SubscribeGigaOM blows the lid off what will likely be an upcoming target of StoptheCap! — the ludicrous and unacceptably botched usage cap trial in Reno, Nevada by AT&T.
It seems that new customers to AT&T’s high speed Internet service aren’t being told their usage is being capped, until the mailman delivers an express letter to your home with the shocking news after you’ve already signed up for service!
Adding insult to injury, their tiers for traditional DSL max out with an 80GB allowance on their “Elite tier,” which only offers up to 6Mbps service. That might be “elite” in Kenya, but it shouldn’t be in a major American city. Each additional gigabyte comes at the traditional Pillage Price of $1/GB, which is nearly 1,000% above what it costs them to provide. And for the woman who brought all this to the attention of GigaOM, there is no competitor currently available for broadband.
The Super Whammo Extreme Maxalot tier of 150GB isn’t even available unless you have access to their U-verse fiber-alternative service. Also, incompetence seems to be the order of the day over at AT&T: GigaOM reported that customer service representatives denied there was a usage cap at all when the Lake Tahoe-area resident called to inquire.
AT&T’s letter explaining the limits is reproduced below the fold. Customers signing up for service at att.com will need to call the Psychic Hotline to discern that there is a cap in place on their service — not one word of it appears on their website as the screen captures GigaOM obtained illustrate.
Of course AT&T is also the home of the “unlimited” AT&T Wireless DataConnect plan that, in the fine print, changes your reality of what the word “unlimited” means to their own, which means “not more than 5GB.”
Sounds like bait and switch to us and the next step should be a contact with the Nevada Attorney General’s office, the Better Business Bureau, local and state officials, and the Congressional delegation for Nevada. If AT&T wants to treat Reno like a broadband backwater, they couldn’t do a better job of it by also forgetting to tell customers until after they already signed up.
AT&T Broadband Usage Cap Alert (courtesy: GigaOM)
GigaOM captured AT&T.com's Broadband Service Offers... no caps here!
No caps here either.... Who knew?
Other stories of interest:
- FCC Commissioners “Discuss Frontier Usage Caps” At Hearing in Washington
- Alert for Texans: Sign Up for Your Road Runner Price Protection Agreement/Contract Now!
- Senator Chuck Schumer to Visit Rochester & Protest Usage Caps: Our View
- BREAKING NEWS: Frontier Officially Abandons Caps; Will Go On Marketing Attack to Sign New Customers
- Time-Warner Road Runner Service’s Usage Cap Test: 5-40GB Per Month
Again info about the caps is provided after sign up, in my case I found out about the caps when I was digging in the “members only” area of the site.
Go figure to see the info in the link below you must have an att uverse account.
https://uversecentral1.att.com/uvp/myhome/broadbandusage/c1/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3gXd8-wIA93YwMLM0dzAyNzN1N_XwMDQwMDY_2CbEdFAIpPDHU!/
Screenshots here: http://w668.photobucket.com/pbwidget.swf?pbwurl=http://w668.photobucket.com/albums/vv46/doubleatheman2/ccf41103.pbw
Quick youtube video I made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYav2iCJHmc
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Has Att provided an actual reason for caps yet?
Our networks are bogged down by abusers?
We all know the cable co’s have issues with the way their network works, but at&t’s network doesn’t have these kind of bottlenecks. With DSL you have your own data line running to a local backbone for the most part. In fact they run PPV and local tv channels through the same way you get your Internet. I know many “standard” channels use multi cast ip technologies, but still that uses a ton of data.
Atts network can magically handle streaming HD video to two of your tv’s 24’7 yet you can only download from the Internet for 1 day out of the month? I would be getting 1/30th of the service I pied for.
18Mbps = 2.25MBps = 135MB per min = 8.1GB per hour = 194.4 GB per day
…. OOPS I went over my 150gb cap in ONE DAY.
»web.forret.com/tools/filesize.as···ur=86400
Watch 2.5HR of live HD video, and record 2.5 hr of HD video to your dvr over the course of the month would = 12mbps (two 6.5mbps video streams) would use 3.8 TB a month!
I don’t even think its particularly unrealistic to day some people use their HD tv 5 hours a day, or have more than one HD tv in the house in use at a time, yet I can only use my Internet for 1 day out of the month? What?
Why could video content get the golden treatment?
Why should VIOP get the golden treatment?
Something does not ad up.
Government regulation can’t come soon enough. I have an idea… let’s tax corporate profits of cable companies by 95%. Worked with AIG bonuses!
if you had one of their cards installed on a laptop and went over the 5gig limit:
Based on $.00048 per Kb and 1048576 kb in a gb, your cost per gig comes to $503.31648. Rounded up, then taxed.
Where can I sign up?
