolistic ways,” the group told the FCC. “Unless they are clearly and transparently justified to address legitimate network-capacity concerns, caps can work directly against the promise of broadband access.”
Comcast imposed a 250-GB cap on its cable broadband customers in 2008, after it was censured by the FCC for secretly throttling peer-to-peer services. The company does not charge overage fees. Instead it warns customers and eventually cuts them off.
ISPs that install the caps say they are necessary to keep some users from overwhelming their network at the expense of other users. The problem for ISPs isn’t usually the connection to the internet’s backbone, where rates continue to fall.
Instead, ISPs are facing pressure to increase the capacity of their local connections, and are using caps as a rough attempt to keep usage down.
The groups want the FCC to investigate whether ISPs are counting the data that customers use for the ISPs’ own services, such as Video-on-Demand and internet calling, against the cap. The rationale is that if they are not, the ISPs have an unfair advantage over so-called over-the-top services such as Skype and Netflix.
The groups also suggest the FCC should require quarterly reports from AT&T, and possibly other ISPs, detailing how the caps are working and which ISP-offered services are excluded from the cap. This should include reporting on services, such as voice telephony and video programming, that compete with internet-delivered non–ISP-controlled offerings.
Specifically the groups suggest the FCC find out how often the cap is enforced, what steps are taken to warn customers, what the average penalty incurred by customers is, when and how often a penalty is waived, and what the relationship of enforcement is to times of network congestion.
AT&T did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
- Net Neutrality...done Deal
"FCC to approve Net neutrality rules Tuesday" by Marguerite Reardon December 20th, 2010 CNET News The Federal Communications Commission is set to vote on official Net neutrality rules tomorrow, which the agency claims will provide consumers, service...
- Slow Strangling Of The Internet By Google And Verizon...and Others
Yes, Google and Verizon and others like AT&T's metering concept. No matter how one looks at the Internet, it is slowly being manipulated, controlled...and strangled for the sake of money. One of the greatest revolutions of communication will...
- Internet Rules Soon
Do you get the feeling that eventually the consumer will get screwed? "FCC to toughen internet rules" by Maggie Shiels BBC NEWS The stage has been set for what many predict will be an ugly fight over broadband plans for US citizens. The Federal Communications...
- Net Neutrality--more
"Our view on 'Net neutrality': Don't let the cable guys decide what you see on Web" April 8th, 2010 USA TODAY In China and many other non-democratic countries, the government goes to great lengths to block certain Internet sites that it...
- "isps And The Internet" Poll
Some ISPs want to meter and charge for Internet usage over a specified bandwidth quantity. Should they enact such a policy? Yes...0 No...4 It's all about money and draining the public of personal funds in a time of economic crisis when other basics...