[ale] OT:Extra charge for larg file downloading

[Calvin Harrigan]

Scott Castaline wrote:
> I remember hearing some grumblings in the past about this. According to 
> Fox 5 last night it appears that AT&T is going to start charging higher 
> fees to those who download large files such as movies and such. Anybody 
> hear anymore of this? They did not give any details as to how much the 
> fee or how large or frequency of downloads. Does that include distro dvd 
> images or other software updates or packages? I guess that gives a new 
> look at "free software"? Just looking for any input to this, opinions, 
> etc, or possibly something that may shed some light on whether this is 
> true or just a rumor.
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 From what I understand it's a price per gigabyte ($1 per gig I think) 
over a set amount.  So if you stay under the limit they won't charge 
extra.  It's a shame that it has gotten to this, but at least the limit 
is not ridiculously low (yet?). I think it's more directed toward 
torrent users.  That said if this comes to pass I will definitely be 
restructuring my account with them.  It's not that I need the bandwidth, 
it's the idea.  Sorta like the monthly cell phone charge supposedly 
subsidizes the free/cheap phone they give you, but after the two years 
of the contract you monthly bill doesn't go down, or you don't get a 
lower monthly bill if you have your own phone.  At the same time I 
understand that some of the other ISP are going to increase the 
bandwidth (speed).  I'm guessing it will be used to hook folks into 
using/downloading more then drop the per/gigabyte structure on them, but 
that's just me, I might need a thicker thin-foil hat.