I like how they claim 95% of their users won’t be affected whereas Time Warner Cable is claiming 85%. This underscores an important point. THIS IS NOT JUST A TIME WARNER CABLE ISSUE! In fact AT&T is known for having just as bad if not worse customer service than TWC.
OMG! – And I just subscribed to U-Verse last week after canceling services with TWC! The representative at U-Verse specifically told me on the phone that they do not cap Internet bandwidth! Also, as pointed out above – On the U-Verse website where the customer chooses which Internet speed they want (and cable/phone services), the Internet bandwidth prices are not even listed! – Isn’t this false advertisement and considered illegal?
I shouldn’t have to find important information like this out “after the fact”! This is complete BS!
Looks like many of us here in Austin are at a complete “stalemate” considering there are no other routes to take (unless you’re just plain lucky and can subscribe to Grande).
Location: Austin, Texas
Matt
FYI – I just logged into my U-Verse account and am unable to find anything at all about broadband usage which should be listed on the main page “https://uversecentral1.att.com/uvp/myhome/…”.
Whenever I manually type in “https://uversecentral1.att.com/uvp/myhome/broadbandusage”, I am taken to the appropriate Bandwidth webpage for U-Verse; however, I’m getting the following message multiple times on the screen:
“Usage for
04/01/2009 – current
Not available
We’re sorry but the system cannot retrieve Internet usage for this date.”
It appears as though I have to manually type in the following after “https://uversecentral1.att.com/uvp/myhome/” in order to get to the bandwidth usage website for U-Verse: “/broadbandusage/”.
I take it that either the bandwidth caps haven’t been implemented yet in Austin or the charges haven’t shown up on my account because its less than a week old. In either case, I’m still tossed on what to do for Internet service, again!
Even though U-Verse has capped Internet specifically in Reno, NV (for now), its definitely setup for Austin, Texas as well … Just a heads up to everyone out there …
At this time, AT&T is only capping access in Reno and Beaumont. There are no caps anywhere else in AT&T territory. We need to get people to start fighting AT&T, which is why I am trying to find some project leader-types in these areas to start making a lot of noise. I’m at a disadvantage here in western NY being so far away from the action.
Agreed! – I’ll definitely be emailing the local U-Verse office here about this within the next day or two.
I’m just concerned that AT&T won’t hesitate to implement capped bandwidth in Austin (and other markets as well) around the same time as TWC or sooner.
AT&T Wireless and AT&T Broadband (DSL and U-verse) are different divisions, and people should be careful about confusing the two. This specific cap pertains to the Broadband division.
I have Uverse here where I am and they don’t have caps yet. I can blow the 150GB cap in no time with all the HD 720p TV episodes I download.
AT&T U-verse is sold right out of Jefferson Road at Sutherland Global (I used to work there in a different division). It’s just not available to this area. Hopefully it will be at some point soon.
TWC scrapped their plan of $1 to $2 overage per GB over the cap after a large backlash of angry, confused customers, and threats of epic bukkake. If you thought the overages of cell phone bills gave people enough of a shocker, AT&T broadband customers will run out of holes pretty soon! In other news: The demand for remote car starters purchased by executives are on the rise.
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This is complete BS. I subscribed yesterday and got a robo call about the CAP today. What the F!!! I’m calling and complaining every hour tomorrow and I might go to the local office on lunch and protest. I’m also calling the Reno News and Review, All the local Radio talk shows, the RGJ and KTVN, KOLO, and KRNV TV stations.
If there is a cap I’m F-ing done with ATT. iphone or not!
I just got my Express letter in the mail today, My internet was hooked up yesterday, I download a lot, No one ever said anything about any cap! I was in shock when I received the letter in the mail, I have never heard of anything like this. I live about 30 minutes out of Reno, Needless to say I am very very upset and trying to figure out what I am going to do now as I know I will go over the cap every month, I can’t afford that and I can’t afford cable internet at this time either. ATT SUCKS! and so does their customer service, after I had my tv and phone hooked up they insisted I didn’t even have an account with them and this is after they had transferred me to 4 different F*****g departments.
I just had a knockdown drag out shouting match with AT&T. They are fraudulent in every respect. The state attorney should look into this. They say “unlimited” and when you sign up, they send you a little email saying you are screwed and they say it’s ok. The manager actually had the audacity to tell me that if I don’t like it, cancel it. Then he said that the lawyers talked to the Nevada Utilities Commission and they were ok with it so I should be as well. Basically, I say CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT. It’s geographical discrimination. The Reno Mayor should be pissed.
I was on the phone a total of 4 hours with AT&T. Each time, they wanted to transfer me to “explain to me what the cap means”… like I’m some idiot.
So finally, I did what I had to, and I encourage all of you to do the same thing.
