AT&T, u limit my bandwidth...I drop your service

Tweak

@Maksimir is hitting new lows.:

Google can't save the world. HAHAHAAHAH!!!

yoshi

@DoPeY5007:

Exactly... I don't a lot of people understand how "U-Verse" works. AT&T provides U-Verse customers a wireless router. The U-Verse set top boxes connect to the router just like any other device on the network.

It's really not an issue for AT&T to "prioritize" service to the U-Verse set tops versus other devices in the home.

yoshi

Actually, the key line is this...

"While this performance optimization process will prevent some customers from obtaining the maximum downstream speed capability, service capability speed will not be set lower than the service tier you have purchased."

So no matter what, they can't throttle you down to below what you pay for. Pay for 6.1-10 and they can't drop you down any lower than 6.1.

Kapaaian

I so hate America

EVEs_Mako

I will do without internet the minute my ISP either throttles or caps their lines! I will also write my local, state and federal representatives with a complaint, as well as the FCC. I suggest everyone affected do the same. This BS wont last long if people are VERY vocal about it.

jnemesh

i might care if att could actually manage to bring U-verse to my hamlet of 40k people.

Paradise

@DoPeY5007: foot in the door....

txpunk

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

As a faithful ATT U-verse Subscriber (for now), I REALLY don't like what this is going to do to my torrent habits (as well as my online gaming) :( :( :( :( :( :( X 1Million unhappy smilies

HOW COULD YOU DO THIS UVERSE!! I LOVED YOU!

vicsells

Did you guys read it, based on the quote this only goes for U-Verse customers and only when they need the bandwidth for their TV service.

Completely understandable, they want your TV to get priority of the net usage.

DoPeY5007

We need Google to save the internet.. they should expand to ISP business and knock out Comcunts and Ass T&T.

Maksimir is hitting new lows.

@dogcow: You got that right. I understand they're trying to limit illegal downloading behavior and such but now there's more legit content than ever. All last month and so far this month, I've been downloading Olympic coverage that was legally provided by NBC. It's approaching 90 gigs and I still haven't finished grabbing it all.

phoenix6666

BASTARDS! i didn't mean it Darth! i'm no part of the rebel alliance. please don't make me sign up for Charter cable!

sayten

Oh AT+T, how I greatly loathe you.

Jon B.

I wish they would just cut this ambiguity crap and set defined limits. What does "heavy downloader" mean? How much information transfer qualifies?

phoenix6666

This is where it gets fucked up.
AT&T and Comcast are going to squeeze out all other video services except the ones they provide (at a hefty fee). So Vudu, Xbox, and AppleTV, and every other streaming/downloading services/options are going to get screwed by this.

dogcow

AT&T has altered the deal. Pray they do not alter it further.

MayorBee is getting what plants crave

Why the fuck can the government not regulate this shit? These companies should be eaten.

ALT

this is exactly what competition is all about! the 'ol bait and lie tactic huh? well i'll tell you what AT&T, you're not the only bully on the block! let's see what VZ and Comcast has to say about that!

hindsight2020

I love where our internet is going here in the US I hope to soon go back to carrier pigeons won't that be fun a bunch of dirty birds flying around shittin on people, I mean it's what ATT is doing isn't it? Shittin on their customers.

lilaliendog

@Tweak: I know right?

twomilesfromhome

I think it is funny that you pay for say 2 mbps all of sudden when you use the bandwith THAT YOU ARE PAYING FOR they slow you down. They don't say it like that because they know they are being dishonest they just say we'll slow you down for using too much. Huh almost sounds like people who pay extra for high speed connections don't get anything at all for their money. If only we could get a class action lawsuit against these sleazy companies that sell a service and don't deliver

Zomb

HEY EVERYONE! GET ATT BROADBAND! WE HAVE THE FASTEST SPEEDS... that you wont be able to actually use because we're labeling you a fucking criminal for using our service for anything other than checking your email.

nutbastard

@MayorBee is getting what plants crave: Slowing down leads to suffering - suffering leads to hate - the path to the dark side they are walking toward!!!

avconsumer2

AT&T is delivering 3G speeds to the internets.

