AT&T Bandwidth cap, how does it affect us gamers?

[herpaderphurr]

The kind of people who play a lot of games will be heavily affected by this, though not because the act of playing games itself takes up a lot of bandwidth.

We want/need to download ridiculously large updates, download new Steam games, download that cool-looking Source mod, download that pirated game... and other such things.

Also, "gamers" probably don't spend every waking hour of computer usage playing games. They still watch movies, browse the web, download music, watch livestreamers, and other such things that nom a bunch of bandwidth.

...though perhaps what I said doesn't really apply in thise case, because 150GB is still a lot (20GB here in NZ). Basically you just can't leave your computer running 24/7 seeding and downloading weird porn.

 

[viranimus]

No no ... you're confusing the terminology here.

Data limits are not bandwidth allotments on your end.
Bandwidth = how much data is moved per unit time, i.e. speeds.
Data limits reduce the amount of traffic they get per month.

Yes, you are correct, I misused the term (and misspelled it to boot) Bandwidth. However just for their wireless service, one of their server farms has a distribution capacity of roughly 500 zetabytes per second (circa 2007) which if 300,000,000 people were using it at one time would still translate out to speeds over 1gb per second per person. Now consider they own over 25 distribution server farms across the country each with equivilent capacity. Also consider they do NOT have 300 million subscribers, All this was for their cell phone platform at a time when 3g was just emerging.

Now consider a company with the infrastructure to take that level of capacity for a cellphone network with decidedly lower level demand of XML based data transfers would be more than capable of handling the transition to a broadband distribution model.

Please do not fool yourself. Their broadband network is not suffering from overload.(though it does suffer from bad coding and poor layout) This will not benefit the users in any way shape or form. There is absolutely no logical way to justify this. This is an intentional move most likely in light of other countries moving to this model to cash in on the model.

 

[Danceofmasks]

No no ... you're confusing the terminology here.

Data limits are not bandwidth allotments on your end.
Bandwidth = how much data is moved per unit time, i.e. speeds.
Data limits reduce the amount of traffic they get per month.

Yes, you are correct, I misused the term (and misspelled it to boot) Bandwidth. However just for their wireless service, one of their server farms has a distribution capacity of roughly 500 zetabytes per second (circa 2007) which if 300,000,000 people were using it at one time would still translate out to speeds over 1gb per second per person. Now consider they own over 25 distribution server farms across the country each with equivilent capacity. Also consider they do NOT have 300 million subscribers, All this was for their cell phone platform at a time when 3g was just emerging.

Now consider a company with the infrastructure to take that level of capacity for a cellphone network with decidedly lower level demand of XML based data transfers would be more than capable of handling the transition to a broadband distribution model.

Please do not fool yourself. Their broadband network is not suffering from overload. This will not benefit the users in any way shape or form. There is absolutely no logical way to justify this. This is an intentional move most likely in light of other countries moving to this model to cash in on the model.

You do realise, "most other countries" never had unlimited internet, due to them actually having crippled performance due to total available bandwidth?
Whenever companies can (i.e. when they get more infrastructure), they've been giving better and better deals.

Whether AT&T is actually pretending to have issues or not, that's the reality elsewhere.
Frankly, they had better be having real problems, 'cos if they're not, this is the best way to lose customers. Ever.

 

[viranimus]

Whether AT&T is actually pretending to have issues or not, that's the reality elsewhere.
Frankly, they had better be having real problems, 'cos if they're not, this is the best way to lose customers. Ever.[/quote]

Well, as a general rule of thumb it is never wise to trust a company that was founded on pretending. Look up the history of AT&T before the 1984 baby Bell breakup. Basically even though there are different names for the last almost 30 years all the money goes to the same group of people, Bell. As for the technology and infrastructure just from the two biggest heads of modern bell(AT&T & Verizon), your looking at almost half a trillion in assets which are predominantly from infrastructure.

Also consider that it costs AT&T roughly 20 billion to operate per year. Now compare that to the 120 billion they pick up in revenue each year. So on the off chance they were in fact having problems with data allocation it would literally be a drop in ocean for them to add a couple more server farms to meet any additional demand, especially seeings as a new server farm typically runs them less than 100 million to produce.

Im sorry, but this is little more than a blatant money grab banking on the healthy mix of the rich and ignorant. It is a telling sign of this day and age where an organization which basically does nothing but provides non essential leisure type services are now on par financially with the banks that print our money.

