AT&T to cap DSL and U-verse data at 150GB, 250GB starting in May

We've been wondering when the hammer would fall, and it's here. AT&T is joining some other ISPs, including Comcast and setting a hard data cap on usage of its DSL services, according to a report issued Sunday March 13 by DSL Reports.

From March 18 to March 31, AT&T users are going to be receiving the bad news via notices informing them of the change in the company's terms of service. The caps go into effect May 2. Anyone who's eschewed Comcast for AT&T's DSL service may be rethinking things right about now.

DSL customers will have a 150GB data cap. U-verse customers will have a 250GB data cap. U-verse is AT&T's higher bandwidth services, that can go all the way up to 24Mbps d/l and 3Mbps u/l for U-verse Max Turbo.

AT&T spokesman Seth Bloom confirmed the information. The caps will, naturally, involve overage charges. It doesn't sound like the company will boot users who exceed the cap, at least. To incur the overage charges, AT&T said a customer must consistently overshoot the cap.

Consistently, however, means 3x over the life of your account. That's right, not per month. Overage charges will be $10 for every 50GB over the data cap. To be honest, that's not too bad.

The reasoning of AT&T is similar to all companies in this model: a minimal number of users consume "a disproportionate amount of bandwidth." In AT&T's case, it's about 2 percent of all DSL customers, with the average DSL customer using about 18GB per month.

The company will use a notification system similar to that in their new tiered wireless plans. When customers reach 65 / 90 / 100 percent of their allotment, they'll be notified. They'll also be able to use a broadband monitor similar to the one that Comcast provides its customers so they can track their usage.

Still this, and the data caps on wireless are going to become prevalent. We've predicted this before and are surprised it took AT&T this long to implement their caps. The $10 per 50GB overage charges are, however, surprisingly reasonable.

However, as we've noted before, ISPs are instituting caps at the same time that media companies, some of them owned by ISPs (Hello, NBC = Comcast), want us to use more broadband for streamed media. Even AT&T has a reason for us to use more broadband: it is an investor in OnLive's HD game-streaming platform. That is going to suck bandwidth through a hose, not a straw, if it takes off.

They can't have it both ways.  Use more; use less; make up your minds.

We also said before that today's heavy 150GB or 250GB user is going to be tomorrow's standard user. Once these caps are in place, we hope AT&T (and Comcast) keep an eye on them and realize when the time has come to raise them, as it will come eventually.