Ask Slashdot: What To Do About Repeated Internet Overbilling? 355
An anonymous reader writes "AT&T has been overbilling my account based on overcounting DSL internet usage (they charge in 50 gigabyte units after the first 150). I have been using a Buffalo NFinity Airstation as a managed switch to count all traffic. As you may know, this device runs firmware based on dd-wrt and has hidden telnet functionality, so I am able to load a script to count traffic directly onto the device. I have an auto-scraper that collects the data and saves it on my computer's hard disk every two minutes while the computer is running. While it is not running, the 2 minute counters accumulate in RAM on the device. Power problems are not normally an issue here; and even when they are I can tell it has happened. The upshot of all this is I can measure the exact amount of download bandwidth and a guaranteed overestimate of upload bandwidth in bytes reliably. I have tested this by transferring known amounts of data and can account for every byte counted, including ethernet frame headers. AT&T's billing reporting reports usage by day only, lags two days, and uses some time basis other than midnight. It is also reading in my testing a fairly consistent 14% higher whenever the basis doesn't disturb the test by using too much bandwidth too close to midnight.
AT&T has already refused to attempt to fix the billing meter, and asserts they have tested it and found it correct. Yet they refuse to provide a realtime readout of the counter that would make independent testing trivial. I've been through the agencies (CPUC, FCC, and Weights & Measures) and can't find one that is interested, AT&T will not provide any means for reasonable independent testing of the meter. It is my understanding that if there is a meter and its calibration cannot be checked, there is a violation of the law, yet I can't find an agency that can even accept such a claim (I'm not getting "your claim is meritless", but "we don't handle that"). If indeed they are not overbilling, my claim of no way to verify the meter still stands. My options are running thin here. So that my account can be identified by someone who recognizes the case: 7a6c74964fafd56c61e06abf6c820845cbcd4fc0 (bit commitment).
AT&T has already refused to attempt to fix the billing meter, and asserts they have tested it and found it correct. Yet they refuse to provide a realtime readout of the counter that would make independent testing trivial. I've been through the agencies (CPUC, FCC, and Weights & Measures) and can't find one that is interested, AT&T will not provide any means for reasonable independent testing of the meter. It is my understanding that if there is a meter and its calibration cannot be checked, there is a violation of the law, yet I can't find an agency that can even accept such a claim (I'm not getting "your claim is meritless", but "we don't handle that"). If indeed they are not overbilling, my claim of no way to verify the meter still stands. My options are running thin here. So that my account can be identified by someone who recognizes the case: 7a6c74964fafd56c61e06abf6c820845cbcd4fc0 (bit commitment).
maybe (Score:3)
Re:maybe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought everyone knew this, or were able to google it especially if they are able to upload something like DDWRT to their router. Perhaps I had too much faith.
especially in AT&T if nobody he's ever spoken with about the issue knew enough to mention encapsulation. It doesn't sound like he's a dope, just possibly missed this factor. Somebody there could have simply asked him, "are you counting the overhead of PPPoE and ATM?" and then his post may have been entirely different, if it even existed at all.
With millions of home users and thousands of techs, the onus should not be on the customer base to understand how the vendor's product works internally.
Re:maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
Doesn't really matter though, you can't charge somebody for bandwidth used to move data, only the bandwidth the end user used. Imagine if you went to buy milk and bought a gallon but were charged for 1.25 gallons because of spillage in the bottling plant. Not legal. Not even a little. You have to work that cost into what you charge for a gallon, and then charge for the gallon the end user buys.
I say the sane thing to do about this is class action lawsuit personally. Don't charge for something you didn't supply, it's illegal, plain and simple.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Overhead (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if you went to buy milk and bought a gallon but were charged for 1.25 gallons because of spillage in the bottling plant.
Or to be more similar: you got charged 1.25, because they determine the price by weighting it and thus are also weighting the glass milk bottles and the hard plastic crate carrying them.
And when you ask them why you don't get the same amount of gallons that you measure in your kitchen and on their bill, they just answer "No, everything is okay, our bill is 100% right.". Without ever mentioning that you need to take that overhead into account. Without you having any way to check it or control the milkbottle+crate weighting process neither.
in europe: Base+Use (Score:3)
Well actually NOT *MY* gas billing.
