> How does AT&T defend the move? The company explains it will only impact two percent of consumers who use “a disproportionate amount of bandwidth,” and poses the caps as an alternative to throttling transfer speeds or disconnecting excessive users from the service completely. Customers will be able to check their usage with an online tool, and get notifications when they reach 65 percent, 90 percent and 100 percent of their monthly rates.
via [engadget.com](http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/13/atandt-will-cap-dsl-u-verse-internet-and-impose-overage-fees/)
This impacts two percent of customers today. What about five years from now? Once we all start streaming all of our television and movies through the Internet at 2160p, how many gigabytes will the average user be downloading a month?
Any sort of bandwidth cap is a huge step backwards for the Internet. It’s a step towards limiting access to only those who have the means to keep paying a premium. It creates, at best, a divided highway; one wide open five-lane autobahn with no speed limit for the rich, and one congested, two-lane, pot-holed mess for everyone else.
But our useless government won’t do anything to stop it.
