Deutsche Telekom confirmed it will throttle bandwidth of...
Deutsche Telekom confirmed it will throttle bandwidth of flat-rate users once they cross certain limits of data volumes. Users paying for 16 Mbps will have the speed of their access line downgraded when they pass 75 gigabytes of data, those…
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who pay for 50 Mbps will be slowed down when the get over 200 gigabytes in a month, and those with a 200 Mbps contract will be cut back after 400 gigabytes of data. Once the user crosses, the connection will be slowed down to 384 kbps. Users have the option to buy additional data volume, said DT. Starting May 2, all new DT DSL contracts will include the data volume limits, but speed throttling would not be implemented before 2016, Michael Hagspihl, managing director-marketing of Telekom Deutschland, told the German Press Agency. The downgrading of speed to 384 kbps has resulted in an outcry from user organizations warning against “castration” of the Internet and harming innovative developments like cloud computing and streaming. A DT FAQ said “this has nothing to do with a rip off, most customers will not be affected by the volume limits.” Customers would instead benefit from the differentiated rates and only have to “pay more, if they use more,” the company said (http://bit.ly/ZH19wK). A member of the German Parliament from the Social Democratic opposition, meanwhile, announced a legislative initiative to not violate the principle of net neutrality (http://bit.ly/11BpOSq).