Hi Doc, Harold,
This issue needs some work !!! And very likely worth digging into and understanding for the longer haul.
My initial comments were directed toward ATnT in general and were a reaction to the just announced plan to buy out T-Mobile. [I'll get to Harold's DSL comment.]
To my knowledge this only involves the Cellular network not "land lines" providing service to your home phone "the one wired into the 'wall'" Often referred to as "local service".
Also the data limits I have bumped into are for ATnT cellular billing for the "smart phones" that have Web access and are capable of "consuming a lot of data/bandwidth". Apparently these newer phones are putting a strain on the overall ATnT network and what was giving rise to all of the "I phone crashes".
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Prior to the "break up" ATnT WAS THE TELEPHONE COMPANY of the United States (often called Bell or "The Bell System").
This was a "legal monopoly" in the US until broken up in 1984. There were some small rural private companies that grew up in rural areas and many still exist today. These companies connected to the ATnT LD network to gain access to LD service. [Not important to this discussion.]
After the 1984 break up, ATnT retained the long distance network and the "competing carriers, MCI, Sprint, etc. where allowed to build competing LD networks.
For completeness here, ATnT was permitted to enter the "Computer business" from which they had previously been barred. This is another story/study but as it turned out "they failed miserably" !!
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So, now we had ATnT and the new competing LD carriers providing LD service. The "local phone service" was provided by the 7 new RBOC'S [Regional Bell Operating Companies] as split off from ATnT as separate/independent phone companies in their 7 respective regions of the US.
Some survived, some merged, but no one should feel sorry for any of them as they were all 50 billion ++ companies after the breakup. They all had the resources to do WELL !!
Any way, I have lost track of details of this over time but I do not think ATnT is "currently in the local phone service" business. I will have to double check this.
I bring this up in regard to Harold's post mentioning ATntT DSL charges possibly going up or being capped at 150GB ??
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To my knowledge ATnT does NOT provide DSL service since they do not provide local phone service (if they do provide local service somewhere, or have bought one or more of the RBOC's I am unaware of it.
DSL is a hardware technology built into the local phone system and must be "physically located" within 18,000 feet of the end user (about 3 miles) and that is an original implementation number and may likely be less to achieve the higher speeds/bit rates we commonly see today.
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Since the beginnings of DSL it has been common for the local telco's to charge higher prices for higher data rates. BUT NOT FOR total data transmitted, say over the billing month. If your data rate (mine is the lowest currently offered) meets your needs - stick with it.
I do have some delays on video, YouTube etc. My uplink is about 128kbps (k bits per second) and 768 down. Down link is the important number for viewing video, stock data streams etc.
For Doc:
I really don't have a clue just how much actual data I might consume over a month or period of time. Just never thought about it. Will give it some thought. Maybe Harold will come up with some thoughts.
Take care, had fun writing this - has been a long time.
Hope it proves to be worth the time to read it !!!
Lee