I happen to live on the opposite side of the Atlantic pond (if my b0rked english grammar wasn't already a telling sign).
Here around the utilities are billed in 2 separate steps: capacity and consumption.
- You get a fixed base, that's for paying the infrastructure no matter how much you use (i.e.: you pay a fixed base because you live in a 4-person house and the city has made certain that the water-distribution infrastructure has enough capacity to support the 4 of you).
- I
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But isn't this technically not "spillage at the bottling plant", but "packaging removed by the delivery men"? So it's almost spillage on your front door...
That is, you're paying for the full weight of the package, including the container.. But when they deliver it, they remove the container and take it away.. So you did pay for delivery of the container, you just don't have it anymore..?
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Doesn't really matter though, you can't charge somebody for bandwidth used to move data, only the bandwidth the end user used.
Says who?
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When you buy a quarter pounder, there's a footnote on every sign and menu board that reads *Precooked weight. Where is AT&T's definition?
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Bell Canada and all providers do that up here.
Not "all providers up here", only those where you live, in Western Canada I'm not aware of any PPPoE providers.
Re:maybe (Score:5, Funny)
Don't you know "Canada" means "Ontario" to those who live there?
Hell, they barely acknowledge Quebec's existence, never mind the rest of the country.
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Bell Canada is the ILEC for the vast majority of Quebecers.
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Only the zealots do that.
Re:maybe (Score:5, Informative)
In Alberta Nucleus uses PPOE
As I know them pretty well I just called a guy I know there to ask, and he tells me they adjust their metered bandwidth to allow for the "wastage" due to PPOE encapsulation.
In other words, they do not charge us for it.
Re:maybe (Score:5, Informative)
This is exactly what's going on. The company I work for had this problem, at one of our warehouses (not AT&T, different provider, probably subletting from someone).
The warehouse manager threatened his local rep with a law suit, they laughed at him. The company lawyer mentioned a class action law suit, they fixed our billing the same month.
When we had to renew, the new contract spelled out that they will bill us for the 'resulting' traffic. It got signed without anyone from my department getting asked, but the funny thing is, months later, they are still billing us the old way i.e. without the overhead.
As for the original poster - check your contract. If you have not agreed to pay for their internal overhead, you will get amazing results if you remind them that they are overcharging thousands of customers, and that they can be on the hook for millions, when a lawyer agrees to take the case for a percentage. If you have agreed to pay for the overhead... I doubt there is much you can do.
By the way, I am an IT director ,not a lawyer, so don't go blindly follow my advice, either.
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Why should we pay for ATM encapsulation? That is THEIR choice, not what people think they're getting when they ask for internet service.
Re: maybe (Score:3)
It needs to be paid for one way or the other ... it's irreducible overhead to move the data you are asking them to move. You either pay for it with a lower effective cap or you pay a higher price per overhead-free byte. Six of one, half dozen o' the other. ...
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I don't buy it. A petrol station might have an irreducible overhead of evaporation in storage, but the point is when I fill up one litre or one gallon, that's how much I expect to get. If there is irreducible overhead, that's their problem.
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Except it's not irreducible, it's an explicit choice to use ATM. Many variants of DSL (such as the VDSL2 that is all companies like Bell Canada deploy these says) don't require ATM. Of course, replacing outdated hardware with VDSL2 hardware has a cost too, but the companies should be (and are) doing that anyhow.
Re:maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
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That 15% is far more from ATM (9.4% overhead) than PPPoE (0.5% overhead), and Bell Canada's newer services (VDSL2, GPON) are unaffected as they no longer use ATM.
Re:maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
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On my electric bill, there's a usage charge AND a delivery charge. But both charges only account for what's used behind the meter - not during transit.
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That's like a trucking company adding the weight of the truck to the weight of the cargo. Encapsulation puts zero strain on the network and should not be counted, since almost everything goes back to an IP network once it reaches the DSLAM. Knowing what fuckers these guys are, I'm sure they count it too. However, you would need a lawyer to go through their contract.
