AT&T Internet and Bandwidth Caps

anoffday

So I just off the phone with AT&T and I thought 25 dollars a month for 6mbps was a good deal, but was never told anything about a bandwidth cap, despite even asking 2 people who straight up told me they don't cap internet usage. But according to countless websites, they do. Is this true?

If it is, I guess I get 150 GB a month. I don't do netflix or download any movies. I browse PA and I play games. I'm worried about the second one. Will I go over? About how much would a person use who plays Halo for a couple hours a night?

It'd be awesome to hear from someone else who has AT&T, but I'll take advice from anyone on the issue. Right now I'm really considering calling and canceling it before it gets started. Between this bandwidth cap, the 100 dollar router that I need for my internet to work, and the activation charge, it doesn't really sound like a great deal anymore.

Feral

They do cap bandwidth. Good luck finding a residential Internet provider that doesn't, yet has competitive prices.

If you don't netflix or do file-sharing, you're unlikely to hit the cap. You're not going to hit 5G a day playing Halo.

anoffday

So besides downloading the occasional XBLA game, just playing games online doesn't use a lot?

Do a lot of you have these caps? I must have been living under a rock or something, because I thought this was something that an ISP was experimenting with and then it went away. It sounds like it's catching on.

I guess as a gamer, I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to keep this service or not.

Djeet

http://www.att.com/esupport/internet/usage.jsp

150GB for DSL users
250GB for Uverse users

10$ for each 50GB over.

I'm on Uverse haven't hit the cap yet (nor have I gotten any warnings that are supposed to kick in at 60% and 90% used). I probably average an hour or 2 on Netflix per day, no P2P, I do DL from usenet (but not a whole lot I guess), and don't game much. If all you do is PA/games then you're not going to hit 150GB cap. If you want unmetered Internet, look around for local or smaller regional providers. For example, a provider here (who operates only in parts of Texas) doesn't do caps on download transfers.

Feral

anoffday wrote:

So besides downloading the occasional XBLA game, just playing games online doesn't use a lot?

Do a lot of you have these caps? I must have been living under a rock or something, because I thought this was something that an ISP was experimenting with and then it went away. It sounds like it's catching on.

I guess as a gamer, I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to keep this service or not.

When AT&T announced their cap, I went looking for another provider. Basically what I found was either cable Internet (both the local not-AT&T cable providers have caps) or independent DSL (which still runs over an AT&T line and ends up costing more).

I don't think FiOS caps, but FiOS isn't available in my area.

YMMV depending on where you live.

anoffday

Feral wrote:

anoffday wrote:

So besides downloading the occasional XBLA game, just playing games online doesn't use a lot?

Do a lot of you have these caps? I must have been living under a rock or something, because I thought this was something that an ISP was experimenting with and then it went away. It sounds like it's catching on.

I guess as a gamer, I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to keep this service or not.

When AT&T announced their cap, I went looking for another provider. Basically what I found was either cable Internet (both the local not-AT&T cable providers have caps) or independent DSL (which still runs over an AT&T line and ends up costing more).

I don't think FiOS caps, but FiOS isn't available in my area.

YMMV depending on where you live.

Since you did or do have AT&T, I'll ask you this. Do I need this att wireless router that sells for 100 bucks at Best Buy or is there a way to use any router? I mean, they make it sound like I NEED this router to use the internet, and I just want to be sure that's the case before I fork over that much money for one.

Feral

anoffday wrote:

Since you did or do have AT&T, I'll ask you this. Do I need this att wireless router that sells for 100 bucks at Best Buy or is there a way to use any router? I mean, they make it sound like I NEED this router to use the internet, and I just want to be sure that's the case before I fork over that much money for one.

You need a modem. If it's DSL, you need an ADSL modem. If it's Uverse, you need a VDSL modem.

What AT&T has sold you is probably a combination unit that is both a DSL modem and a router.

If you choose not to use that unit, you can use any router you wish, but you still need a compatible DSL modem.

anoffday

So any DSL modem will work? They really tried to sell this 100 dollar AT&T modem on me basically saying I need this specific one for the internet to work. It was suppose to come with the self install kit, along with a cd that I apparently need to self install my internet.

Bottom line, Do I need this crap? Or can I buy a much cheaper modem and hook the internet up without this cd? I don't want to spend 100 bucks if I don't have to, especially considering the reviews on these AT&T modem/routers.

Feral

anoffday wrote:

So any DSL modem will work?

