Last May, AT&T put in some very tight broadband restrictions on their Internet services, both for its regular DSL features (150 GB a month) and for its U-Verse service (250 GB a month). AT&T also promised its customers at the time that it would set up data monitoring features to let its users know just how close they were getting to its broadband cap. After that cap is reached, customers have to spend $10 for every 50 GB they go over the limit. However, DSLReports.com is now saying that many AT&T customers still don’t have access to any official broadband data monitoring tools.
The report quotes one customer who received a message back from AT&T saying that while monitoring tools for its DSL customers are apparently working, “… they are experiencing problems with the U-Verse meters. When I asked what the exact problems were, he said he didn"t have the detailed technical information, but from what he knew, they had ‘some problems’ measuring the U-verse data correctly." There doesn’t appear to be any timetable right now for putting U-Verse data monitoring tools in place for its customers. However, the good news is that U-Verse customers won’t be charged if they go over the broadband limits and will be notified when the monitoring tools are in place.
While it’s good that AT&T won’t be punishing U-Verse customers for going over its broadband caps, we do have to wonder why the company was in such a rush to establish its broadband caps when it’s clear that it wasn’t ready to give its users an accurate way to monitor their data usage.