AT&T believes gaming is a service, not considered part of broadband

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http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/is-it-broadband-if-you-cant-play-internet-games.ars

The computer gaming industry is not pleased with comments that AT&T filed with the Federal Communications Commission on how to define "broadband," particularly the suggestion that online games should be relegated to the category of "aspirational services." "For Americans who today have no terrestrial broadband service at all," AT&T wrote the FCC, "the pressing concern is not the ability to engage in real-time, two-way gaming, but obtaining meaningful access to the Internet’s resources and to reliable email communications and other basic tools that most of the country has come to expect as a given."

...

AT&T did acknowledge that the capacity to play games should be included in a larger definition of broadband. But at present, the concept "should take the form of a baseline definition of the capabilities needed to support the applications and services Americans must access to participate in the Internet economy—" the company wrote, "to learn, train for jobs, and work online." AT&T's "minimal set of applications" includes the ability to use email, instant messaging, and basic Web surfing. "It also should include the ability to engage in Internet-based education programs, interact with Internet based government services, and participate in online energy, healthcare, and public-safety programs."
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Because looking up Kanye West's interruption and Paris Hilton's latest pantyless brigade totally matters.
 
technically it's all data packets. most of that gaming service is provided by seperate companies, Valve, MS and Sony.

If they start to charge say to unblock said ports or what not, this would fall into net neutrallity.

Data packets are Data packets, doesn't matter where they come from, or where they are going, it's all 1's and 0's and shouldn't be treated differently.

VOIP should be regulated because that's what most cable companies are doing now under the guise of a telco when it comes to services like that.

Same complaint about torrents and such, but those can be encrypted too to look like anything else for that matter.

With some companies putting barriers on bandwidth limits, it wouldn't surprise me to start charging an extra $5 for "Games" to not be blocked on their firewalls.
 
[quote name='lokizz']so long story short they want to be able to charge people for playing games online should at&t be your isp.[/QUOTE]

This.
 
[quote name='hankmecrankme']These cocksuckers can blow me. Their shit isn't even good enough for most gaming, IMO.[/QUOTE]

Damn, I was beaten to it.
 
They want to be able to throttle you. A lot of gaming is P2P. Since ISPs don't like P2P, this gets lumped in. Just covering their bases to make sure people can't complain they aren't getting what they paid for - which is apparently e-mail and web browsing.
 
This goes beyond the obvious "your content uses too much bandwidth" bellyaching. ISPs have been trying to turn gaming into a premium service for years, and they're probably not going to give up anytime soon.

Hell, just wait for one to partner with OnLive and roll it out as part of your broadband package for another $30 a month.
 
[quote name='Magus8472']This goes beyond the obvious "your content uses too much bandwidth" bellyaching; ISPs have been trying to turn gaming into a premium service for years, and they're probably not going to give up anytime soon.

Hell, just wait for one to partner with OnLive and roll it out as part of your broadband package for another $30 a month.[/QUOTE]

Oh, of course. I can sadly agree that AT&T is dreaming; and even more sadly announce that I recently found myself forced to switch to AT&T's highest broadband package, since it was cheaper than every other ISP in this area. Sadly, in this day and age, I've come to find... even though commerce will claim they only allow certain ISPs in certain areas to avoid monopoly, they create monopoly too... when you only have one to three ISPs available in any one area.

I recently switched to AT&T, since ComCast decided to hike the service cost to $70-$80 a month for BARE internet... no cable, no phone, just internet. (The introductory 6 months had run out, and the price went to standard... when I pointed out to them their service straight out is even less, they said it's what was signed for). Anywho, the massive increase in ISP prices is proof that ISPs are trying to capitalize on peoples need for broadband/bandwidth; for their video-conferencing, music, their gaming, facebook, etc. Heck, look at any ISP, and the prices they charge for "higher bandwith" packages. I still recall the 90s, when bandwidth was bandwidth, and broadband was about $30/month... and broadband was broadband was broadband, there was only really one flavor of broadband... unless you wanted to go T1 or T3, and if that was the case, best bet was to go to a local university and hop on their system for awhile for free.

Funny in a way, how in this day and age, where money is almost as rare as decency... prices keep going up, wages stay the same, and the standard of quality continues to go down... sort of an inverse mirror reflection on the cliche advertisement of Target... "Pay more, expect less".
 