Heh. No.

Are you getting ADSL or Uverse?

anoffday

Damn.

ADSL. 25 bucks a month and 6mbps.

Do I need an ADSL modem? Or do I need the official AT&T modem. I just feel like 100 bucks for a modem is expensive.

Feral

anoffday wrote:

Damn.

ADSL. 25 bucks a month and 6mbps.

Do I need an ADSL modem? Or do I need the official AT&T modem. I just feel like 100 bucks for a modem is expensive.

Easiest thing is to find a DSL modem that is compatible with AT&T DSL (not U-verse). If you or a friend has an old modem, then that should work. Or finding one on Craigslist, if you don't mind taking a chance with something used.

Then you just couple that with any old router and you're fine.

What I would not do is buy a DSL modem off the Internet, unless you have assurance that it's compatible with AT&T DSL.

Dark Shroud

I have Uverse and haven't gone over yet even though I usage the heck out of my connection.

See if you have DSL Extreme, Speakeasy, Sonic, or RCN in your area.

Djeet

If it's just the initial $100 fee you're balking at maybe you could see if instead of buying the equipment you could rent it. I know I pay $4/month as a "high speed internet equipment rental fee" on my Uverse.

Drums

If you're getting DSL (*not U-Verse HSI or IPDSLAM) and signing a 1-year contract for the service to get the discount you should be able to get a rebate form to recoup the $100 you spend on the AT&T gateway (this depends on your market I think). We've got the rebates here in Wisconsin. If they don't have them over the phone or in the store you can also try looking for a form to print online, they sometimes post scanned images of the forms to print off and mail in.

As far as the usage caps go, unless you're filesharing or steaming netflix as a full time job you won't have to worry about going over. I've also been told that there is a grace period where they don't immediately charge you for going over without a warning of some kind first.

Djeet wrote:

If it's just the initial $100 fee you're balking at maybe you could see if instead of buying the equipment you could rent it. I know I pay $4/month as a "high speed internet equipment rental fee" on my Uverse.

The 'rental' only works with U-Verse when you get TV/Landline service along with the internet. If you get internet by itself you'll always purchase the modem/gateway for the service. Only standard DSL service gives you the option to get the rebate to recoup the modem's cost.

minor incident

For the record (and I'll tell you upfront that I hate them with a passion) Comcast doesn't care about me exceeding their cap.

I'm "capped" at 250gb, but I regularly hit 400gb or more (last month I hit almost 600gb) and I've never been throttled, charged more, or cut off. It's the only reason I'm not considering leaving them, honestly.

tardcore

Count me as part of the 2% of AT&T users who go over their 150 GB a month. Bunch of bullshit.

I stream a lot of HD movies and have to upload a lot of content for work. But, after having gone over their cap, I have yet to receive any warnings, e-mail or otherwise. I'm still thinking they are gonna spring these charges on me without letting me know.

Djeet

I spent several days trying to get AT&T to tell me how much bandwidth I've used (I started downloading significantly more than I used to about a month ago), because whenever I used their account management thing to check the amount of bandwidth used* it always said that info was not available and not to worry cause AT&T has your back. Tier 1 customer support didn't know why and couldn't give me an estimate, neither could his supervisor, escalated to tier 2, and when talking to that guy's supervisor he said the utility to check bandwidth is not done yet, so they have no idea how much bandwidth I'm using, and as such it's basically unlimited transfers until that gets online. Not sure what that's worth, since it's not in writing, but would like to know if anyone has actually been hit by exceeding transfers on AT&T non-mobile service.

*I suppose total transfers, or amount downloaded is more correct terminology.

harvest

If you guys want to monitor your bandwidth usage you can do it with millions of free apps for the desktop (if you only have one PC on your network) or use a router firmware like DD-WRT or Tomato on your router. I highly recommend the Linksys WRT-54GL (the L is critical) router for using DD-WRT. You just update it like any official firmware update, except you get a way better software package.

bowen

Drums wrote:

If you're getting DSL (*not U-Verse HSI or IPDSLAM) and signing a 1-year contract for the service to get the discount you should be able to get a rebate form to recoup the $100 you spend on the AT&T gateway (this depends on your market I think). We've got the rebates here in Wisconsin. If they don't have them over the phone or in the store you can also try looking for a form to print online, they sometimes post scanned images of the forms to print off and mail in.