WTF?! Ponies!

The broadband providers in this country all have a vested interest in media distribution. We didn't force them to separate.

They provide access to media and distribute their own media. Of course they're always going to try and make us pay them the most money and use their products and solutions over other businesses. Especially if that other business leverages their distribution methods and incurs none of the cost.

warf0x0r

good, now I have another reason for when I tell them to f**k off and that I don't want their crappy server when the come to the door for like the 10th time in 2 months trying to get me to sign up for U-verse

FrancesTheMute

SHATT!

chanmoss

Basicaly these are the kind of policies that are being installed in order to kill competing streaming service providers. Basicaly it says:

"Use our sites, or we will kill the bandwidth if you try to use our competitors' site."

Mr.SithNinja

and there is one..............
Verizon it's your chance don't mess it up

k2001

@EVEs_Mako: Thanks Mrs. Obama...

jk

Gessho

How do other Countries (IE Japan) not have this issue? How is it that our ISPs are so poorly managed that they feel the need to do this to paying customers?

If they slow me down I'll just charge back my payment for services not rendered.

Imakeholesinu

Something out of discusion here but i was also wondering this.

"Effective Ocober 2008, Sprintwill adjust the interstate & intrastate calculation for taxes & surcharges on yourbill. For details of taxes & surcharges, visit sprint.com/taxesandfees"

This was found on my sprint bill, and I missed the deadline for the January cancel ETF free. So I was wondering if anyone knew anything about this and if i would be able to opt out of my contract with sprint over this?

(Just a bit of backing on my part, been on the phone with sprint over 6 hours trying to get a dysfunctional phone [Muziq, after sending a text message and closing the phone anything that touches a few seconds after the phone is closed the front music pad will activate and play music silenty in my pocket for about an hour then my phone will die with out me noticing] replaced and the only thing that could do is offer me a two year new plan with a phone of equal or less value.

Vxa09

@ALT:

the government does regulate it, ie they have to give you the low end of the advertised speed... but good luck proving they aren't, they'll just blame the server you're trying to connect to, saying that its inability to push data at their speeds isn't ATTs fault.

nutbastard

@johnnyabnormal: If we keep electing pieces of crap like the Governator then the rest of the country will probably "ask" us to secede...

Mr.SithNinja

@nutbastard: This is peanuts. We all know what needs to be done. Let's just roll up our sleeves and get the revolution started. First we need CA to secede...

johnnyabnormal

what if you have DSLLLLL? :(

rudeadly

@rudeadly: Nothing

DoPeY5007

@Mr.SithNinja: Ha!

Once we take all the technology, agriculture (including good weed), entertainment industry, etc etc....they will all be bummed. Plus, if they want shipped goods from the Pacific Ocean, I doubt the USA will want to spend all the extra $$ on a detour up to Oregon.

You have to admit, California is extremely set up to be a successful country considering it's geographic location, weather, coastline, industry and progressive politics.

johnnyabnormal

The "update" makes them look MUCH worse. Basicaly they are saying " Even if you are paying the most money for the highest level of services we will squeeze your ass any way if we feel like it. "

NNIIIIIICCCCCEEEEE ONE!

Oh well you get what you pay for... oh wait a minuite YOU DON'T! You get what they feel like giving you no matter how much you pay!!

Mr.SithNinja

Any of you pirates actually read the article...? They're going to be increasing capacity (2 hd streams and central dvr) soon -- in order to have two simultaneous HD streams going to your TVs, they have to slow down your internet...it has nothing to do with how much, or what you download.