1) Please contact Barbara DiCianno at 775-334-3112. She is the Mayor’s assistant. Call her and ask to have an investigation launched to geographic discrimination. I have done so already, so she should be familiar with the situation. But me calling is not enough. YOU ALL need to call.
2) Go to http://southernnevada.bbb.org/ and file a complaint with the BBB. I just had the VP of Regional West of AT&T call me.. SHE WAS PISSED that I filed a complaint, and now she has to personally reply to the complaint. Please file a complaint. She hung up on me. What I need is for everybody to call the Mayor and file a complaint. If you don’t fight for your rights, you don’t deserve them. I have already softened them up for you guys. Call the Mayor’s office, file a complaint with the BBB.
Imagine if everybody in Reno did that who has AT&T, what the landscape of this situation would be. The lady said this is a trial that will end on April 1st (perhaps just an April Fool’s joke) but if nobody complains, then they will implement this nation wide. So _WE_ will be the ones that determine if this continues or stops here and now.. They may take away our lives, but they will not cap our DSL!
[...] documented the howls of complaints from customers who were falsely sold an “unlimited” plan from AT&T and were never notified, or notified after signing up, of the existence of the Internet [...]
After signing up for AT&T High speed internet with unlimited home phone, i was suprised to get the letter in the mail stating that i can only use a certain amount of data per month! I was furious so i called AT&T, they didn’t know anything about it, yet they sent me a letter telling me i can only use so much data per month. I use my main system to edit and upload videos to youtube. so almost weekly that is 10GB not including itunes music downloading for uploading videos to you tube! and then i have another system that uses netflix and hulu to watch TV shows and movies which is on almost all the time. then we have a laptop which people are on most the day using the internet. My limit is 60GB cause i got the pro internet to start.
Funny story about the pro and elite internet. I decided a few weeks back to upgrade to the highest of 6MB internet from AT&T cause i was told i can get all the services in my area even uverse, but i don’t want uverse cause i have another company for my TV and i’m in a contract. But in short i was only able to use the 6MB internet for two days after the order was finished. After that two days of much faster internet the entire system went out, the phone wasn’t working. no internet. so i had to call AT&T from my cell phone and get them to send a guy out, the soonest they could get someone out was 4 days away and it was not a holiday! so once the tech came, he got it working by doing something outside, he said that i could not have 6MB internet cause I’m 11,000 feet away, which don’t make sense since there is an AT&T building 1 mile down the road and a bunch of AT&T boxes 1 house length away. AT&T said there was nothing they could do. i told them then i guess I’m going with the competition that offers all three services for much cheaper! they tried hard to try and get me to stay, such as giving me credit for two months, discounting me for a year if i wanted and a free WIFI modem. but when i said no, instantly my internet became slow until i switched!
I will never go back to AT&T!
I am assuming you are in or near one of the two cities where these schemes were tested — Reno, Nev. or Beaumont, Tex. Those were the only two cities that we are aware of where AT&T tested this usage limit on their DSL and/or U-verse systems. If you are outside of these areas and still have that letter, we’d love to receive a copy (you can scan it and we’d block any identifying address information).
The good news is that, at least for now, those tests unofficially end April 1st.
As to your broadband service — U-verse and DSL both work on the same copper wiring. U-verse uses fiber to reach your general neighborhood and then it connects with the copper wire phone cable running adjacent to your hard and then into your home. It’s actually just a different flavor of DSL that is sensitive to distance (the longer the cable run, the lower maximum possible speed.) That’s why they use fiber to your neighborhood, where signal loss is a non-issue.
If AT&T is willing to provide U-verse to your neighborhood, that would automatically reduce that distance dramatically, making it possible to deliver near-peak DSL speeds. I had thought when U-verse became available in an area, they stopped marketing traditional DSL service and instead sold you different speeds on their U-verse platform.
If your neighborhood is actually provisioned for U-verse (some people get marketing material that suggests they are, but they turn out not to be when they call to inquire), you should have no problems achieving 6Mbps service.
I’m not surprised you wouldn’t get those speeds 11,000 feet away from the central office using traditional DSL service, however. Some customers are served by remote offices that can shorten distances dramatically, but it sounds like that’s not your case at the moment.
My speed is fast, but it’s like a porsche with half a gallon of gas in the tank, it’s useless. I can’t even backup my servers in Taiwan to have a local copy because it’s 1T of pictures; which means I’d actually have to not use the internet for anything and split up the download into 8 months. AT&T needs to get sued for false advertising.
Last I checked, AT&T has repealed its usage caps, so you can back up away…
[...] alienated many of its customers in Beaumont, Texas and Reno, Nevada when an extended usage cap trial was underway. Complaints [...]