AT&T and Comcast broadband-related news...
Mar 31, 2011 6:00:41 GMT
Post by CharlieChomper on Mar 31, 2011 6:00:41 GMT
This applies to anyone living within North America where either or both services are offered (or anyone who may be a current customer of either company).
For those unaware, AT&T recently announced they were going to impose "bandwidth caps" on customers starting on May 2 of this year. The limit will be 150GBs (for U-Verse customers, a "more generous" 250GBs). Customers who exceed this limit will be charged for the overage (however, at this time, it appears charges won't appear until the third month of an overage). The charges so far appear to be $10 for every 50GBs a user goes over their limit.
The reason I mention Comcast is because this idea is not limited to just AT&T--Comcast has historically imposed a similar restriction (albeit, without really specifying what it actually was and without charging any users who may have exceeded it--they would just cut off a user's service instead without warning and without the customer knowing why or what actually happened), but has also mentioned they will begin charging their customers for exceeding a set limit as well (at this time, I don't know what their limit will be as I've only seen an announcement about the limit and that they plan on charging for it).
So far, it doesn't appear this idea is going to be adopted by any of the major broadband carriers who serve North America (mostly the US) and I know I've already seen some smaller broadband companies come out as mentioning they fully intend on retaining an unlimited broadband plan for their customers.
On a related note to this (involving AT&T), for those who haven't heard/read this yet, there has been a considerable controversy over AT&T's billing practices of late when it comes to the usage of their broadband customers--sometimes off by as much as 4,700%.
For those unaware, AT&T recently announced they were going to impose "bandwidth caps" on customers starting on May 2 of this year. The limit will be 150GBs (for U-Verse customers, a "more generous" 250GBs). Customers who exceed this limit will be charged for the overage (however, at this time, it appears charges won't appear until the third month of an overage). The charges so far appear to be $10 for every 50GBs a user goes over their limit.
The reason I mention Comcast is because this idea is not limited to just AT&T--Comcast has historically imposed a similar restriction (albeit, without really specifying what it actually was and without charging any users who may have exceeded it--they would just cut off a user's service instead without warning and without the customer knowing why or what actually happened), but has also mentioned they will begin charging their customers for exceeding a set limit as well (at this time, I don't know what their limit will be as I've only seen an announcement about the limit and that they plan on charging for it).
So far, it doesn't appear this idea is going to be adopted by any of the major broadband carriers who serve North America (mostly the US) and I know I've already seen some smaller broadband companies come out as mentioning they fully intend on retaining an unlimited broadband plan for their customers.
On a related note to this (involving AT&T), for those who haven't heard/read this yet, there has been a considerable controversy over AT&T's billing practices of late when it comes to the usage of their broadband customers--sometimes off by as much as 4,700%.
