Wireless data hogs, beware – AT&T is planning to rein in usage
AT&T to crack down on wireless data users
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The Associated Press
NEW YORK - Wireless data hogs who jam the airwaves by watching video on their iPhones will be put on tighter leashes, an AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) executive said Wednesday.
The news came on the same day that AT&T said it is boosting its top available broadband speeds in Austin, Texas, San Antonio and St. Louis in preparation for a wider rollout. The service is called U-verse High Speed Internet Max Turbo.
AT&T offers the U-verse service in 22 states, including North Carolina. U-verse has 2 million customers, double the number it had a year ago, AT&T said Wednesday.
In the wireless space, AT&T Wireless has had trouble keeping up with wireless data usage, leading to dropped connections and long waits for users trying to run programs on their devices. AT&T is upgrading its network to cope, but its head of consumer services, Ralph de la Vega, told investors at a UBS conference in New York that it will also give high-bandwidth users incentives to "reduce or modify their usage."
De la Vega didn't say exactly how or when the carrier would change its policies, but he said some form of usage-based pricing for data is inevitable.
Right now, the carrier has a monthly usage cap of 5 gigabytes on its data plans, the same as other carriers. That's an ample allowance for most people and gives them little reason to curtail their usage. AT&T also doesn't make it easy for subscribers to know how much data they're consuming.
"We need to educate the customer ... We've got to get them to understand what represents a megabyte of data," de la Vega said. "We're improving all our systems to let consumers get real-time information on their data usage."
Only 3 percent of "smart" phone users are consuming 40 percent of the network capacity, de la Vega said, adding that the most high-bandwidth activity is video and audio streaming. Several applications on the iPhone provide nonstop Internet radio.
De la Vega also defended the network's performance, saying testing showed that AT&T's third-generation, or 3G, network was faster than that of competitors and that major problems are concentrated in New York and San Francisco, which are packed with smart phone users.
AT&T is locked in a TV ad war with Verizon Wireless, which is touting its wider 3G network coverage. The two recently agreed to drop two lawsuits about their dueling claims.
Online, AT&T’s new U-verse High Speed Internet Max Turbo tier will provide downloads at up to 24 megabits per second and uploads at up to 3 megabits per second.
The new tier will be available where AT&T has upgraded its phone lines to carry its U-Verse TV and data service. Max Turbo will cost residential customers $65 per month when bundled with TV.
Previously, the top download speed available on U-Verse was 18 megabits per second. Among the major phone companies, Qwest Communications International Inc. has had the highest download speeds over phone lines, at 20 megabits per second.
Phone companies are ramping their speeds to compete with cable companies, which are upgrading their modems to support download speeds of around 50 megabits per second.
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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