AT&T To Test Bandwidth Caps For Reno, NV. Customers
AT&T announced that they are testing a plan to limit the amount of downstream data that new customers in the Reno, NV. market will be able to use in a calendar month, this for both DSL and users at the 10 Mbps level. According to the company, existing customers will be capped at 150 GB per month, this regardless of their connection speed.
According to company spokesman Michael Coe, five percent of AT&T's subscribers take up 50 percent of the capacity.
Starting in November, the company will limit downstream usage to 20 GB per month for DSL users. this at, at 768 Kbps. The limit increases with the speed of the plan, up to 150 GB per month at the 10 Mbps level. Users will be able to track their usage on the companies website, much like your monthly cell phone usage.
At the 3 Mbps tier this would amount to a monthly cap of 60 GB, or about the download of about 30 DVD-quality movies. Companies such as Roku which have announced HD streaming by the end of 2008 have indicated bandwidth caps will not affect their business model as they will employ new compression models to reduce bitrates. The net effect of the AT&T bandwidth caps is unclear at this point since there is no data to determine if this will be detrimental to residential customers.