Flex221

Yeah, seriously guys, read the agreement. While I'm not going to accuse Gizmodo of sensationalism, if one reads the agreement...oh hell, I'll just quote it:

"In order to provide a consistently high-quality video service, AT&T Uverse High Speed Internet throughput speeds may be temporarily reduced when a customer is using other U-verse services in a manner that requires high bandwidth. This could occur more often with higher speed Internet access products. It may be necessary, for some AT&T High Speed Internet users, for AT&T to set a maximum downstream speed on a customer line to enhance the reliability and consistency of performance. While this performance optimization process will prevent some customers from obtaining the maximum downstream speed capability, service capability speed will not be set lower than the service tier you have purchased."

So, this only applies to the U-Verse subscribers, which have the 6.0 Mbps - 10.0 Mbps tier, and they will never see less than 6.0 Mbps. If anything it's fairly reasonable for AT&T to limit usage when necessary, and to guarantee it's customer the minimum speed they've purchased.

And, pardon me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a Giz post in the last 24 hours that was bitching about how ISPs should give more bandwidth to television and HDTV? Isn't AT&T sort of doing just that?

katch-22

As a tech support employee for the uverse, I have to say it's about time. One of the major problems with the system has been that if you are downloading anything that takes up a large amount of bandwidth on the system you get major picture freeze and pixellation on all the tvs, especially if your trying to watch hd.

From what I see all that's really happening is they are changing the priority of the video stream. Something that should have been done from the beginning.

Antipilor

I want a guaranteed minimum speed. I rarely get my 6 megabit connection. I get that speedboost crap for the first 10 megs then it slows to a damn crawl. Where is my service grantees for the 60 bucks they get from me?

The_Red_Monkey

It reads to me like it will only be affected if you are watching HD content and then they will increase the available bandwidth for HD and reduce internet bandwidth. I believe vz's FIOS does pretty much the same thing.

Anyway, u-verse is supposed to be rolled out in my area soon. I've stuck with at&t dsl because comcast is my only other choice and i'll deal with smaller bandwidth before i'll spend any money with them. U-verse will give me the opportunity to go to 10mpbs, faster than i've ever had. If that means when I'm watching HD content I only get 6mbps...well, i'm ok with that.

Now, if it turns out my cynical side is correct and corporate america is as bad as today's government, then they'll abuse this any way they can to increase profits and it should be shut down by not using the service and making it unprofitable. But the largest part of the population will take it and love it.

neost

I was never impressed with Uverse's internet service anyway. It seemed slow, even on the top tier the offered. I cancelled it, went with Comcast business, and now I get a 20 meg pipe for downloads and have never been capped. I use a cable company for internet service and a phone company for tv service. After work, I'm going to the carwash to pick up some dinner, and then to McDonald's so I can rent a movie.

shrume

Man there are a bunch of whiners.

Your internet speeds will not drop down to slower than what you are paying for. This appears to ensure that the TV service is not degraded. Will probably only be problem while watching HD video.

Only effects U-verse, and not traditional DSL.

You don't like it, pay more for cable. Start your own ISP and pay for your own backbone. Sounds like ATT is trying to make things less painful for the majority, and ATT is probably upgrading their network for increased capacity. Businesses have to watch debt ratio, make share holders happy, go through lots of red tape, so it does take time.

duntov

@duntov: So, who long have you been a blog-crawler for ATT?

Mr.SithNinja

You're still going to have blazing fast internet speed even if they throttle you down a little so...... WTBFD?

JEmlay

@mykrowsy:

Exactly, it's no different than routers that provide the QoS (Quality of Service) feature.

It's really a good thing to have and do.

yoshi

I'm a tech for att, and know a little about this bandwidth thing, just from what I've witnessed when setting up a line for uverse. Uverse won't run on a line that won't support at least 25Mbps to the home. Maybe about a quarter of uverse installs are running at about 30Mbps. When you're using a full 10Mbps for downloading, you're limiting bandwidth that could be needed, especially now that att is allowing more HD content to be streamed simultaneously than was before. In other words, if you're recieving 2 HD streams that take up 7Mbps and 2 standard streams that take up about 3Mbps, you're running a fine line where video transmission problems could arise. So in that case, att would probably throttle your data down a little to give your router a little breathing room.

mykrowsy

@shrume: haha

mykrowsy

@mykrowsy: That's exactly what I thought as soon as a read this. Its a QOS priority for video, and maybe the telephone if you have that. Just means if you happen to be recording alot of shows at once you might not see peak download speeds at the same time. I suppose they could limit you to 1 HD stream at a time if that'd make you happier.

