Starting this month, AT&T will enact a 20GB-per-month limit on users who subscribe to the company's slowest DSL service. Users on the fastest DSL plan will be able to transfer up to 150GB per month. The company will test-drive the idea in Reno, Nev., before rolling it out elsewhere.
AT&T's move comes on the heels of similar moves by other ISPs, including Comcast, which put a 250GB cap on transfer for all of its customers back on Oct. 1. Customers who exceed this limit will hear from Comcast. Typically, Comcast said they ask customers to curb their Internet usage.
Like Comcast, AT&T said that it's responding to the needs of its customers by adding the cap. According to AT&T, 5 percent of its subscribers use up 50 percent of the company's Internet capacity.
AT&T's transfer caps, like Comcast's, are also aimed at curbing users from excessive media downloading time. For perspective, an AT&T representative said that using email would never bring a user near the transfer cap, but that a user who downloaded at maximum capacity for 42 hours would most likely hit the ceiling. Such activity is typical of file-sharing enthusiasts.
If a user exceeds their transfer limit, AT&T will charge them $1 per gigabyte, but not before sending the user a warning when they reach 80 percent of their transfer allotment. Users will also be able to monitor their activity on an AT&T website.
In response to Comcast's transfer cap, NichePay's Media told XBIZ that he would be in danger of hitting a 250GB ceiling because he does so much work from his home office.
"I think its one of the stupidest moves that a cable company can make," he said. "To deny your customers true unlimited downloads when their service is already capped at a download speed without a throttle. If you want to stop people from downloading so much then don't allow the high megabit per second accounts they give to people. It makes it redundant sort of.
“They're basically controlling the way a surfer surfs. They want to offer all these bells and whistles to people, yet keep them on a leash. You can have blazing fast internet as long as you don't download a lot of content."
But Playboy webmaster Brett Gilliat, aka Vendzilla, told XBIZ that he figured it would be hard for most people to ever reach 250GB per month.