Bad Publicity, BBB Complaints Causing AT&T To Reconsider Metered Broadband?
from the people-speak-up dept
In the US, there’s been an ongoing battle by a bunch of ISPs who want to implement metered broadband as a way to increase revenue. While they’ve been spinning this as getting heavy users to “pay their fair share” you’ll note they never promote any plans to drop prices for the person who barely uses their internet connection. But one thing that has become pretty clear is that consumers absolutely hate metered broadband — not just because it can increase fees, but because it changes the way they use the internet. Rather than being free to just use it and experiment, suddenly you need to keep track of all that usage (without any kind of reliable meter). This introduces amazingly annoying transaction costs that lead people to just not want to use the internet as much — decreasing the value of the connection, even as the price is increasing.
A year ago, after a ton of bad publicity around metered billing, Time Warner Cable backed off plans to implement it on a widespread basis, and now it looks like AT&T may be recognizing the same thing. AT&T, of course, has been running a few small scale tests, and it’s been pissing people off so much that they’ve been complaining to the Better Business Bureau, which isn’t making AT&T happy. For now, the company has stopped signing new customers up for the metered trials and has said that the “experiment” will end on April 1. Whether or not the experiment ending means no more metered broadband… or more widespread metered broadband, remains to be seen. But large number of complaints being filed should make AT&T think twice before deciding to roll this out further.
Filed Under: complaints, metered broadband
Companies: at&t, bbb, time warner cable
Comments on “Bad Publicity, BBB Complaints Causing AT&T To Reconsider Metered Broadband?”
er..
So people are signing up to metered plans, then complaining when they hit their limit .. or going “i wants teh internets” and then just accepting whatever’s offered, right ?
Much as I agree with most things you post, Mike, this is a crock of proverbial. I live in a country (Australia) where one ISP (Telstra, our equivalent of the hicks in “Deliverance”) calls shaped plans unlimited (I kid you not) and we don’t actually have unlimited plans, so I really have no sympathy for the AT&T customers. Caps ranging from 20 to 150Gb ? You guys probably don’t have peak/off peak either… and yet still complaining. For the record when I signed up with my ISP 18 months ago, I got a 15Gb cap – 5Gb between 6p and 6a, then 10 between 6a and 6p.
Based on the first paragraph of the second link in the story posted in the last day: (it even uses the word nightmare .. jeez)
“Last April Last April Time Warner Cable shelved.. AT&T quietly continued to experiment with metered billing”
“Last April” was just on 11 months ago now.
Sorry for being ranty but this is seriously a non-story except for those who want to download the internet .. If an average user can’t cope with 20Gb, I don’t feel at all sorry for them.
Anyone want to tell me the volume of data they took in last month just for a comparison ?
Myself in the last month have gone through 37Gb, of which just under 30 was (legit) digital downloads. I’ve done quite a bit of surfing.
Re: er..
They aren’t signing up for metered billing plans. If they go over a certain limit they automatically get signed up for it.
“If an average user can’t cope with 20Gb, I don’t feel at all sorry for them.”
20Gb is nothing if you want to do any kind of video streaming.
I use about 80Gb/month. Most of it legal. I don’t have cable and use Hulu and the network sites to watch most tv shows.
Re: Re: er..
Allegiance Communications (an ISP in Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri) has been doing full metered internet for 3 years. The biggest package offered is “gamer” at 50Gig with each additional gig costing $3 extra on your next bill. Average over usage for most people is 10 gig ($30) but people who use netflix (2GB – 4GB depending on SD or HD) regularly go over by at least 40GB. Mind you, each of these packages are advertised as “unlimited internet”, with the soft cap (nobody calls you and your usage isn’t shaped after hitting the cap) being in the fine print for each package.
Re: er..
You need to define “average user” first. All the average users I know watch a netflix movie once a day. I would guess that a movie would be around 1GB x 30 already knocks out the 20GB limit. Further, add multiple people using the same connection, watching youtube videos, downloading music/tv/movies on itunes, surfing and you have blown the 20GB limit out of the water.
Re: Re: er..