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I have AT&T here and working on getting rid of it. Basically I can only have 1 system playing online, whether it be xboxs or PCs or both doesn't matter, because the service is so shitty it lags to all hell. If someone is downloading something screw being able to do anything else. Not to mention the modem kicks off randomly and the only way to get internet running back through it is to hard line it to a desktop.
 
There should be no surprises that sub-par American internet wants to charge more. America was built on screwing over others for profit.

The U.S. is 28th in Download speed and 30th in upload speed amongstleading countries.

* 1. 21.35 Mb/s Korea, Republic of
* 2. 15.86 Mb/s Japan
* 3. 15.26 Mb/s Aland Islands
* 4. 13.27 Mb/s Lithuania
* 5. 13.14 Mb/s Sweden
* 6. 13.07 Mb/s Latvia
* 7. 12.62 Mb/s Romania
* 8. 12.01 Mb/s Netherlands
* 9. 11.86 Mb/s Bulgaria
* 10. 9.80 Mb/s Moldova, Republic of
* 11. 9.43 Mb/s Hong Kong
* 12. 8.72 Mb/s Slovakia
* 13. 8.48 Mb/s Germany
* 14. 8.39 Mb/s Portugal
* 28. 6.88 Mb/s United States

In Japan net users have 100Mbps lines, 10 times higher than the OECD average.

Japan's price for broadband per megabit per second is the lowest in the OECD at $0.22 , said the report. The most expensive is Turkey at $81.13.

In the US, the cheapest megabit per second broadband connection is $3.18 while in the UK it is $3.62.


fuck AT&T and Cox and Comcast and all the rest of U.S. providers they all blow.
 
the stuff they mention is why i had dial-up. i pay extra to be able to play games. im not buying fiber-optic to play games, but thats exacly what att wants.
 
This is how ISPs see the internet:


net-neutral_540x367.jpg
 
[quote name='camoor']This is how ISPs see the internet:


net-neutral_540x367.jpg
[/QUOTE]

OMG! Over 60 websites for only $29.99!!!!

....I wish I was in japan. 100MB/s sounds pretty nice to me..
 
This is just the beginning. Eventually someone will cook up a legal loophole into service contracts to the effect of "you can't complain about our service." Complain in any way and they can terminate your service, and it'll be legal.

Can't happen? Well, some of the online game companies already have similar clauses for their players. Nexon CAN and WILL ban any player who is badmouthing them either in-game or on a public forum somewhere.

But if you don't like it, then you're a commie who opposes capitalism.
 
You know, I was thinking. Predictions have been saying that the internet will be at full capacity (like no more storage room, etc) sometime next year. Judging by how many are online now, how many websites are out there (easily measured by all the crap links/hits you get everytime you search for something and find everything else except what you originally wanted in the first place), the fact email addresses are more important these days than phone numbers (think of the 90s, an email address was optional... now there's more preference for an email address than there is a phone number...).

My guess is, AT&T probably heard the max capacity and either a) want to cash in and make megabucks on this; or b) want to cash in before the FCC has to majorly step in and start regulating things themselves.

Oh, and as for the post above me (no offense aimed at the poster btw), let AT&T try and can my internet connection for speaking the truth... I'll have their butts in court for service contract violations, violations against my civil rights to freedom of speech, and defrauding the US government (pointed out in the PS) so fast their heads will spin more than those in The Exorcist, LOL.

PS - I have a few buds that work "deep inside" AT&T; and for any that didn't already know (can't recall if I said this in my last post in this thread already)... AT&T had a big PR thing where they claimed to be moving all their outsourced overseas jobs back to the US and fund all these mega call-centers to help give jobs to Americans (and for those that didn't know, AT&T received large amounts of money from the US government for doing it as well). As I predicted, in another 6 months to a year (or so), most, if not all, those jobs will be back overseas again, outsourced for much cheaper wages so AT&T can continue making mass money (even after accepting government funds to bring the jobs back locally and provide more jobs to the American workers). I personally know half a dozen people or more who've been laid off from the local AT&T tech-support (non-sales) call-center about 15-20 minutes from here; that's not counting the several people that I don't know (who were ALSO laid off), or lay off from other call centers all around the country (which are *indeed/confirmed* having large amounts of lay offs... or firings if they can trip up their workers enough to give them an unceremonious, undeserved, and dishonorable exit. One good friend of mine actually got burned so bad by them, they literally ended up in an institution for a period of time). :/
 
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