AT&T To Impose Bandwidth Limits For DSL and U-Verse Users

It is bad news for the users of AT&T’s broadband internet services in the United States as the days of enjoying unlimited internet access seem to be numbered. The telecom giant has come up with the announcement of its new charges for internet users which says that their DSL landline customers will now be restricted by a monthly download cap of 150 GB and those who use the high speed U-Verse internet service will have a 250 GB limit on their connections. Overage charges of around $10 for every additional 50 GB of usage over the limit will be charged from the users. These users get a grace period of two months before they are charged for overuse, which means that they will be charged with the excess usage costs starting from the third month when they go over the limit. AT&T has confirmed the legitimacy of these charges and said that the users will be informed starting from the 18th of March. In their defense and justification of the move, AT&T argues that the effects of this move will be limited to that minute percentage of users who use very disproportionate amount of bandwidth and they say that these caps are the only option they have other than alternative measures like throttling the internet transfer speeds or completely disconnecting these excessive users from their services. The users will be provided with online tools to check their current levels of usage and they will also receive notifications when they cross 65, 90 and 100 percent of their allotted limits. Seth Bloom, representative for AT&T confirmed these rates in a statement to the media while adding that the users who don’t yet have access to the bandwidth usage tool will not get charged according to the new rules until they access those services.