DSL paload + ATM = 16% (Score:3)
Re:DSL paload + ATM = 16% (Score:4, Insightful)
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Thats all fine and good except, ATT shouldn't be charging for the overhead on their internal network. The reason that the meter their network usage is to limit how much upstream bandwidth they need, not because the DSL network is saturated.
this has no bearing on anything.
tl dr, guy is upset because when ATT said he has a 150GB cap it's actually a 135GB cap. Yes, those are the games people play. My 25MPG car just gets 22MPG on average. My 2x4 lumber is actually 3.5" wide. that's the way that business works in America. people have their thumbs on the scale. Just internalize that you have a 135GB cap and call it a day.
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Not it isn't. 2x4 is by standard 3.5 inches. 2x4 nowhere claims that it's 2 inches by 4 inches, it's just a name, but if you look up the size, it's required to be I think 3.5x1.75 or somewhere around there. 12 ounce drinks had better have at least 12 ounces in them. If it isn't, the manufaturer is commiting fraud and can be sued. If you go to a gas station, if their pump short changes you more than 1%, that's illegal. If you claim to sell a certain amount, you have to be within a tolerance or you have
Re:DSL paload + ATM = 16% (Score:5, Informative)
My 2x4 lumber is actually 3.5" wide.
Only if it has already been dried and dressed, it comes off the greenchain at the sawmill as 2X4 (to within 1/16th of an inch), as it dries the dimensions change, dressing the timber takes an 1/8th of an inch off each side. If a lumber yard attempted to sell you undressed timber as 2X4 that was actually 3.75 X 1.75 then the weights and measures people would definitely be interested. Here in Oz dressed timber is now advertised with real dimensions not it's undressed dimensions The practice goes way back to the days when most buildings used undressed timber for structural purposes. These days carpenters don't normally build frames on site, it's all prefab frames and roofs that just bolt together, for that technique to work it needs the more consistent dimensions of dressed timber.
Nobody is scamming you out of useful timber, the industry terminology is well defined and is not hidden from the customer. The point of TFA is that comcast's network metering methods are hidden from customer scrutiny and nobody at weights and measures seems to give a damn.
Re:DSL paload + ATM = 16% (Score:4, Insightful)
The point of TFA is that comcast's network metering methods are hidden from customer scrutiny and nobody at weights and measures seems to give a damn.
The best part of your comment is that TFA is regarding ATT's practices, and has nothing to do with Comcast. Yet even someone in Australia knows how fucked up Comcast is, and has mistaken another carrier for Comcast because the story is about ripping off a customer. If that doesn't show the incredibly awful nature and reputation of Comcast, I'm not sure what does. It's too bad the FCC won't see this thread.
Re:DSL paload + ATM = 16% (Score:5, Insightful)
Most places I've seen measure with encapsulation, because it's easier. The problem's not with the meter, it's with the small print
The problem actually is with the meter, if you're not allowed to see the meter.
"We're going to charge you based on this gas/electric/water/phone meter, but you have no way to verify the reading" is something the PUC wouldn't accept other than in the case of "the Internet".
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Every internet contract that I have seen does say that they charge for all of the traffic including protocol overhead. It is my understanding that the charges are normally done with a logging setup similar to what was described in the article where they just dump the switch/router port traffic based on the MAC of the modem and/or your currently assigned IP(s). I do think it is completely wrong that you have no way of seeing this and I suspect that part of why they are not required to have a meter that you c
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This is exactly the cause. The ATM overhead is being counted by AT&T and it has been a problem ever since they started metered billing.
Now they *shouldn't* be doing so because that is a bit like the water utility charging you for 11000 gallons when you only used 10000 to account for leaks in their system or the gas station saying you pumped 1.2 gallons for every actual gallon to cover the fuel used to bring the gas to the station, but until they are regulated like a utility and the appropriate regulato
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Errm, if any packets get lost that should *REDUCE* his billing, not increase it.
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Or at least, losses incoming and outgoing should cancel each other.
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So, the answer is, contact a lawyer for a possible class action law suit against Comcast for deceptive billing. I'd bet this is just about the OP's only option, since most people would assume network overhead isn't counted. If it is, litigation is likely the only recourse.
