AT&T to Cap Bandwidth of Some Users

AT&T is capping users’ Internet bandwidth in Reno as an experiment, suggesting that the practice of limiting usage may soon become widespread, Wired reports. Depending on the service plan, new broadband customers will be held to 20 to 150 gigabytes of usage monthly. Current customers will soon face limits if they break 150 GB, with a dollar charged per extra gig.

Comcast recently limited users to 250 gigabytes per month and Time Warner has experimented with a 5- to 40-gig limit. The goal, Wired notes, is to trip up “bandwidth hogs,” but it’s not just about saving room: “AT&T is walking a fine line between preserving resources and figuring out how to increase revenue per user,” says an analyst.