OK I can’t account for Hulu or Netflix, as (of course) they’ll only stream to US IP addresses. I presume that if such things were available here, forward thinking ISPs would do like mine and get some of that content in the ‘freezone’ (not counted to your cap) as mine has done with at least one TV station and several other content providers. They’re also adding IPTV stations. Then their size would be entirely irrelevant. However what proportion of people do watch a movie a day over their net connection ? Over here the average person watches TV on the TV.
Re: Re: Re: er..
please keep your total lack of net neutrality to yourself.
20GB a month… SHEESH. I’d move to japan the next day.
Re: Re: Re: er..
I blew through 20gigs of internet usage in a week, for perfectly legitimate reasons. I purchased a new computer recently, and counting downloads for initial setup alone, I probably hit 10gigs with ease. Counting installs required for school work (like Trial versions of Adobe software), 20gigs wasn’t even close to enough.
Including non-necessities, like games downloaded from Steam, I’d say I surpassed 40gigs in the month. And once again, that’s not even including regular web surfing, streaming, etc. Or that I’m on a shared home network, so I’m not even the only one using the internet.
And sometimes it’s not even a matter of “I could put off this download for a month”. When I’m working on large projects with groups, using SVN or the like, I’m constantly downloading and uploading a large amount of data. Suddenly finding myself at some arbitrary limit in the middle of work is simply unacceptable.
Capped limits are simply too awkward for anything. They don’t account for monthly variations (which there ALWAYS is), and no one wants to be phoning up their ISP every month to get their limit moved up and down. Even if my internet usage was completely optional, I sure as hell don’t want to be writing down the amount that I download (including each website hit) to keep track of my usage. Nor do I want to keep pestering everyone else on my network to keep track of theirs.
Re: er..
Eww, Austrailia sounds like the worst place in the world. I upload over 500 gigs a month and download terabytes when taking into account HD movies on netflix, transfers between work and home, p0rn, online gaming and 360 demos, etc and etc. Plus, I always have remote desktop on to my work and my other home constantly streaming data. That’d cost me hundreds a month right now. I’ll take the 49.99 plan I have now for unlimited high speed access.
Eff meters and eff the companies trying to implement them.
Re: Re: er..
” I upload over 500 gigs a month and download terabytes when taking into account HD movies on netflix, transfers between work and home”
I know exactly what you mean. Just the large datasets I move around go over 400-500 gig a month. Throw in everything else and I am at 600+ gig a month. If metered broad band were implemented I would be complaining to the BBB after every phone call to my service provider. I would make sure I made a ton of calls to complain … 🙂
Re: er..
Eww, Austrailia sounds like the worst place in the world. I upload over 500 gigs a month and download terabytes when taking into account HD movies on netflix, transfers between work and home, p0rn, online gaming and 360 demos, etc and etc. Plus, I always have remote desktop on to my work and my other home constantly streaming data. That’d cost me hundreds a month right now. I’ll take the 49.99 plan I have now for unlimited high speed access.
Eff meters and eff the companies trying to implement them.
Re: er..
I was say much the same thing about capped downloads in Australia.
I think from old times were: Peak 12pm to 2am, Off Peak 2am to 12pm.
Though with the new ‘account upgrade’ they are changed to: Peak 8am to 2am, Off peak 2am to 8am.
So only 6 hours to use up your off peak 30GB.
Looks like it is timed to leave things to download overnight.
(It might be worth noting that for the bigger plans the ‘off peak’ time is extended I think)
Re: er..
Dude I just downloaded Dragon Age Origins off of Steam….That alone was nearly 20 Gigs. So I pay for a service I get to use 1 day out of 30? Of course I’d be highly frustrated…I would instantly switch to a company that can deal with my online video game habits which of course are a lot considering I play an MMO as well. Also I pay $45.00 a month for that and if you increase that price further I’ll also search for a new business.
Re: er..
Wow, they do it downunder – must be good for us then
Re: er..Bullshite
“Sorry for being ranty but this is seriously a non-story except for those who want to download the internet .. If an average user can’t cope with 20Gb, I don’t feel at all sorry for them.
Anyone want to tell me the volume of data they took in last month just for a comparison ?