1roll20s

What we need is a nice class-action lawsuit ordering the providers to curtail their limits. Unlimited means unlimited, and DSL should be within set parameters as well as cable. One expects crap from dial up, mediocrity from dsl and fast speed from cable. To limit ones bandwith outside of the reasonable expectation associated with the level of service you are getting is wrong and should be declared illegal. Let big business pay out 30-60 bux a month to any customer who doesn't get their value and you'll see some changes.

muscleboybx

@jnemesh:

You're preaching to the choir. You need to convince the 99.999% of the population that DON'T read tech blogs or following all things tech that this is a "bad thing." If you don't nothing will change.

nobodyzhome

all of the sudden i no longer care that this service isnt offered at my house.

now where is a nice ATT rep i can molest with this new TOS...

endless

@Mr.SithNinja:

I am not a blog crawler for ATT. I just get tired of reading the constant whining from clueless people.

duntov

@phoenix6666:
If you and your family are talking on their landline phone system, watching two different "on-demand" shows at the same time (both on their TV service), and surfing the net from three different computers, don't expect to be able to sign on with a fourth and pull in streaming video that doesn't stall out.

@Antipilor:
So wait...how does this work with the "record up to four channels at a time" DVR that they offer? Do you receive a constant-on datastream for regular TV-watching (where your box will actually be filtering out any channels that you're not actively watching), or will they actually be streaming a signal to your DVR based on what channel you've adjusted it to? And if it's the latter, does that mean that you'll _ONLY_ be able to watch U-Verse TV through the provided DVR, or can you also hook up your older recording devices and TV sets to the same system?

@Imakeholesinu:
Compare the population density of Japan with, say Alaska and Montana. Compare the cost, per capita, of fully wiring Japan for high-speed internet with, say, Alaska and Montana. It's an extreme example, but a huge portion of the total acreage of the US is rural, and that means the cost of hooking everyone up is a lot higher.

Purple Dave

I'm still at a loss for this. You are paying for high-speed internet, whether it is cable or dsl, whatever. When you require the high-speed portion of it, they are reducing your speed or capping your bandwidth. So...what am I paying for again? At this rate, people will be better off buying the lowest tier of any service.

Saboth

Sometimes it's good to live in Europe... :P

TimurY

I just got uverse last night and I'm pretty disapponted with the Internet. When they tested my line I was getting 61 Mbs to the house yet my uverse box reports the standard 25 and my computers can only get about 9.5Mbs down that's leaving 15 for tv alone if I'm getting 61 to my house I should be able to atleast get 50 easily after the rj-11 is ran to my patch panel. Then they use those horrible 2-wire devices. I'm suprised I enjoy the settop interface with it being windows ce. Sent from my iPhone

LolaNootrac

Really, it sounds like cable TV/Internet to me. We've known all along that the cable link is shared with other 'Net surfers and the bandwidth suffers accordingly. Uverse is essentially, though technically not, the same thing, but made more so by the addition of cable-like TV in the form of TV-Over-Internet (TVOIP?). So, of course it slows down when somebody on your branch hogs the bandwidth! And it has always been stated that the bandwidth you contract for is a max, not a min. That makes this hard to complain about, I think. (But I still don't like it or AT&T, Comcast, Charter-I really dislike Charter.)

hnkelley

This isn't anything new. They may have just updated their ToS and made it official, but I've long had "traffic shaping" occur when I'm connected to torrents.

The torrents could be moving at a slow 0.1Bps and it wouldn't matter, my speed automatically drops down to just a fraction of what I pay for.

