said by elray:The public is, at best, using their broadband to stream Netflix ... at 2Mbps.
How many streams might you have running simultaneously in a apartment? Two?
Just because a very small minority of consumers go out of their way to prove that they can overload a pipe doesn't mean industry has to deliver unlimited Gigabit feeds for them.
AT&T may well be realizing that the last 1000 feet [at other MDU builds] often will still be copper, i.e. premise-based VDSL. 24Mbps gives them a little breathing room, both for HDTV, and to roll out "upgrades" down the road.
2Mbps? Do some research. Netflix streams are between 5 - 7Mbps.
The whole world is not a single person living in an apartment either.
Avg joes have no problem maxing out a 12Mbps connection. It's far from a small minority. Faster speeds doesn't mean going from 12Mbps to GigE. There is a range in between.
24Mbps doesn't provide any room for growth. Customers already have issues with the limited number of streams their service can provide and the slow connection speeds.