AT&T to cap data services starting May 2nd for DSL and U-Verse services
Starting May 2, 2011, AT&T customers that use U-Verse and DSL services will receive a new data plan. The DSL users will have a cap on their included data usage at 150 GB. U-Verse customers will have a 250 GB cap imposed.
As I write this, notices are being mailed out to AT&T DSL and U-Verse customers in the form of a new T&C (Terms and Conditions) update. If you receive a notice, read it carefully.
Customers who exceed the caps will be charged an additional $10 for every 50 GB block of data when they exceed their cap. This could be expensive if you view a lot of movies from Netflix or other on-line movie and music services.
AT&T is trying to make the cap seem easier to live with. According to their records, the “average” DSL user downloads 18 GB of data per month. They say the caps will only affect two percent of their customers – for now.
AT&T also says users will have to exceed their usage cap three times before they will be charged. The three incidents will be counted over the “lifetime” of the contract, so a customer that comes close to that limit each month, may be in for a rude awakening on the these months.
They say they will be proactively notifying customers when they go over 65%, 90% and 100% of their maximum usage cap, so customers will not be surprised when they receive the bill.
It looks like AT&T is the industry leader in eliminating unlimited data plans. Earlier, they abolished the unlimited data plan for iPhone users, and in a further step to eradicate unlimited data plans, iPhone users that use tethering will lose their unlimited plan.
P.S. People are already wondering how AT&T will calculate the amount of data used by a particular customer, as there are big discrepancies between what AT&T analytics tools and customer router and firewall statistics report. AT&T says they will improve the “inaccuracies”. So if you are charged a big overage, you had better have your firewall and router stats ready as you will be fighting them all alone.
