The Members Forum

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission should investigate AT&T's new broadband caps and ask questions about why the company needs them, two broadband advocacy groups said.

AT&T's broadband-use caps went into effect Monday, with a 150 gigabyte-per-month limit for DSL (digital subscriber line) subscribers and 250 gigabytes for its U-verse subscribers. The caps raise several questions about AT&T's networks, said Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative in a Friday letter to the FCC.

The AT&T broadband caps are "particularly aggressive," said the letter, signed by Harold Feld, legal director at Public Knowledge, and Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative. The broadband provider plans to charge subscribers an extra $10 per 50 gigabytes after they exceed the caps three times.

"Unlike competitors whose caps appear to be at least nominally linked to congestions during peak-use periods, AT&T seeks to convert caps into a profit center by charging additional fees to customers who exceed the cap," the letter said. "In addition to concerns raised by broadband caps generally, such a practice produces a perverse incentive for AT&T to avoid raising its cap even as its own capacity expands."

AT&T has said about 2% of its customers will be affected by the caps. "Our usage-based pricing plan is about offering a high-quality, fair and affordable broadband service for all of our customers," an AT&T spokeswoman said. "It is designed to protect the low-volume consumer and provide the high-volume consumer with the necessary information ... prior to being billed for overages."

Computerworld has the details HERE!