Got AT&T DSL or UVerse? Your bandwidth will be capped, starting in May. (Howe: how much, homes)

[datacity]

Originally Posted by SabresFanInSA

Except it has been proven repeatedly that carrying that bandwidth costs next to nothing.

But if at&t and TW both implement these... where to go? I agree it stinks, but unless all of us are willing to cancel from either provider, nothing will happen. Where is Google when you want them.

[datacity]

Originally Posted by MattTx

AT&T will be implementing a new 150GB monthly usage cap for all DSL customers and a new 250 GB cap on all U-Verse users starting on May 2.

I am a little confused about the 250 GB cap on U-Verse part. Does that mean the amount of tv shows, movies, etc you watch are limited now? I don't have U-verse so I don't understand what exactly is being capped on this part. DSL part I understand though.

This would be only on the "internet access" part of U-verse, not on their TV subscription packages portion. In U-verse, it is all digital bandwidth and part of the same highway, but think of TV and Phone having their own dedicated lanes, and the internet portion being the one that can be the bottleneck (i.e.traffic). I think this is a move that starts to adjust our expectations to a future with a metered internet.

[SabresFanInSA]

Originally Posted by datacity

But if at&t and TW both implement these... where to go? I agree it stinks, but unless all of us are willing to cancel from either provider, nothing will happen. Where is Google when you want them.

Isnt Google in the process of rolling out broadband service? Of course it will probably be like FiOS and they wont come to SA because TW owns the entire infrastructure.

[datacity]

Originally Posted by SabresFanInSA

Isnt Google in the process of rolling out broadband service? Of course it will probably be like FiOS and they wont come to SA because TW owns the entire infrastructure.

Yeah, they were going to wire up one community -- not sure what happened. I doubt they come to SA though and like you said, TW and at&t are not likely to share their infrastructure.

This is why I think all these monopolies (the 1 cable, 1 telephone co in each market) should each be split into two parts: a regulated utility that provides service of the physical wires, and a non-regulated distributor/provider who competes with each other and new entrants into the market. It is sorta like the electricity market for most of Texas (except for San Antonio, Austin and a few smaller areas).

As an alternative, I would also love it if in San Antonio, CPS were able to provide an alternative to the utility portion....say internet access only. They have the ROW for the electric poles already.

Fat chance getting anyone in Washington or Austin to think in this way, although maybe it might be possible at the San Antonio city level.

[budjb]

Originally Posted by datacity

What they say doesn't matter as much as what we say.

In any case, a company like Netflix is one of the main reasons for this cap. Websites pay internet backbone providers (kinda like a long distance phone company) to carry their bandwidth and these providers negotiate to have local ISPs (e.g. TW or at&t which act kinda like a local telephone company) deliver the content the last mile to your home. In exchange for doing this, the backbone will carry traffic from the local ISP as well.

Well, with content provider like Netflix, the local ISP is carrying a lot more inbound data compared to outbound, and they want to be paid for it. If they cannot get it from upstream, they try to get it downstream -- that would be us.

Yes, in the past it was all about the minority of customers that used a lot of bandwidth (perhaps to download stuff). But with a future that will see a lot more streaming content, this is a way to get us used to a metered internet.

Of course, these same ISPs started this mess with their shortsightedness: they got us used to the idea of "unlimited."

While your argument may make sense for something of a limited nation like electricity or water, this doesn't hold weight for telecom type services where the resource is indeed unlimited. It's all the business rules placed around it that creates artificially limited supply.

But even then, bandwidth is so, so dirt cheap. The real reasoning behind this all comes down to profits, and it's a reaction to a two-fold threat. It is definitely because of streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, etc.

If you look at quarterly statements for all the broadband providers, you'll notice that every year their profits raise as their investment in networks goes down. This is perfect for shareholders, obviously, but horrible for consumers. So while we have South Korea working towards providing gigabit synchronous (1000Mbps) to the vast majority of its population for around $30US by 2013, we're stuck with 10Mbps speeds at the same price if we're lucky. Now with these streaming sites, since the providers refuse to add capacity because it will hurt their bottom line, the network is becoming saturated. From the standpoint of a business that has no real threat from competition, it's more profitable to limit the resource and charge more for extra use than to upgrade capacity.

The other part is because of conflicting interests. All your major internet providers also provide cable service, and before the internet blew up it was profitable. There's all this infrastructure that these guys invested in (and overcharged consumers for) that is threatened by a medium that will give people exactly what they want for a lot cheaper. So these companies can either change pricing on cable services and offer a la carte programming to compete with their online competition or they can cripple their online competition by pricing them out of the market. Would you want to pay $100/mo for substandard internet access just because you want to stream tv or movies? That's what these companies are betting on, because it cost them just about nothing to provide that "extra" service to you.

So, this capping is total crap and the only way to force AT&T to reverse its decision to switch service and make your opinions heard. Unfortunately, since there is a steep barrier to entry of market for internet providers, there's only one real option you can switch to, and that's a company who is still intent on capping as well.

[budjb]

Originally Posted by datacity

Yeah, they were going to wire up one community -- not sure what happened. I doubt they come to SA though and like you said, TW and at&t are not likely to share their infrastructure.

This is why I think all these monopolies (the 1 cable, 1 telephone co in each market) should each be split into two parts: a regulated utility that provides service of the physical wires, and a non-regulated distributor/provider who competes with each other and new entrants into the market. It is sorta like the electricity market for most of Texas (except for San Antonio, Austin and a few smaller areas).

As an alternative, I would also love it if in San Antonio, CPS were able to provide an alternative to the utility portion....say internet access only. They have the ROW for the electric poles already.

Fat chance getting anyone in Washington or Austin to think in this way, although maybe it might be possible at the San Antonio city level.

Excellent ideas. Just look at what municipal owned providers have done around the country, and even just north of us here in San Antonio. You have these big companies that refuse to wire the area because the return on investment is so small for them, so municipalities have grouped up and provided fiber access themselves and given it to their customers on the cheap.

The first idea makes a lot of sense though. Anything that will give us some real competition is a win.

[scuba steve]

Originally Posted by SabresFanInSA

Except it has been proven repeatedly that carrying that bandwidth costs next to nothing.

This.

And I will NOT be going with u-verse over here because of crap like this.

[niembre]

Does Time Warner have a cap? if so, what is it?

[budjb]

They don't. They tried to a year or two ago and got met with some fierce backlash over it, so they scrapped it for now.

[Bo]

Originally Posted by niembre

Does Time Warner have a cap? if so, what is it?

Not yet. The company announced it would be bringing new prices for various tiers of bandwidth to San Antonio back in 2009, but backed down before rolling that out. The maximum plan they were planning to offer back then was 100GB and any overages would be billed at $1/GB.