 

[Blazingdragoon04]

So I guess the question now is whether or not this is a sustainable business model in an area where people actually have choice? Have other people in places where this kind of thing happens and you actually have a choice to switch to a provider that does not have a cap seen the effects of what placing a limit does to your customer base? I'd be curious to see for the reason of trying to gauge what will happen in the coming years, like how soon the cap will slowly decrease over time, and whether every other company will follow suit.

I guess what I am asking now is, does this business model actually yield profit in areas where people have the freedom to choose, and aren't stuck in a monopolized area?

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

If I could live on 10gig until late last year, when it jumped to 25gig (and now 100), I'm fairly certain you can survive with 150gig.

I actually had no clue caps were even debatable until speaking to someone from America. I just assumed you all already had caps lower than 100gig per month you were paying for.

One more reason to hate this country I guess.

 

[antidonkey]

Not sure how it will affect me. I game, watch movies, download all sorts of stuff, and connect to work with my connection. All I can say is the first time they hit me with an overage fee, I'm switching providers.

 

[DocBalance]

I have a 50 gb limit in Australia.


Every ISP has a cap in Australia, apart from DODO with is terrible.


IT SHOULD GO EXTINCT.

Day-um. There goes my plan to move to Australia when things go balls-up here in the U.S.

 

[Blazingdragoon04]

If I could live on 10gig until late last year, when it jumped to 25gig (and now 100), I'm fairly certain you can survive with 150gig.

I actually had no clue caps were even debatable until speaking to someone from America. I just assumed you all already had caps lower than 100gig per month you were paying for.

One more reason to hate this country I guess.

My whole issue is that 150 gig will 99% not be the cap within a year with 99% likelihood. This is likely just a high cap for the time being, and once they release more and more statements about how little people use they will reduce it accordingly over and over again until they get down to the very few amounts that I have seen being posted across these forums.

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

If I could live on 10gig until late last year, when it jumped to 25gig (and now 100), I'm fairly certain you can survive with 150gig.

I actually had no clue caps were even debatable until speaking to someone from America. I just assumed you all already had caps lower than 100gig per month you were paying for.

One more reason to hate this country I guess.

My whole issue is that 150 gig will 99% not be the cap within a year with 99% likelihood. This is likely just a high cap for the time being, and once they release more and more statements about how little people use they will reduce it accordingly over and over again until they get down to the very few amounts that I have seen being posted across these forums.

Certainly something to avoid supporting. I know aussies ***** a lot on these forums, but I believe it's well founded. Despite you guys being better off than us at our peak while at your worst with this kind of stuff, that doesn't mean it's a good thing for it to get worse for you.

I hope there's a backlash to this, so it works out for you and doesn't set precedent everywhere else. The main advantage you have working for you is that you have alternatives, so you have the chance to show you're against this by turning your back on them. Hopefully you can stop this before it turns into an issue.

 

[Soviet Steve]

I have TDC so this doesn't affect me.

 

[MrTub]

Source: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/113149

Take a quick read, definitely worth the time to see what we're dealing with.

Now, I can't tell you how much bandwidth gaming takes up, or how much of that 150Gb cap an hour of gaming might consume, but I know that it is a lot, and I know that it seems like this is going to be a terrible move for anyone who subscribes to AT&T here in the US and potentially abroad and is going to severely hurt the online gaming community in areas where AT&T has a monopoly on internet providers.

The only way your going to use that 150g a month is if your running online 24 hours a day plus downloading a ton of torrents. Nobody without a serious addiction problem is going to be using 150g of bandwidth a month for personal use. Your getting paranoid over absolutely nothing at all.

Yep because everyone are like you. I easily go over 300gb a month. and I have even been up to 1,5tb upload and download during a single month.

 

[Shanecooper]

My current internet cap is 20GB/month.
Stop trying to piss me off.

 

[MrTub]

Yep because everyone are like you. I easily go over 300gb a month. and I have even been up to 1,5tb upload and download during a single month.

Right then id say you have a serious problem, and im not talking about them implementing internet caps.

How do I have a serious problem?

 

[EllEzDee]

Most UK providers have a cap far below that. TalkTalk, my ISP, gives me a 40 GB per month limit. It used to be 10...