See more: [www.kyle-brady.com]

--Kyle

Kyle Brady

We seriously must all unite & put an end to this ATROCITY! I saw this formulating about two years ago starting with the large corporations who 'control the world' who weren't making a buck on pretty much any activity that one can do online.

So the worst is coming; the end of the internet (literally).
COMCAST Residential has officially instituted a new 'capped bandwith' policy of 250 GB per month. They say that's 50 million e-mails, I say that's taking away one of the GREATEST FREEDOM'S MANKIND HAS EVER KNOWN.

My friends, this is only the beginning. TELUS, Canada's Wireless Phone tycoon, has already started charging $$ for certain sites access! (See [www.telusmobility.com]) Can you imagine a world that you click to read the news (& pay), click to Facebook (& pay), click to do whatever your freedom deserves, & have corporate hogs charge??? This is outrageous!

FireFish

wonder if i can post now? :)

to be honest, this is all blown out of proportion. honestly, at&t's u-verse service has a restricted line limit of about 25 megabits. some customers, who are too far away from the vrad, will be provisioned for 19 megabits. when at&t adds 2 hd streams to those customers, their 19 megabits may not be enough to support all the content (internet, phone, pip streams and 2 hd/2 sd streams). so what it will do is lower the internet speed to allow the 2 hd streams to come through with no hiccups.

it's a form of quality of service, not bandwidth-hog throttling. if you don't want it to happen, watch your _local_ bandwidth usage, and that is _if_ you're someone on u-verse with the lower profile.

rickz0rz

Not sure if anyone has said this, but the limitation is supposedly only for your internal network, with U-verse as a prority. Here's a breakdown.

With U-verse, you're given, say, a 25 megabit profile. Within that profile, you're given 2 HD streams, 2 SD streams, VoIP capability and 10 megabits of internet. Say they change the service around and add a 3rd HD stream. Well, those HD streams take up a little bit more bandwidth than SD streams, so that bandwidth has got to come from somewhere. So what will happen is the RG will adjust your network bandwidth to let your TV have a bit more, while taking a little bit away from your internet.

This'll probably be used more towards those who are far away from the VRAD (where the fibre meets the copper), since their profile has a smaller bandwidth setting, at 19 megabits. This will allow them to get 2 HD streams, like those who have a 25 megabit profile.

rickz0rz

Here in the UK ISP's are arguing that content providers VOD services such as YouTube and the massively successful BBC iPlayer are throttling available bandwith for consumers and as such they should be forced to contribute towards the cost of upgrading the network infrastrucure.

The major UK ISP's and British Telecom have failed to invest heavily in upgrading the infrastructure and are now looking at scapegoats to absolve them of blame for the UK's generally woeful broadband speeds.

Another less highlighted trend is that instead of throttling download speeds, many ISP's are secretly capping upload speeds to thwart the users of P2P/Torrents.

As an example my friend's broadband download speed is consistently around the 6.5mb/s mark. The upload speed however is consistently about 85-100kb/s which not only makes uploading photos, for instance, a joke but effectively slows his connection speed as page calls and any other outgoing data is capped at that speed.
I've noticed this trend with my ISP as well as have a few of my work colleagues. Many blame Vista or IE for the latency until they do a few speed tests and are shocked at the results.

My upload speed has steadily declined from about 1.5mb/s to around 300kb/s and I don't even use P2P/Torrents- but uploading photos to my website and especially for on-line processing has become a process worse than watching paint dry.
I've got 800MB of photos I need to upload and get printed- at that speed it would take about 6 hours to upload

jimbowyer

When I first saw this, I thought "oh, shit, maybe I shouldn't have switched to Uverse last week". But then I actually read the article and see that this post is a totally overblown and alarmist. Kudos to those commenters with actual knowledge about the Uverse network who tried to explain the truth of this issue, and shame on those who simply piled on the usual anti-corporate, sky-is-falling-on-the-Internet prattle and/or conflated this with other, unrelated broadband issues.

AtomicPlayboy