2. You are not paying for a 6Mb real time/ full time connection. You are paying for a consumer grade shared use service and thinking you get to hog the whole thing. You cost about 20 times the revenue you generate.
3. Buy a real 6 Gb connection and you won't have a cap. It will cost about $1250.
No, it's not an SLA'd 6Mbps connection. It's "up to 6meg", which means AT&T has every right
to make it slower. If there really were congestion issues, then charging people more money for crossing an imaginary line is a complete failure. It doesn't do jack for the their congestion issues; people can (and will) still use whatever is available to them. And they didn't tier the caps... it's the same 150GB line for 6meg as it is 768k customers. If there's no congestion (and there's no evidence that there is), then the network has the capacity to give people what they want to use.
Obviously, it's about money. And getting the sheep used to having caps with overage charges. Sure, it hits "2%" today -- which is a significant increase in revenue which is 100% profit -- but it will start hitting more and more people over time... network usage is going up, and those caps will be going down.
4. AT&T will not mourn the passing on of someone exceeding the cap. Do them a real favor and go to their competition, they will throw a party. Just don't come to my company, we are a couple of months away from implementing our caps and I don't want you messing up my network.
I'm not the only one pissed off by this. They
will lose measurable amount of revenue because of this bullshit. I use next to nothing on my DSL line, yet due to this bullshit, they are losing me as a customer for everything. forever. (and I'm not the only one.)
5. Did you even read what you said about their profit margins? If it is correct, that means they make less than $5 per year per customer. Less than a dollar a month is zero margin and you are costing them $1000 or so more than you generate ? Goodbye is a good turn of phrase for you.
Yet another person who fails totally at math.
6. 50% of cap affected users will adjust their usage patterns appropriately, the rest will leave. Only a few usage charges will be applied, but the management and cost control will help in the long term.
I think this is going to backfire MASSIVELY. A lot of people are
already leaving. Many who don't come anywhere near the (current) line are leaving. Those that cross the line will be searching for a different ISP, and failing that do what they can to reduce usage.
7. You will not see additional profits being plowed into wireline of any sort.
*cough*UVERSE*cough* Yes, as I've said many times, it's epicly stupid and shortsighted to invest in all that VDSL gear to keep using 3000 year old copper instead of working towards FTTH that actually has a long-term future.