Myself in the last month have gone through 37Gb, of which just under 30 was (legit) digital downloads. I’ve done quite a bit of surfing.”
Yeah, well, you see, thats bullshit. Straight out. I have netflix streaming and ROUTINELY go WELL over 20gb a month, and that doesnt even count my normal surfing, music listening, youtube, etc all of which take a fair amount of bandwidth. Then there is the Xbox gaming, which is frequent and also the download packs. Now, I might not be the “average” user here, but with things like Netflix streaming and other streaming services becoming more mainstream, it wont take even an “average” user very long to hit a ridiculously low cap like 5 or 20gb in a MONTHS time.
Sorry you live in the Down Under where your internet sucks just about the worst in the world, but the rest of us 2+billion people with internet service dont. We expect better, we pay for it, and it is expected.
Further : In that time my limit has quadrupled, but the peak is now 3/4 of the day (I get 30peak 30 off). My plan shapes me to 64Kb once I exceed the caps. Perhaps an arrangement like that rather than the charge like a bastard approach may make it more palatable.
Yeebok
“I live in a country (Australia) where one ISP (Telstra, our equivalent of the hicks in “Deliverance”) calls shaped plans unlimited (I kid you not) and we don’t actually have unlimited plans, so I really have no sympathy for the AT&T customers. Caps ranging from 20 to 150Gb ? You guys probably don’t have peak/off peak either… and yet still complaining.”
China filters the internet for all users in the country. So I guess we shouldn’t complain if the US puts up a slightly less restrictive filter right? Just because one country has restrictive policies doesn’t mean another should adopt them.
“Sorry for being ranty but this is seriously a non-story except for those who want to download the internet .. If an average user can’t cope with 20Gb, I don’t feel at all sorry for them.”
You’re used to being extremely limited (in comparison) by what you can do on the internet. 20GB/month just won’t cut it for anyone I know. With services like Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, and even the streaming content from the source (NBC, ABC, etc) an average household will exceed this limit very quickly. Just imagine if the household has a gamer who plays on PC and XBox 360. Game demos on XBox Live, DLC, digital distribution (Steam, Direct2Driver), etc would obliterate a 20GB limit.
Bandwidth is not a resource like oil, gas, water, or electricity. If you use up all available bandwidth in one 24 hour period it doesn’t affect the bandwidth that will be available immediately following that period (assuming you don’t overload and permanently damage some router.) By capping users and charging more they are just trying to get more money without improving their services or innovating. This is a step backward, even if Australia disagrees.
Re: Yeebok
Actually, you can now get a completely unlimited plan (from AAPT, i think), but it costs an arm and a leg.
As a personal input, I have a lively amount of internet use going in my house – streaming last.fm, watching videos, playing xbox live, and I am currently on an iinet 30gb + 30gb plan (adsl2+). before the upgrade they recently made, it was 12+20 (i think), and I was regularly running over my cap. So the whole ’20gb is enough’ is denifitely incorrect.
Add to this the fact that over xbox live you can now stream/download movies in HD, with file sizes ranging from 1 or 2 to 11 or 12gb, and you can see why these types of limits dont make sense, and are holding back development of internet technologies in my view.
Why would you bother paying for developing a system of IP streaming/movies on demand/and bandwidth intensive application in Australia when people arent goign to use it because their internet just cannot handle it? Get rid of broadband caps (or at least greatly increase them), and I think you would see a lot more adoption of media of internet in Australia.
Re: Re: Yeebok
We have the same ISP. 🙂 I evidently don’t use the net in as bandwidth-heavy a fashion as many people, but this is the internet, so I can’t say I was wrong.
AAPT’s unlimited plan is only unlimited in an offpeak period. The peak time has a 20G limit. Anecdotally (not factually) they throttle data types and running any sort of server will get you booted.
iiNet’s ADSL1 limits (my exchange sucks) were lower than ADSL2 ’til the last upgrade which I think (for me) tripled my peak to 30, and doubled my off to 30 – I rarely go near those limits though.
Re: Re: Re: Yeebok
In the modern Internet age, upload=speech. I’d say your ISP is directly limiting your freedom of speech if they’re booting anyone running a server. The whole point of the Internet is that all communication on it is 2-way. Everyone that has a client should be able to have a server.