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Doesn't Comcast have a "You're not allowed to file a class action suit against us. Hahahaha." clause in their contracts?
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Doesn't Comcast have a "You're not allowed to file a class action suit against us. Hahahaha." clause in their contracts?
Comcast having that in their contracts and it actually meaning anything to a court are two different things.
Comcast has little reason to NOT put it in there, doesn't mean it would hold up.
If you find a lawyer willing to file the case, it becomes the job of the Judge to decide if that clause means anything or not.
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No-class-action clauses have held up, all the way to the Supreme Court. See AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion.
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So, the answer is, contact a lawyer for a possible class action law suit against Comcast for deceptive billing. I'd bet this is just about the OP's only option, since most people would assume network overhead isn't counted. If it is, litigation is likely the only recourse.
Hopefully his lawyer will say "Yes, by all means let's sue Comcast because AT&T is overbilling."
ATM encapsulation overhead (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you thought that probably AT&T use PPPoA (point to point over ATM) that basically cause an overhead of 15% between your IP traffic and the traffic actually happening on your DSL line ?
DSL overhead (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like they're counting ATM frames, not your IP traffic.
little known trick for ATT (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't actually know for sure that the TV vs Bandwidth thing is a fact, but I can tell you that I no longer get charged for overages, and my Router's stats tell me I am using more than ever, and the only change is I signed up for "limited basic" or whatever it is called + HBO (for HBO Go) and the TV receiver is sitting in shrink wrap in my closet.
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I can't speak for AT&T's implementation, but where I live we also have a TV over DSL provider, and they can definitely tell the difference between TV traffic and non-TV traffic, and therefore can still see what your non-TV traffic totals up to if they want to bill for overage... the plus side is I've never heard of anyone actually receiving an overage bill, but they do reserve the right. This also means that they can limit bandwidth separately for TV and internet services, so for example you could watch
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channel change lag (change the channel, count to 10, picture materialized out of pixelated garbage) - This is bullshit, VHF/netflix/hulu/hell even youtube kicks the shit out of this, it is a horrible experience
Fluxuating sound and lag when local commercial overlays are pumped into the service you already pay for, not just advertising, but also making your experience much worse, -- This is bullshi
Attorney (Score:2)
Are you sure of what you are watching? (Score:3)
It sounds like you are watching traffic inside of your network, and not the interface between your edge router, and the ISP device.
You could be missing many things; incoming traffic that your edge router drops, retransmissions between your edge router and the ISP device, and firmware/config updates for the ISP device.
We really need more detail.
AT&T Billing (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a friend who used to resell AT&T bandwidth as a whole sale reseller. He caught AT&T overcharging him. He joined with other ISP's and resellers and demonstrated AT&T was doing this to all of them. There was fairly good size money involved in this, north of $10 meg. They filed a class action lawsuit against AT&T. As all the contracts came up for renewal AT&T refused to renew the contracts. It took AT&T about 6 months to these ISP's out of business.
AT&T is not your friend.
During their investigation they found that AT&T uses for separate billing systems to collect the same usage data. They found that the systems use the same inputs but all yield different billing amounts. The highest amount can be up to 20% higher than the lowest amount. It turns out they simply select the system that yields the highest number that month and bill the customer.
DSL Is generally several layers of encapsulation (Score:5, Insightful)
PPPoE and ATM add overhead to about 16%.
Yup your paying for the encapsulation that never leaves their network.
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PPPoE and ATM add overhead to about 16%.
Yup your paying for the encapsulation that never leaves their network.
So then the answer to his question is: hire a lawyer to look over your contract and determine if the PPPoE+ATM overhead is considered their traffic, or yours.
The next step after that is to simply dispute a bill and demand arbitration (since we all know that those contracts forbid lawsuits).
Of course he could skip the lawyer and just submit a dispute/demand for arbitration. But, who pays for the arbitration? AT&T? Customer? "Loser"? Skipping the lawyer might end up costing even more $$.
AT&T DSL/Uverse Data Limits (Score:2)
The thing to remember about AT&T's DSL and Uverse data limits are that data coming down AND data going up count against that cap.
