Back in May of 2011 we were the first to exclusively report that AT&T would be imposing usage caps on the company's DSL and U-Verse users. Users were told DSL users would see a cap of 150 GB a month and U-Verse users would see a cap of 250 GB a month -- with both sets of users paying $10 for every additional 50 GB of data they use.

Users were given a meter to track their usage, but our users quickly pointed out that the meters weren't particularly accurate. When pressed, AT&T informed users that the company couldn't share details on how they collected data because that information was proprietary. Several years on, and only AT&T DSL users are seeing their caps enforced. Curious, I asked AT&T why and received this from an AT&T spokesman:The problem with that explanation? Numerous people who work directly on the AT&T fixed line network have told me repeatedly over the years that neither AT&T's DSL or U-Verse networks see any meaningful congestion -- and that any congestion issues (usually peak) aren't helped by monthly usage restrictions. Contrary to company narratives, imposing caps has never been about network management. Like most caps and overages applied to fixed line networks, it is about making more money while muzzling the potential threat of Internet video on TV revenues.

AT&T appears poised to begin offering new U-Verse speed tiers that should offer a belated speed increase for bandwidth-hungry users. Earlier this year AT&T promised users they'd eventually see 75-100 Mbps using line bonding, though the company was somewhat murky on deployment time -- or upstream speeds.

AT&T has started using push polls and astroturf to convince Kentucky residents losing their DSL lines, paying higher prices, and losing all state consumer protections is going to work out really well for them. AT&T is of course going state to state insisting their telecom regulations need "modernizing" for an all IP age.

A controversial bill concocted by AT&T, Windstream and CenturyLink to prevent communities from wiring themselves with broadband continues to move forward, despite heavy criticism from both locals and industry. The bill initially banned any town or city from deploying its own broadband services if just one user in a zip code had a line capable of 1.5 Mbps.

As I've been noting, both AT&T and Verizon have been busy trying to gut absolutely all regulatory oversight of those companies, in the process severing the DSL and landlines of tens of millions of users, who'll have to flee to an even less-competitive cable monopoly, more-expensive and capped LTE service, or even pricier and more-heavily capped satellite broadband.

The gadget-obsessed press and incumbent-beholden regulators so far have napped through the implications of this, as AT&T's claim that regulations simply need to be "modernized" as we go all IP appears to have lulled most of them into a compliant slumber.

Yesterday we noted that despite the copyright industry's new "six strikes" anti-piracy campaign launch, just one ISP had bothered to put anything about the plan on their website. AT&T sent us a statement justifying their lack of website information by saying they intend to communicate directly with impacted users.

Verizon and AT&T want to get out of maintaining or upgrading the tens of millions of DSL users so they can focus on wireless, a move that makes obvious business sense from their perspectives. Verizon Wireless isn't unionized, so Verizon gets rid of union headaches.

After several significant delays, the entertainment industry and most of the nation's largest ISPs are set to launch their "six strikes" graduated response anti-piracy efforts starting today. Sources familiar with the plan timetable have told both Daily Dot and Torrent Freak that six strikes starts today, and a new Center for Copyright Information website run by the entertainment industry appears to have been freshly launched for the occasion (see new video, below).

Back in 2011 the FCC began collecting real-world user broadband data from customized routers, then issuing reports on which ISPs were failing to deliver advertised speeds. It's one of the few FCC policies in recent years that has truly paid dividends for consumers.

ISPs which in the past had historically improved in Netflix performance because of faster speeds, are now finding themselves falling in Netflix's new monthly streaming ISP rankings because they're not signing up for Netflix's CDN network. As noted recently, Netflix stated they'd start offering users "Super HD" and 3D streams -- if their ISP signed up for Netflix's new Open Connect Content Delivery Network.

It has been about half a decade now that I've been pointing out that most of the meters used by ISPs to track and bill consumers for usage aren't accurate. Customers of Canadian cable operator Cogeco have long complained the company's meter is inaccurate when users can load it at all, and every so often the meter simply goes mad -- like last Spring when the meter was horribly confused by leap year.

Both AT&T and Verizon are currently hanging up on tens of millions of DSL and copper POTS customers they don't want to upgrade, letting them either flee to cable competitors, or to their pricier and heavily capped LTE services. To achieve this dream however, the companies have to entirely dismantle the regulations overseeing most of these networks -- networks built with the help of tens-of-billions in taxpayer dollars and several generations of massive tax breaks (quite often with few results to show for them).

Netflix has once again ranked the best ISPs for streaming content. According to this Netflix blog post, the company's rankings come from 30 million members viewing over 1 billion hours of Netflix each month.

With the entertainment industry's "six strikes" anti-piracy plan very close to launch, some ISPs are finally willing to talk a little about the new steps they'll be taking to thwart pirates on their networks starting later this month. CNET's Declan McCullagh moderated a panel discussion on the new six strikes initiative this week, where ISPs and the RIAA and MPAA tried to downplay concerns about the program.

AT&T's recently announced DSL expansion may not be all it was cracked up to be after closer examination. AT&T announced in a press release on November 7 that they'd be expanding their U-Verse coverage total from 24.5 million homes to 33 million, suggesting an additional 8.5 million new users.

AT&T broadband users continue to claim there's something not quite right about the way AT&T calculates data usage for their capped DSL and U-Verse users. As Broadband Reports was the first to exclusively report last year, AT&T began imposing 150 GB caps on DSL users and 250 GB caps on U-Verse users -- with $10 per 50 GB overage fees.

AT&T has announced their long-awaited plan to address the upgrade path for the company's DSL networks. According to AT&T's plan, the company will spend $14 billion on a new network expansion initiative that will include upgrading some current DSL users to U-Verse, but will also involve pushing many DSL users in outlying areas to their LTE network.

AT&T's third quarter results, like Verizon's, were yet again driven by wireless -- the company announcing today that they sold 4.7 million iPhones during the last quarter. Like Verizon, AT&T's new shared data plans, which offer users unlimited voice and SMS but come with device fees, data caps and $15 per overages -- drove better-than-expected profits at the carrier.

Suggesting a leak somewhere in AT&T's supply chain, a second analyst this week is magically predicting that AT&T will be upgrading at least a few additional DSL customers to U-Verse. As we noted this week any significant landline upgrades would run contrary to AT&T's character, and recent FCC filings suggest AT&T's interested in actually shuttering the majority of their 18 million un-upgraded DSL users.

At least one market research firm believes AT&T will invest heavily in rural DSL markets despite significant evidence to the contrary. AT&T recently stated they're still pondering what to do with the millions of AT&T customers living in rural and smaller city DSL markets it believes are to slow to deliver significant, investor-pleasing returns.