Of the companies who have long declared a tiered Internet the only just system for the Big Telcos, AT&T has been on the forefront for a long time, now. Back when Net Neutrality was a big buzz word in Washington, it was quotes from AT&T executives that really got the dander of the Save the Internet crowd up. Now that broadband companies have found a back-door route into the tiered Internet world (because, do not let them fool you: Tiered Internet and Metered Internet are functionally the same thing), it’s no surprise that the AT&T Broadband folks are looking into making the same switch:

AT&T Considering Metered Broadband - GigaOM

Bend Broadband, Comcast, Time Warner Cable — they’re all considering or going the route of the tiered (aka metered) broadband. Now add AT&T to that list, according to a report in CED magazine.

Let me just state once again the point that I think is the most relevant, here: there is a fundamental type of discrimination inherent in this system which measures total download capacity, a concept completely foreign to most Internet users.

And just as an antidote to this new system, what if there was a site that would allow you to completely use up any extra bandwidth at the end of the month, just so you’ve gotten what you paid for? Imagine the load on the network if people just started downloading text files at 10gb at the end of the month - not because the files themselves are of any value, but just so they can get the full use of their Internet connection?