AT&T claims that they have not kicked anyone off their network yet, but they are not afraid to admit that they are not big fans of P2P traffic generated by their customers.
According to AT&T, use of P2P services would constitute a violation to the contract that every AT&T data customer has to sign before getting service from them. Use of P2P applications would be a possible violation that AT&T could terminate service for.
AT&T claims that the main issue that they have with P2P traffic is the fact that it is not burst traffic by its very nature and it clogs up the network. Of course, AT&T?s comments about their dislike of P2P traffic opens up an entire new can of worms related to streaming media traffic and whether they would be a fair use of AT&T?s services.
The fact that AT&T is blocking the traffic altogether is worse than shaping the traffic to downgrade its priority. Still, it is obvious that the FCC is struggling to deal with the ISP practices that continue to run over the customer just so the company can attempt to increase its bottom line.
Source
According to AT&T, use of P2P services would constitute a violation to the contract that every AT&T data customer has to sign before getting service from them. Use of P2P applications would be a possible violation that AT&T could terminate service for.
AT&T claims that the main issue that they have with P2P traffic is the fact that it is not burst traffic by its very nature and it clogs up the network. Of course, AT&T?s comments about their dislike of P2P traffic opens up an entire new can of worms related to streaming media traffic and whether they would be a fair use of AT&T?s services.
The fact that AT&T is blocking the traffic altogether is worse than shaping the traffic to downgrade its priority. Still, it is obvious that the FCC is struggling to deal with the ISP practices that continue to run over the customer just so the company can attempt to increase its bottom line.
Source