You’re making Australia almost sound worse than China. I’m already frustrated enough with US duopolies that I’m trying to form a wireless cooperative in my neighborhood, just as a way around them. If I was limited to the crappy ISP options you’re dealing with, I would be fomenting outright revolt by now. Do you have a right to bear arms in Australia? That’s the main reason I support the Second Amendment right to bear arms in the U.S. — it’s a natural way of enforcing the First Amendment.
Re: Re: Re: Yeebok
Yeebok.
For the record, AAPT has released a fully unlimited plan 24 hours a day, which is only marginally more expensive than your current plan, but which includes phone line rental and unlimited music streaming and $50 credit per month in the EMI music store. That is what Tim was talking about. You might want to check it out.
And finally, this is predominantly an American site, and they’re talking about AT&T, which is in a land where unmetered plans are the norm. The issue is that people were signed up on an unmetered plan, and then switched over from the unmetered plan onto a metered plan without being asked. That’s the issue.
Whether you have any sympathy for them or not is really quite irrelevant. Australia is not the benchmark when it comes to internet quotas. I find it interesting that you’ve managed to make a story about shady practices by AT&T into a whinge about how you’re so hard done by. Whinging about how other people use their internet connections and suggesting that they shouldn’t download more than you is just that – whinging. Just because you can’t envision how many people use online video streaming services like Hulu and Netflix, doesn’t mean that the rest of the world doesn’t. In the US, catching up on TV on Hulu is the norm. I’ve stopped watching much of my television in Australia on the television – the online services from the networks are starting to become much more convenient. I have an unlimted internet plan in Australia and I don’t have to worry about what I do or don’t download. I just enjoy the internet.
Electricity Too
Rather than being free to just use it and experiment, suddenly you need to keep track of all that usage (without any kind of reliable meter). This introduces amazingly annoying transaction costs that lead people to just not want to use the internet as much — decreasing the value of the connection, even as the price is increasing.
Same thing with electricity. Get rid of the meters.
Re: Electricity Too
Not at all the same thing, smartass. Bandwidth is NOT a scarce resource like electricity (or at least the scarce resources used to create electricity).
Re: Re: Electricity Too
“Not at all the same thing, smartass.”
Better a smart-ass than a dumb-ass. You should try it.
“Bandwidth is NOT a scarce resource like electricity”
And just where is this source of infinite bandwidth, dumb-ass?
Re: Electricity Too
“Same thing with electricity. Get rid of the meters.”
Interesting sarcasm. But it is a terrible analogy.
Does the electric utility send unwanted advertising to your toaster in the morning?
Re: Re: Electricity Too
Interesting sarcasm.
What sarcasm? Sounds like a good idea to me. I’m sure our bills would all go down.
But it is a terrible analogy.
It wasn’t really meant as an analogy.
Does the electric utility send unwanted advertising to your toaster in the morning?
No, they usually cram it in my monthly bill, while at the same time my ISP has never spammed me. But what relevance does that have, anyway?
Time to move Ethel...
“On Feb. 22, Wal-Mart (WMT) said it would buy VUDU, which sells and rents downloadable movies and TV shows that can be viewed on such Web-connected devices as Blu-ray disc players and some LG televisions. The deal “will provide customers with unprecedented access to home entertainment options as they migrate to a digital environment,” Wal-Mart Vice-Chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright said in a statement. The companies didn’t disclose acquisition terms.”
So Wal-Mart versus the Cap. Let’s see who blinks.
In Australia i think the best deal is TPG’s 120GB (60 on peak 60 off) and then shaping to 512/512. thats the most generous shaping i have seen offered here where its the norm to shape.
South Africa
You guys should come to South Africa. The cheapest is about medium big mac meal for 1GB and most people only have 384 kbps line which cost a arm and leg already
South Africa
Soz i forgot you guys dont pay seprate amount for lines (ADSL line and Voice) It set you back about R300 that without any data
Same old game
This is just standard Telecom mentality. For some reason the average Telecom consumer doesn’t seem to care about paying extra for services.
There was a time when phone calls were flat rate in your area code, then they began charging to call outside your area code, then they began charging based on distance.
