Road block for AT&T home internet users

Unlimited data use, in its real sense, may become a thing of past very soon, as AT&T began implementing data restrictions for certain customers on their home users from May 23.

Depending on the plan, U-Verse, AT&T's Internet service, data usage for its home customers will face caps of 300 GB, 600 GB, or 1 TB. The users will now have to pay an additional $30 a month for data exceeding the said limits. unlimited service will now costs an additional $30 a month.

To put it in context, 1 TB of data will equal to 400 hours of HD video, and one can buy an extra 50 GB for $10, if you go over the limit. According to AT&T statistics, about 4 percent of its users are currently using data over and above the limits prescribed recently.

Although AT&T did have a cap of 250 GB earlier, but it wasn’t really enforced, so customers didn’t have to pay attention to usage.

Most of the carriers already have curbs unlimited data plans for mobile phones. The unlimited plans were phased a out a few years ago. But limiting data usage for mobile phones was justified by the fact that smartphone penetration has skyrocketed, and files have become too huge for mobile data infrastructure, which is essentially wireless. Cable Internet, on the other hand, funds on fat wires and fibre cables, capable of carrying high data.