• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, May 6, 2011

As of this week, broadband provider AT&T started limiting the bandwidth that its DSL and U-Verse subscribers can download or upload.

 

Under the new caps, DSL subscribers can consume only 150 GB of data a month, while U-Verse subscribers get 250 GB. AT&T has said that subscribers who exceed the limits will be charged $10 for 50 GB.

The Federal Communications Commission has indicated that bandwidth caps don't in themselves violate open Internet rules, as long as broadband providers treat all types of data and applications equally.

But that doesn't mean that caps are good for either Web users or Web-based businesses. Consider, while only a small number of subscribers (fewer than 2%, according to AT&T) currently use more than the company's new maximum, broadband usage will only grow over time. That's especially the case for the growing number of cord-cutters who hope to watch online video rather than pay for cable TV subscriptions.

Consumer advocates, long critical of bandwidth caps, today called on the Federal Communications Commission to investigate AT&T's new limits. "While broadband caps are not inherently problematic, they carry the omnipresent temptation to act in anticompetitive and monopolistic ways," Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative said today in a letter to the FCC. "Unless they are clearly and transparently justified to address legitimate network capacity concerns, caps can work directly against the promise of broadband access."

The groups are especially critical of AT&T's plan to charge users who go over their limits. "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," they write. "Such a practice produces a perverse incentive for AT&T to avoid raising its cap even as its own capacity expands."

The groups are asking the FCC to obtain reports from AT&T addressing issues including how the company enforces the caps, average penalties incurred, and whether there's any relationship between AT&T's enforcement of caps and network congestion.