So when you download that 4GB movie file, it counts, but when you use Dropbox or Carbonite, those uploaded files/data count against your cap too.
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You are kidding, I hope.
Unless you are running an e-mail server on your own home network, of course it counts against your data cap.
The file is encoded, transmitted to an e-mail server somewhere else, and stored there until your e-mail client retrieves it.
A 10M file can easily count as 60M against your cap, depending on the encoding your client uses. x3 for the encoding, and x2 for the transmission.
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Lies, base64 encoding (as in e-mail) only bumps it up to 4/3. Even when you add TCP, ATM, and all the rest you are likely to run into, it will only be about 1.5x.
A worst case there and back is more like ever so slightly above 30 than 60. To get 60 on an e-mail you would need to bounce it between a totally stupid number of mail servers to get the mail headers to become 30MB.
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And if you're using email to transfer a 10M file, you should be banished frmo the internet.
State Attorney General? (Score:2)
If they are overcharging you or miss-measuring, this could be a consumer protection issue and possibly your State Attorney General or possibly the U.S. Attorney's office could help you. But you're going to have an uphill battle all the way, just like Slashdoters roll their eye's every time a judge makes a crazy ruling in technology related cases that's clearly wrong because they don't have a good grasp of the technology involved you're going to be speaking a foreign language to these people and you're going
Get a different plan... or switch ISPs. (Score:2)
There are typically four or five ISPs that will serve any area. Many of them are not well advertised. Some of them sublet from the major providers. Find one you can tolerate, contract through them... and try to avoid metered internet plans because they're all bullshit.
another possibility ... (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's not the ATM encapsulation overhead as many others have rightly suggested, have a look at the traffic... I had similar concerns with my ISP... I have a Cisco switch between my local firewall and my cable modem... I set one port to monitor mode (copy all packets to a write-only switch port) and captured all of my internet traffic for a number of months... I then analyzed the .cap file and discovered a ginormous amount of SMB advertisements and arp who-has from other cable customers... For those few months, it was on the order of about 10% of my traffic... My ISP has been threatening to bill for over-usage for years so I was gathering data to throw back at them in the event that I ever received a bill. I haven't ever received a bill for over-usage and so haven't pursued the matter.
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If it's not the ATM encapsulation overhead as many others have rightly suggested, have a look at the traffic... I had similar concerns with my ISP... I have a Cisco switch between my local firewall and my cable modem... I set one port to monitor mode (copy all packets to a write-only switch port) and captured all of my internet traffic for a number of months... I then analyzed the .cap file and discovered a ginormous amount of SMB advertisements and arp who-has from other cable customers... For those few months, it was on the order of about 10% of my traffic...
From what the submitter said, all that garbage would be included in his traffic calculations. I would put another vote in for encapsulation.
Your findings are a good illustration of the value of a local firewall between your LAN and the ISP's network. Who knows what kind of icky traffic is rolling around out there.
Force of Law (Score:2)
Re:Force of Law (Score:5, Insightful)
- parade out yours terms of service agreement as a contract and request sunmary dismissal
- cancel your service
- bury you in motions: change of venue to their HQ state (which is likely in those terms of service), dismissal insufficient standing — you're not an expert, you hacked your gear to obtain incorrect figures, et cetera
At the end of the day, they can simply outspend the average user, and it's in their best interest to do so. Lending any sort of credibility to such a lawsuit would expose them to similar suits from other users — up to a potential class action. The lawsuit will never even make it to anyone technical for review of it's merit. They have an in-house legal team and many firms on retainer to deal with just such suits.
It all sucks, but that's the real world view for the little guy in our legal system.
A letter to your state's Attorney General? (Score:2)
get the ball rolling on court action for a giant class-action lawsuit by explaining to your AG that you're tracking them, and they're consistently lying on your bill. also start engaging the power of the press by calling your local newspaper, promising them a scoop.
In California switch to sonic.net (Score:4, Informative)
sonic.net has no datacaps and no "artificial" speed limits. [Note: I'm not affiliated with them--just a very happy customer since I switched in March].