Wireless and VoIP took the bite out of long distance charges, but then some VoIP providers learned from Telecom that they could charge for long distance and consumers would just accept it.
Its interesting that consumers are not accepting this mentality when it comes to broadband. It’s probably a good thing that consumers are taking a stand, since that broadband pipe is the key to VoIP and IPTV. Giving in to metering now will seriously affect the pricing for those other services.
April fools!!
“For now, the company has stopped signing new customers up for the metered trials and has said that the “experiment” will end on April 1.”
This kills internet TV
I haven’t had a cable subscription since Hulu and youtube came on the scene. Between steam, voice, online games, and video, I break the broadband caps on completely legal content.
Where can I complain about ATT? It’s clear we need more competition in the market place. Force the broadband companies to share their lines!
Australian ISPs
Unlimited Internet used to exist in Australia (with fair use). However the stupidity of the public stopped that. When cable Internet first came out, both Telstra and Optus cost the same price, with Optus slightly faster (10mb/s compared to 8mb/s) and Optus was far more reliable. Telstra had a 3GB a month limit, Optus had unlimited (with fair use which they classed as you can’t use more than 10 times the average for 3 consecutive months). Despite that more people signed with Telstra. So of course Optus (and other ISPs) copied them with low monthly quotas. Same thing with uploads. Telstra has for a long time included uploads in their monthly quota. Since they remained the most popular ISP, more and more ISPs have now followed Telstra and included uploads. On their ADSL2 network Telstra are widely known as being one of the slowest and least reliable ISPs (of the big 12), despite being the 3rd most expensive. But they remain the most popular. I pay $70 per month for 160GB(uploads not included), which with Telstra will get 12GB(uploads included) and also get you slower speeds + a less reliable connection. If people in Australia stopped being so stupid and signing with an ISP just because their ads tell them they’re the best, then Internet will improve.
Metering for the rest of us...
For the record, AT&T already implements a form of metering. My house is connected via Bellsouth.net (AT&T) and hidden in their help site under the mess of interlinked pages they call a terms of service there is a fun section describing a limit beyond which you pay per gigabyte. I did some calculations and it seems that a connection is arbitrarily (maybe not, but no answer from customer service speaks volumes) limited to combined upload/download transfer of 1/15 of what would be possible if maxing out the connection 24/7. I’ll have to find the exact link again, but suffice to say the metering has been there all along and this “new” trend toward metered broadband is only their way of lowering the limit to make more people pay for “excessive use.”
Re: Metering for the rest of us...
For an 20Mbps connection, figuring you actually get that 20Mbps, that comes out to almost 422GB/month. If you’re running that much, then yeah, maybe you need a little cap, or perhaps you need a commercial line.
Was this “small scale test” conducted in an area which had competition in the ISP market?
Possibly, they lost a significant quantity of paying customers and that is why they dropped the test.
Metered Would Affect other Businesses
I stream a LOT of video via my ATT Uverse connection from Netflix (through my PS3). I also watch a lot of subscriptions on Hulu via my PC. There are many businesses out there which would lose a lot of value if ISPs implemented metered billing. Not to mention that adblockers would suddenly become mainstream since I don’t want to use my quota to download ads. The entire US Internet ad market would take a serious hit.
Interesting
So I left a comment earlier about how metered Internet would affect online ad sales as more and more people block them to conserve usage. But I got a message that my comment was going to be moderated. I come back later today to see new comments but not mine?
When did you start filtering comments?
Americans waste more bandwidth per person than any other nation in the world!
I argue that most people should only use the internet for email and looking up some info on Google once in a while. So a cap of about 100 Mega bytes should be more than enough. Anyone who needs more bandwidth than that is a bandwidth hog and is stealing bandwidth from other more deserving people. I bet Americans use more than a million times more data than a typical South African, so we use a disproportionate amount of Internet than the rest of the world. I hope everyone streaming music and videos feels very guilty now!
Re: Americans waste more bandwidth per person than any other nation in the world!
Nice try, but rough around the edges.
