AT&T still can't enforce DSL, fiber data caps a year later
updated 07:45 pm EST, Mon January 23, 2012
Delay hints back-office hiccups
Last March, AT&T confirmed that it was planning to cap its Internet services and begin charging overage fees. It is now almost a year later and the provider has still not implemented its strategy. It is likely that AT&T hasn't done so because it still hasn't figured out how to measure usage accurately and then bill for overages.
AT&T had planned to begin limiting its DSL subscribers to 150GB per month and its VDSL users to 250GB per month on May 2 of 2011. Users were then to be charged $10 for each 50GB of data over these limits. Subscribers were supposed to be notified when they reached the 65 percent, 90 percent and 100 percent thresholds. During the summer, the company still hadn't begun users for over usage because it was "still providing time for customers to understand and learn about their usage."
Months later, the situation is still the same. Some users are even reporting consuming terabytes of usage each month without any feedback or additional billing. That AT&T hasn't rolled out its cap and charge plan suggests that it still hasn't worked through with its usage reporting or back-end billing systems.
The issue isn't necessarily unique to AT&T and has seen providers like Cogeco in Canada having issues. Those who do have metering systems don't have definitive proof that their systems are completely accurate. [via Broadband Reports]