Of course, I'm assuming that when you said "CPUC" that means California PUC. If so, go to http://www.sonic.net/ [sonic.net] and enter your AT&T landline number. They will tell you how many feet you are from the sonic CO. Then, go to http://www.dslreports.com/foru... [dslreports.com] to see what your likely speed with sonic will be.
I'm 5000 feet to the sonic CO, so I got 1.3 megabytes/second [2x AT&T's elite service]. sonic is also cheaper. And, tech support couldn't be more pleasant or helpful.
In fact, when you post a tech question to a sonic tech forum, you might just get a response from Dane [Jasper]--the sonic.net CEO
AT&T = Bill Trolls (Score:2)
AT&T keeps adding "insurance" charges to our bill without asking. They make up odd excuses to keep adding it back after removal, something like, "Oh, you said, 'Are you sure', I thought you said, "You insure us".
Reminds me of the browser Spam Bar prompts: "Are you sure you don't want to not add the Ask Tool Bar? _Yes _No"
Nothing (Score:2)
Here's what you should do: nothing at all. Life is too short and there are better battles to fight.
Re:What are you downloading? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What are you downloading? (Score:4, Funny)
Does it matter?
You must have missed the "Out of pure curiosity".
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I quite likely have, but I am not so crass as to go around asking random strangers in the gym what their orientation is.
I was just curious. I don't have any good way to find out what my usage is, and I'm guessing it is a lot lower than 150 GB/mo. We do a few hours of Hulu/Netflix a week and a bit of gaming. I have a 2 year old that mostly consumes my non-working waking hours.
Re:What are you downloading? (Score:5, Funny)
This is why I love Slashdot. I discussion of internet overcharging and ATM encapsulation quickly pivots to the etiquette of showering with gay men at the gym.
Honestly, I love each and every one of you. In a purely platonic way, of course, though given enough vodka and grapefruit juice, who knows?.
Re:What are you downloading? (Score:5, Informative)
Trivially easy to do, I've ditched AT&T as a result of being billed for going over that cap. But I have that option, not everyone does.
I believe my wife watched standard def movies, and I downloaded wildstar and one update during that month. That plus FW updates and normal internet usage was enough to go over. I can't imagine what would happen if we were actually at home enough to really use our internet connection.
Re:What are you downloading? (Score:4, Informative)
Its a limit really easy to hit if you do 3 or more of the following things:
1) run Steam on multiple systems and own lots of games that are all currently installed, and keep them constantly updated
2) run Linux distros such as Debian Unstable (sid) on multiple systems and don't use a apt-cacher type proxy, but keep them constantly updated
3) frequently use Netflix streaming
4) frequently use DirecTV OnDemand services
5) own any relatively recent gaming console (ps3, ps4, wii-u, xbox360, xboxone) and own a lot of games and keep it constantly updated
6) listen to streaming music all day long
7) have more than one recent Blizzard game installed (Diablo III, Starcraft II, World of Warcraft) and keep them constantly updated, especially around expansion release times
8) have a home office
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FWIW, our household of four uses an average of 350 GB a month. Despite Comcast's claim that the average account uses 20 to 25 GB a month.
Re:What are you downloading? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's "average" for you. If a majority of households use it mainly for email and Facebook...
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From that page, "Google says that the video site reaches almost one out of every two people on the Internet."
"one of every two" -- so, every other household uses YouTube. When it hits 51%, that would mean the average household uses YouTube.
Comcast's "20 or 25" as an "average" figure is...unlikely.
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"one of every two" -- so, every other household
Forever alone?
I mean to say, this is a household of three adults and all three use youtube (on PCs, phones and ps3).
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You missed one. The number one bandwidth application on the Internet. YouTube.
FWIW, our household of four uses an average of 350 GB a month. Despite Comcast's claim that the average account uses 20 to 25 GB a month.
How is that "despite?" They're not saying that nobody uses that much, just that the average customer does. FYI, Sandvine agrees, they peg mean US broadband usage at 29GB/month. Median is quite a bit lower than that.
https://www.sandvine.com/trend... [sandvine.com]
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[Source [wallstcheatsheet.com]]
That is our household in a nutshell -- cord cutters. The teens watch zero TV. Same for my spouse. I use TV mainly for sports, and new Top Gear episodes. No ISO downloads, no torrent use at all.