As far as the usage caps go, unless you're filesharing or steaming netflix as a full time job you won't have to worry about going over. I've also been told that there is a grace period where they don't immediately charge you for going over without a warning of some kind first.

Djeet wrote:

If it's just the initial $100 fee you're balking at maybe you could see if instead of buying the equipment you could rent it. I know I pay $4/month as a "high speed internet equipment rental fee" on my Uverse.

The 'rental' only works with U-Verse when you get TV/Landline service along with the internet. If you get internet by itself you'll always purchase the modem/gateway for the service. Only standard DSL service gives you the option to get the rebate to recoup the modem's cost.

I think I did the math and it would take probably 5 HD movies to put someone over the cap in a month's period. That's not exactly outlandish.

Of course, someone like me who moves large data back and forth to work is going to hit it as well. I would probably eat that cap up in a week. Caps are dumb anyways. Anyone who espouses them as good things doesn't really understand the problem to begin with.

grouch993

Pay a visit to broadbandreports.com? They have some AT&T forums that might have the answer you need. Does this one help?

Djeet

bowen wrote:

I think I did the math and it would take probably 5 HD movies to put someone over the cap in a month's period. That's not exactly outlandish.

While 50GB per HD movie is on the high end of a Blu-Ray rip with uncompressed audio (as that's the max capacity of a dual layer Blu-Ray disc), if you're streaming from Netflix you're talking about significantly lower bitrate. Haven't done the measurement myself but these guys (http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/news/how-much-monthly-bandwidth-does-netflix-streaming-use-good-questions-136401 and http://gigaom.com/video/att-bandwidth-cap-netflix/) are estimating around 3.5GB per 2 hour HD movie. And when I do my downloads, my mkv's are in the neighborhood of 8-11 GB per movie, and about 1.5-2.3 GB per 1 hour (really 43-45 minute) tv episode.

bowen

That's a bit more plausible. I can still move 120 gigs in a day if I need to. And that's assuming you do absolutely nothing but watch movies with your internet connection too.

As soon as you start visiting websites or playing games, you can burn away at that limit fast. I think I had a 20 gig bandwidth cell device and I used that in a week of vacation time doing some maintenance at night with RDP and such. And browsing the internet.

anoffday

Thanks for all the replies. I ended up calling and canceling. Between the 100 dollar modem, the 150 gb cap, the 36 activation fee (despite I set everything up myself), and the fact that I wasn't told any of this from the lady on the phone, despite literally asking if there was a cap and getting the response "No, we never cap our internet." I decided it just wasn't worth it. I also spent like 30 minutes waiting on the phone just to talk to someone about canceling it, and also found out their customer service sucks.

Xeddicus

That $100 for a Gateway isn't really a bad deal, but the cap is bullshit. It's new. They didn't have it for years, but I have no other options in my area, so I guess I'm lucky it's 150GB and not 15GB... And just to contribute in case you too have to come back to them: I've never hit the cap either and I do stream netflix etc and it's used by multiple people.

rockmonkey

I have Uverse and while part of me balks at having a cap on my home internet another part of me shrugs because it's 250GB a month and really if you're moving more than that on a regular basis to the point that they start to charge you extra, then maybe you NEED to be charged extra. From what I've heard you'd have to do it 2 months in a row to get charged.

If netflix HD streaming is about 3.5 GB for 2 hours then (assuming I use nothing but HD netflix streaming) I could watch 4 hours 45 minutes of HD streaming every single day for 30 straight days never missing a day before hitting the cap. That's quite a freaking bit.

I don't think I'm at home and awake enough every single day of the month in order to hit the limit. If I spent every minture of free time not sleeping/working using the internet for 30 days straight to browse websites, play games, and even stream netflix for an hour or two every night I'd get close to the cap maybe, but at that point you need to evaluate your priorities or suck it up and pay more because you're using it so much more than even most power users.

If you're downloading movies from the internet in mkv format at 8-11 GB a pop regularly enough in a month's time to hit the cap, then you are the exception. Most people who download large amounts of video (not streaming) from the internet are getting the content illegally and you have no room to gripe, plus most of it isn't the kind of quality that brings 8GB a pop, at least in my experience.

Bigity

I just got Uverse and all the activation/setup/equipment stuff was free (except extra boxes for additional TVs was 7 a month).

And the internet stuff may be 4 bucks a month for equipment but I may be getting that confused with SuddenLink, which is the other major choice here in Lubbock, and screw them.

250 GB is a damn lot of stuff to download.