[Engadget] AT&T will cap DSL and U-Verse internet, impose overage fees

[archibaldcrane]

AT&T DSL sucks cock in my neighborhood, I think I could probably cap my DL speeds for the entire month and not hit this 150GB cap.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1201509217.png

[aurik]

Yep, most games run at a fraction of a 56kbps link. You won't run into bandwidth problems playing online games. It's mostly downloading, particularly torrenting because it is good at saturating your link. Youtube, online radio, and hulu will also show up, but I really think you'll have trouble breaking 150gb without engaging in mass piracy. I can't imagine what legitimate behavior you'd need to engage in to crack that number, aside from things that really shouldn't be done on a residential plan.


1mpbs = 328 gigabytes in a month.

[Caiyuo]

Isn't this kind of the idea, though? Is the discussion that downloading large files up to a specific point illegally is that different from whatever else people are pirating in any other quantity? It seems like an obvious campaign to get people pointing fingers as cover for more over-selling and under-providing of bandwidth.

[aurik]

Perhaps people shouldn't be morons when they enter into service contracts then and demand a dedicated line if they want a dedicated line instead of a shared line which is prone to overselling.

Cheap, fast, reliable. Choose 2.

[Caiyuo]

How is that moronic? You can't demand something they aren't selling. I feel like it further makes the case against ISPs that only 2 of the 3 are options. Shared lines are only oversold because they're allowed to be with little backlash from the consumer through lack of comparable alternatives.

[aurik]

You can get dedicated lines, but it costs more money.

The real problem, once again, is the government granted monopoly over the infrastructure which artificially limits competition, thus raising prices. If we had a real free market, or a properly regulated monopoly, these companies would be killing each other to get our business. As it stands we have neither, so data connectivity is stupidly expensive.

[Caiyuo]

There's the consensus, and I wasn't aware about non-DSL dedicated lines.

[shaddix]

I try to download only bluray images, there's a big difference between a 10gb reencode and the original 20+gb file on some movies. If I can only get a reencoded version I just rent it on my blockbuster subscription thing. Does that make it less evil since I could have it in the mail anyway? Things like john adams, planet earth have to be watched in the studio encode. Also I hate when they replace david attenborough, that's a pretty good reason to download the british bd

[Demosthenes11]

Honestly, you get no sympathy if the reason this affects you is because you are doing illegal shit.

[Cephius]

You can get dedicated lines, but it costs more money.

The real problem, once again, is the government granted monopoly over the infrastructure which artificially limits competition, thus raising prices. If we had a real free market, or a properly regulated monopoly, these companies would be killing each other to get our business. As it stands we have neither, so data connectivity is stupidly expensive.

The infrastructure is the real problem, there's no incentive to upgrade any area to fiber unless it's a crowded, wealthy, metropolitan area. So instead of making a stronger backbone capable of handling an increased demand, they'll just impose silly limit caps on end users while the US continues to fall further behind european and asian countries in internet technologies. Yay!

[Drex]

itt: criminals complaining that it's getting harder to commit crimes

[Demosthenes11]

itt: criminals complaining that it's getting harder to commit crimes

not harder, slightly more expensive

[Seanr]

It's still silly to assume people are only downloading illegal shit to reach 150/250gb a month. Everybody's internet mileage will be diff. I think a lot of you are arguing that point thinking only one person is using that connection. And what if youre downloading shit while watching netflix...

[Kerberoz]

itt: it's 1999 and people still use discs

[LiquidFriend]

You can easily blow through that cap if Steam is having a mega sale.

[Correction]

You can easily blow through that cap if Steam is having a mega sale.

The larger games you can buy on steam are ~8ish gigs and cost $35~40. Even at half off you're spending close to 500 bucks to approach the overage threshold. I'd say you're not sweating those fees at that point.

[Blubbartron]

ITT people fall prey to the same distraction tactics the GOP uses to keep themselves in power - point out mild abuses of useful services to support the complete rape of said services.

[Correction]

nvm, this topic's getting dull.

[Kerberoz]

The larger games you can buy on steam are ~8ish gigs and cost $35~40.

Ummm... no? $35-40 isn't even a real sale. They have large games for $5-10 all the time. And what if you want to reformat and reinstall a bunch at once?

Everything is moving towards (legal) digital distribution.

And Netflix doesn't use much bandwidth because it's absolute shit quality .flv

[Cephius]

Ummm... no? $35-40 isn't even a real sale. They have large games for $5-10 all the time. And what if you want to reformat and reinstall a bunch at once?

Everything is moving towards (legal) digital distribution.

And Netflix doesn't use much bandwidth because it's absolute shit quality .flv

Netflix and similar streaming services account for upwards of 40% of downstream traffic during peak hours these days, it's pretty much the main reason this shit is happening