Honestly, I'm a bit surprised by our usage.
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Netflix on "auto" quality settings, watching "Weeds" for a minute, translates to 60 GB/month (per 1 hr/day). We quickly dialed that back to the middle setting.
YouTube is about one-tenth of that, for regular quality video. HD was triple the regular amount (but it will depend on what you watch). So, 6 GB/month (per hour watched/day) for standard quality. 18 GB/month (per hour watched/day) for High Def. YMMV.
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Just over a month ago, Steam has a sale on some very big games, like Wolfenstein: New Order and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. (maybe it's all the colons that take up the space.
It doesn't take too many games at over 20gig each, along with Netflix for the wife and streaming music before you're knocking on 150gig.
Why in the world the Wolfenstein game came out to over 40 gig I'll never know, but sure enough, for the first time I got the email from AT&T that I was at 90% of my limit. Fortunately, it was two da
Re:What are you downloading? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What are you downloading? (Score:4, Interesting)
I am a software developer and consultant. I download entire system images (4-8GB), client log files (gigabytes), daily system updates for a number of systems (more gigabytes). I download multi-terabytes per month. If I didn't have an unlimited business plan, I would be out of business. Just getting the headers for my system repositories is multi-megabytes per day per system - 3 Linux and 2 Apple, plus updates for 2 phones.
Data caps are bogus and only serve to fuel the undeserved profits of AT&T and their ilk. I pay for bandwidth, not volume. The bandwidth automatically throttles the volume of data I can access, and if I need more, I'll happily pay for it, but nickle and dimeing me to death because I need to download more data than they want is not an option as far as I'm concerned.
ISP's should be concerned about bandwidth, NOT the amount of data you use that bandwidth to access. That said, I understand that sometimes there is so much demand for available bandwidth that download/upload speeds slow down (my wife needs to upload data to the lab, and my download speeds to get the latest RHEL distribution slows), but this is a physical limitation of the pipe available, not an arbitrary limitation by the ISP.
Re: (Score:3)
But that doesn't really make sense.
Lets say someone wants Netflix access, but doesn't use it that much (a couple shows a week).
They need the bandwidth, but don't need all that much total data. They can't choose a lower bandwidth, since then that would mean not getting HD quality, or not even being able to get it at all.
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Re: (Score:2)
Netflix can add up very quickly if you watch shows a couple of hours each day... 150GB is not that hard to do, especially for cord-cutters...
Re:What to do? (Score:5, Interesting)
A less drastic, but equally annoying solution might be to just turn it off for a month. See what they bill you then.
"It was turned off" is a lot more likely to persuade a small claims court to your side than "I was overcharged by 14%, and here are the dozen esoteric ways I can prove it".
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Actually ignore that. In my naiveté I expected them to be transparent about the PPP stuff.
I wouldn't have a problem with paying for that... if they were honest about it.
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They also (and this is important) have to show up in court to defend themselves.
I had billing trouble with the local natural gas company. The billing department took a similarly hard-line stance about my complaint. A year and a half later as I refused to pay, they escalated the matter to a lawyer.
It took one 5-minute conversation with their lawyer and the matter was resolved. Because I was right? No. Because it was cheaper to let me have my way than go to court, win or lose.
The other provider is even worse (Score:2)
A lot of geographic areas don't have a second provider other than satellite and cellular. In most cases,* switching from a provider with a 150 GB per month cap to a provider with a 10 GB per month cap (source: exede.com) isn't a good idea. Nor is moving to a different town.
* Watch someone come up with an edge case.
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Obviously, that's not an option for this person. What prompts you to type this and click preview, and then click submit, without considering this? Do you think you're the one who's stating an obvious point? You're not. You're the one who is proving he doesn't think before he types.
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Contact one of the big class action lawsuit attorneys. if you can convince them that 10K customers or more are being cheated for more than $100 per year, over a period of years, they will be glad to work for a percent.
And, if past experience is any indication, that will be somewhere near 99%. When was the last time you heard of a class action getting the complainants anything near full restitution?