You need to work on the finesse
Metered
What you’re describing, Mike, is what I’d call capped and tiered service. With true metered service you don’t pay in advance and you don’t pay for what you don’t use.
It means it didn’t work this time. Now it’s time to join hands with Time Warner and start the next wave. But wait, there is more, they have to find the right politicians to pass new laws, Time warner has done it and keep adding new things all the time whether you like it or not. But wait there is more, why don’t they call Microsoft and get tips on how to screw people with a smile. Time Warner backed off, but also canceled all upgrades planed for this year to areas where they had no competition, AT&T will do similar things, bye bye U-verse.But wait there is more, why don’t they do it, we complain, blog and and curse them while we write that big fat check every month.
Mr. Australia thinks 20gb a month os more than reasonable??? LOLOLOL
Hello,
I just downloaded Neploian: total War, one of the latest games released on Steam today, and THAT ALONE was nearly
21 GIGS in size. ALONE!!
I purchased a few more games today, plus several preorders in the last several days. Just so Mr. australia thinks I’m ‘spending too much money while there are people starving in the world, and I should give my money to them instead’, which is what many enjoy saying, it’s MY MONEY, MY GAMES, MY INTERNET CONNECTION, MY EVERYTHING!!
I could EASILY use 100 GIGS in a day watching streaming content, and that’s just me alone. And i earn every cent of what I use too. And I keep computers running for everyone else in the house, plus relatives, family friends, etc. too.
I doupt 1 TERRABYTE per month would be enough. And guess what? My ISP understands this (I talked with them before signing up), Verizon FIOS. They would not DARE even CONTEMPLATE bandwidth caps, and if they tried, they would lslose me so fast they would not believe it.
(Yes, I CREATE content too, I’m a programmer along with everything else.)
Also, don’t forget Internet radio, etc., and you getthe picture. Bandwidth caps are the stupidest idea ever, as is shaping to disable BitTorrent. I use BT for 100% LEGAL purposes more times than even I believe, and trying to cencoranything would just drive me, and everyone else I know, away!!
What do you think of that, Mr. Australia?
Sorry for spelling errors in my above post
Hello,
I was typing real fast to get my ideas out, sorry for saying ‘doupt’ instead of ‘doubt’, etc.
I’m very professional, but i also think very fast.
I hope my posts give you my 2 cents worth.
Gino
Sorry for spelling errors in my above post
Hello,
I was typing real fast to get my ideas out, sorry for saying ‘doupt’ instead of ‘doubt’, etc.
I’m very professional, but i also think very fast.
I hope my posts give you my 2 cents worth.
Gino
Sorry for spelling errors in my above post
Hello,
I was typing real fast to get my ideas out, sorry for saying ‘doupt’ instead of ‘doubt’, etc.
I’m very professional, but i also think very fast.
I hope my posts give you my 2 cents worth.
Gino
I am yet to be convinced that any person reading this blog is just your average, non technical user.
All of the things that people are mentioning (besides work stuff) are entertainment and a voluntary choice (legitimate, but voluntary). Someone who needs to move several hundred gigs a month for work should have some method in place from their employer.
Most of this bandwidth consumption stuff is either games, music, movies or similar.
Now go on, tell me how you -need- all this bandwidth now, and how if you don’t download whatever item, you can’t get it at a physical shop.
Absolutely facetiously, perhaps all the free bandwidth is the cause of the reputed obesity problem over there if all you do is sit on the net all day 😉
Gino, at no point did I claim to be ‘Mr Australia’ but if my posts make you think that of me, and you feel the need to advise me of that, perhaps I should let you know your post makes me think of you as a self obsessed juvenile.
Re: Re:
Yeebok:
The point of this is that you don’t get to decide what reasonable uses for an internet connection are. The internet is open, and the benefit of the open internet is that it’s so versatile – and it will be used in ways that you can’t even imagine yet.
You are not the arbiter of what people do with their internet connections – therefore you are not the arbiter of how much bandwidth is reasonable.
Why do you feel the need to decide what other people should or should not be doing with their connection?
AT&T INTERNET SUCKS HARD. GOOD LUCK TRYING TO TALK TO A REAL PERSON, NOTHING BUT AUTOMATED BULLSHIT!!!