For those who stream Netflix/Hulu...

[JB2K]

...if you are an AT&T (DSL) customer and using internet video streaming services such as Netflix/Hulu in lieu of more "traditional" TV methods (antenna, cable), it looks like AT&T is imposing a bandwidth cap on internet usage.

For most households, reaching that cap isn't easy -- but in the age of Netflix, you can reach (or exceed!) that cap a heckuva lot faster.

So, if you are an AT&T internet customer and you watch a lot of Netflix...

 

[usnuzuloose]

I have ATT not sure what you exactly mean. I have wireless through there box.

 

[JB2K]

I have ATT not sure what you exactly mean. I have wireless through there box.

AT&T operates many different services in markets all over the U.S. -- I am speaking of AT&T DSL (offered in former SBC/BellSouth markets), and to a lesser extent, AT&T U-verse high-speed internet.

 

[akcire]

We are in IL. My husband saw the same information the other day. He said it is time to find a new internet provider--which is fine by me. The AT&T service is poor. I have had technicians out countless times, and it still drops all the time. Add to that the fact our bill has increased a couple times in the past 2 years.

I am sure at the same time, we will finally get motivated to ditch the home phone, and port it to a mobile (we want to keep the number).

All AT&T's decision did was prompt our procrastinating selfs into action--we have been talking about doing these things for more than a year.

 

[cglaura]

So how much would you say a standard 1 hour 45 movie would be as far as bandwidth? Does it depend on the content of the movie, like how some images are more depending on amount of color? Or can you guess a ballpark average? Just curious how much viewing it would take to reach that cap.

The article noted a 250gb cap on Comcast. I found the performance meter finally in my online stats: Dec 80gb, Jan 50gb, Feb 29gb.

We do alot of streaming, so I thought those numbers would be higher. Guess I'm safe for now.

 

[cmwade77]

I work as an I.T. Manager at an engineering firm, so we would easily reach those caps in the matter of a couple of days (between everyone here, I would say that there is probably about 10GB of email attachments per day alone), as a result I know a thing or two about For those that this impacts, I would suggest checking out the following providers:

• http://www.sonic.net - No Caps, Generally is available anywhere that AT&T DSL is, Average hold time for tech support 2 minutes (usually much faster) - This is who we use at work
• http://www.dslextreme.com - Generally available anywhere that AT&T or Verizon DSL is - Is substantially cheaper - Tech Support hold times are much longer than Sonic's, but shorter than AT&T's - No Caps
• http://www.clear.com - 4G is available in many areas for about the same cost as DSL from Sonic or AT&T - No Caps - I have not used them personally, except the occasional person that has them and have not had to call tech support, so I can't tell you how good they are. - Has options that are portable.

Again, none of these providers currently has caps on their data and at least the first two provide much better support than AT&T does. While Clear.com does not have a CAP, they MIGHT throttle if you use a lot of data (the exact amount is not clear). I am simply providing this information for those that might be affected by this, I get nothing from any of these companies, I just know a bit about each company, because I have to keep in the loop about what is going on with internet providers, so that if there is a problem, I know who to look to for alternatives.

 

[NotUrsula]

If you know, I'd be interested to know what the "old" version of ATT DSL included in terms of speed. We have it, and nowhere on our documentation does it say.

We've gotten offers recently for their new tiered digital internet service, but there is no good way to compare the new to the old without that information, which, of course, they don't want to give us.

(I've had the service for about 15 years; my former employer set it up when I worked from home for them and I just took over the payments when I changed jobs.)

 

[mrudman]

Hmm, wonder how this will affect us

We have U-Verse internet express (as well as uverse tv at this time, but planning on cancelling that soon).

Have had Netflix for several months... and will continue to use that.

We watch maybe 2-3 hrs of netflix per day... we are on and off of the internet throughout the day (maybe 1-2 hrs total constant use each day)... but then we also are going to be hooked into Ooma in the next couple days, so that will also run off of our internet.

Wonder if we'll ever hit the bandwidth cap?

 

[mrudman]

If you know, I'd be interested to know what the "old" version of ATT DSL included in terms of speed. We have it, and nowhere on our documentation does it say.

