AT&T Net Friendly, still considers usage-based charges

Posted on June 06, 2008
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"I don't view any of our customers, under any circumstances, as pirates -- I view them as users," Donovan said. "A heavy user is not a bad customer." What he wants to do is gently encourage more efficient usage of his network, and usage-based pricing may be one of the ways that happens.

Wired reports in an interview with AT&T CTO John Donovan, that AT&T is one of the few ISPs not engaged in traffic shaping or the process of choosing certain internet apps over others. AT&T embraces bittorrent, but is still investigating ways to make the 20% of the internet's heaviest users, the ones that pay for the back-bone. As a moderately heavy user, this sounds moderately fair.

by Chris Gamble