AT&T to cap broadband usage. Streamers beware

Oh what a can 'o worms.
There are only a few who use a monumental amount of broadband and for those I say, why not. But it will not end there. The internet will be over regulated and monopolized to the point that hackers will retaliate. It should remain free, open and unfettered save for the hogs but they would be easy to regulate.

In France, and other European countries, they get several times the bandwidth, local and long distance phone service, and about twice as many HD channels as we do and it costs them a whopping 35Euro/month. Or so I've been told. Correct me if I'm wrong.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100304002139AAHmOYP

They admit that the first to lay down the cable should be compensated but that's the end of it. Open and free competition allows lots of users and suppliers which brings down the costs. Isn't that how we should be operating? Instead, we allow monopolies that restrict competition and drive up the price.
I'm all for competition in the truest sense.

Elizabeth,

your price will not go down and others will only go up.

All this does is open up other providers to under cut At&t or change the same inflated rates.

Define "alot of bandwidth".

From what I read you can stream over 150 hours of HD movies as an example before you get slapped with a $10 charge for another large amount to consume. That amount of data is "alot" to me and as noted will only affect a small minority of users.......so far that is.

It's purely a profit maximization calculation - there's no moral "right" or "wrong", and certainly no "should" or "shouldn't".

Presumably, someone will offer unlimited bandwidth at some price - and ATT will either make a competing offer or they won't. That decision will turn on their view of the risk of losing customers, their cost structure and their requisite margins, not on some notion of apportioning their costs "fairly" to "bandwidth hogs". Evidently, ATT has concluded that, right now, they can pull their existing unlimited bandwidth offer and charge more to heavy users without the risk of losing too many of them.

I can assure you that ATT does NOT want to lose high bandwidth customers.

I'd also note that there are several reasons to believe that the actual cost of incremental fiber capacity will see significant downward pressure in the coming years. However, that doesn't mean ATT will pass the cost savings on. In order to realize that benefit as a consumer, you might have to deal with someone other than your current bandwidth provider. It remains to be seen who will emerge to fill that "unlimited bandwidth demand" space (ATT might well jump back in) and it should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Marty