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

[Blazingdragoon04]

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.

My question is just how bad of a situation are we dealing with here? Do you think that they are going to actually go through with something like this, is it going to be bad, and if it is going to be bad should a mass boycott be in order so that we can show them that this business model is not going to work for us, and so they will not get our hard earned dollars.

I know that I am lucky enough to live in an area where Verizon is offered, so they are my current internet provider, however I have been seriously considering switching my wireless carrier due to this fact. I want to show them that I am mad about this decision, and if they want to screw me over in such a fashion that I am not going to take it lying down.

 

[thahat]

hmm 150gb a month,
so thats 5 gb a day, on average.
i think i remember an old shooting game, prolly quacke or whatever, taking 400 megs in i think it was 6 hours or so ? so gaming and the cap, no problem.
so i think this wil get more bad rep then it should.

then again, i HATE at&t for blocking EVERYTHING they should not, and keeping everything open they should not at the place i work currently as an intern..

 

[Ih8pkmn]

I have Verizon. So it doesn't affect me.

 

[Bags159]

Someone ran WoW for three hours with a network analyzer while questing and didn't even use 10 mb. Gaming is very light on download cap as most things happen clientside and your computer tells the server what you just did. Now if you need to download a lot of games...

TWC tried capping us in Columbus, Ohio. However, they got enough people threatening to change that they backed up. It's up to your fellow AT/T consumers to stand up and tell them you won't take it.

 

[Jadak]

For just gaming, that cap isn't going to limit anybody

. Once you start considering that the connection is probably used for others as well, (movies, shows, porn, etc), it's still pretty high, although I've hit that amount in the past. In any case, the majority of people aren't likely to have a problem, and those that would just need to plan their bulk downloads around it.

 

[ViewtifulJohn777]

will this afect online consle gaming?

 

[thedeathscythe]

It won't affect online gaming. Now, if you want to download your games, that could be a problem. Some games can be 15gb big, some can even be 60, let's say GTA4, I think that ones up there. In Canada, they wanted to lower the cap, mine is 250 but my company (Shaw) wanted to lower it to 60, so let's say I wanted to buy GTA4, that would take up all my internet and then I'll be charged out the ass. 150 is pretty low, but it's not that bad if you're buying your games disc based and not buying them download based.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Huh. And I thought companies were not allowed to place caps on wired connective services with the earlier passing of the partial Neutrality bills.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Keep in mind that AT&T is an investor in bandwidth-intensive services like OnLive's HD game streaming platform, and that the heavy user of today is inevitably the standard user of tomorrow. There's several questions reporters and consumers should now ask, such as whether such overages would be possible in truly competitive markets, or if AT&T has any raw congestion data proving this kind of action is truly necessary. The predominant question however should be: does AT&T scale these caps and overages to accommodate for the dropping cost of bandwidth and hardware moving forward, or will they bend to inevitable investor pressure and continually tighten the metered billing noose?

Here's what's going to happen with AT&T. They're going to start with a 150Gb cap, with all overage money going to go into investor's pockets. After that, the number 150 will start to fall, until eventually one of two things happens.

1)Everybody who can drops AT&T(not as likely as it probably should be)

2)AT&T gets investigated as to what the hell they're doing

3)AT&T sets the new standard

I sure as hell hope that it's going to be 1, but it's probably going to be 3. Eventually people will look back on the shriveled remains of America, point and laugh, but not be bothered to actually learn anything. They will eventually repeat what America did.

EDIT:In case anyone was wondering, I've actually used a setup where I broke a 150Gb total transfer in one day. It wasn't in the states though, I had good internet available.

 

[Blazingdragoon04]

Huh. And I thought companies were not allowed to place caps on wired connective services with the earlier passing of the partial Neutrality bills.

It's not really violating net neutrality, it's just putting a limit on how long you can browse the internet freely for. So while they don't outright say "hey, you can't go to netflix to download movies because we say so" they instead say "hey, you can go to netflix to download some movies, but if you download too many we're gonna charge you out the ass".

Not a great difference, mind you, but from a legal standpoint all it takes is changing a few words to go from "illegal" to just "dick move".

 

[Kevlar Eater]

This is gonna suck. AT&T is literally the only service I can get in my neighborhood.

 

[Blazingdragoon04]

Keep in mind that AT&T is an investor in bandwidth-intensive services like OnLive's HD game streaming platform, and that the heavy user of today is inevitably the standard user of tomorrow. There's several questions reporters and consumers should now ask, such as whether such overages would be possible in truly competitive markets, or if AT&T has any raw congestion data proving this kind of action is truly necessary. The predominant question however should be: does AT&T scale these caps and overages to accommodate for the dropping cost of bandwidth and hardware moving forward, or will they bend to inevitable investor pressure and continually tighten the metered billing noose?

Here's what's going to happen with AT&T. They're going to start with a 150Gb cap, with all overage money going to go into investor's pockets. After that, the number 150 will start to fall, until eventually one of two things happens.

1)Everybody who can drops AT&T(not as likely as it probably should be)

2)AT&T gets investigated as to what the hell they're doing

3)AT&T sets the new standard

I sure as hell hope that it's going to be 1, but it's probably going to be 3. Eventually people will look back on the shriveled remains of America, point and laugh, but not be bothered to actually learn anything. They will eventually repeat what America did.

EDIT:In case anyone was wondering, I've actually used a setup where I broke a 150Gb total transfer in one day. It wasn't in the states though, I had good internet available.

I definitely agree that it will slowly drop, the limit that is, until it is something that they can get quite a bit of money for. However, I am not as cynical that it will reach the point where AT&T sets the new standard because I would like to hope that enough people get annoyed by this move and cancel their subscriptions. After all, other companies will only emulate it if it turns out to be a sustainable business model, and if enough people pull their service from AT&T, thus causing them to lose more money, then other companies will likely not follow suit.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

I don't use AT&T, but I would change providers for this if I did even if I never got near the cap.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

150gb a month is for those doing things like live streaming or constantly leaving downloads on. Gaming doesn't use up nowhere near as much DL.

 

[Bon_Clay]

I'm with Rogers in Canada so I only get like 60GB a month. It sucks, I've hit the limit several times without any online gaming.

150GB should be enough for most people and isn't too extreme, though there's still generally no reason for it as using more bandwidth barely costs them any more money.

 

[Fishyash]

Here in the UK I am using plusnet where I have a 60GB monthly cap.

I did not choose this broadband. My mum wanted to find a cheaper broadband and when I found out what she chose it was too late.

On a side note I haven't really had any allowance problems probably because of free downloads after 00:00 until like 7 or 8 AM so that helps.

Anyways I am almost always on the internet at home playing games, and there's also my brother playing on xbox live and we don't go past the cap so we are doing fine game-wise and we time our downloads appropriately.

Although i've heard that watching lots of youtube likes to eat up bandwidth, so be careful with that unless someone confirms that it doesn't really.

 

[ViewtifulJohn777]

i heard posting on forums eat up you bandwith.LOL

 

[Vault101]

Oh please 6gigs! thats how mcuh I get! its not even enough to be able to play left 4 dead 2

yet I still manage to watch some videos and play left 4 dead once in a while

its a pain but I manage

 

[MrTub]

Oh please 6gigs! thats how mcuh I get! its not even enough to be able to play left 4 dead 2

yet I still manage to watch some videos and play left 4 dead once in a while

its a pain but I manage

6gb :O

I would be really pissed if we suddently got a limit and we would change as soon as possible.

 

[Tax_Document]

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.