We've gotten offers recently for their new tiered digital internet service, but there is no good way to compare the new to the old without that information, which, of course, they don't want to give us.

(I've had the service for about 15 years; my former employer set it up when I worked from home for them and I just took over the payments when I changed jobs.)

You can always check your internet speed... the site I use most of the time is http://www.speedtest.net/

 

[Octoberbabiesrus]

We have Open Range and no caps.

 

[bettymae1121]

Does anyone know how (or if) this would affect VOIP? I use VOIP to work from home full time, I take up to 40 calls a day equalling several hours on the phone. If I hit the limit set by AT&T my company and I will have to look for a different provider.

 

[sherry7]

Wow, I'm glad Verizon doesn't cap my internet. Between Netflix, online games with PS2 and Xbox 360, and general internet use, we'd be over the cap in no time at all.

 

[cmwade77]

Does anyone know how (or if) this would affect VOIP? I use VOIP to work from home full time, I take up to 40 calls a day equalling several hours on the phone. If I hit the limit set by AT&T my company and I will have to look for a different provider.

This will hit the limit quite quickly, depending on the length of the calls, I would estimate 2 weeks.

 

[cmwade77]

If you know, I'd be interested to know what the "old" version of ATT DSL included in terms of speed. We have it, and nowhere on our documentation does it say.

We've gotten offers recently for their new tiered digital internet service, but there is no good way to compare the new to the old without that information, which, of course, they don't want to give us.

(I've had the service for about 15 years; my former employer set it up when I worked from home for them and I just took over the payments when I changed jobs.)

This isn't talking about speed, but rather the maximum amount of data that you are allowed to download per month without being charged extra.

The old version was unlimited access with no caps, so a tiered setup would be a step in the wrong direction no matter what the cap is. Other countries offer faster speeds with truly unlimited connections over cell phones, you would think we could do the same here.

 

[NotUrsula]

This isn't talking about speed, but rather the maximum amount of data that you are allowed to download per month without being charged extra.

The old version was unlimited access with no caps, so a tiered setup would be a step in the wrong direction no matter what the cap is. Other countries offer faster speeds with truly unlimited connections over cell phones, you would think we could do the same here.

Oh, I know, but the various service levels are also tiered on speed, so in order to compare apples to apples, you need to know the speed and the data allowance of both services.

As to the bolded; that's a matter of profit. I'm sure that US companies CAN do it, they just don't want to, because it would take their profits below the level that they are aiming for. Supporting more bandwidth requires more infrastructure, and given the geographic size of the US, that could get quite expensive in terms of the infrastructure required to be maintained.

Does a large volume of overseas traffic still route through the US backbone on its way to other countries? I know that it used to, but I've been away from that business for awhile now.

 

[rock_doctor]

Other countries offer faster speeds with truly unlimited connections over cell phones, you would think we could do the same here.

No, there is not enough competition here to force them to do it. With that said, all of my internet accounts are old and therefore my FIOS internet is unlimited and my sprint cell data is unlimited so in fact we are going in the opposite direction...towards caps...

 

[extremesoccermom]

We switched to Charter for that very reason we were paying for the 5mb service but my son plays those on line games that use alot of bandwith. We were only getting 2mb then we found out it was a problem with ATT and they were not giving us what we paid for. We are very happy with Charter and are part of the Class Action Suit against ATT.

 

[sherry7]

Here is a useful calculator to estimate your data usage. It's actually for cell phones, but it should give you a good idea of how much bandwidth you use on your home internet.

http://www.att.com/standalone/data-calculator/

 

[maggiew]

Thanks for the heads up. I am going to have DH look into this. We have ATT Uverse for phone, cable and internet.

I watch maybe 8 hours of netflix per week (I put on a movie to fall asleep to).

DH plays WOW most every night. Does that count against any cap? (I'm not sure how WOW works technically).

Maggie

 

[JB2K]

DH plays WOW most every night. Does that count against any cap? (I'm not sure how WOW works technically).

Yes, WoW most definitely counts.

As for U-verse, if you will read my original article, their "cap" is quite a bit higher than AT&T DSL, so it may not even be an issue for you.