The idea of limiting the amount of bandwidth Internet subscribers use each month does not belong exclusively to Comcast. AT&T is also an adept of the idea, and began testing it in the Reno, Nev. area as of this month. Subscribers here will have a 20GB limit of downloaded data per month for the slower speed services, and 150GB for the fastest plan, the company revealed.

AT&T explained that the purpose of the plan is to continue to equitably provide consumers affordable broadband services by limiting the use of a small minority of broadband customers who use a disproportionately large amount of the total bandwidth available to all the customers on the AT&T network.

Consumers have been informed on the limitations, and according to the company, they are free to cancel their Internet access service without early termination fees if they do not wish to participate in the trial.

AT&T’s plan includes sending written notices to consumers when they reach 80 percent of the monthly usage cap, also reminding them of the extra charges applicable after exceeding the limit. Subscribers will not be forced to pay any extra charges the first time they exceed the monthly cap. However, the second time they do it, they will subject to per-gigabyte charges, AT&T said, namely $1 for every extra gigabyte used. The company also said that by the end of the year, they will expand the testing to a second market.

Does that plan sound familiar? Two months ago, Comcast made a similar announcement, stating that as of October, residential customers will have a 250GB monthly data usage limit. The Internet service provider explained at the time that the decision of imposing monthly limitations is actually based on consumer feedback.

Furthermore, they explained that less than 1 percent of their subscribers actually exceed the monthly cap, which means the 250GB limitation should only affect heavy users. “Consumers asked that we provide a specific threshold for data usage and this would help them understand the amount of usage that would qualify as excessive,” the Internet provider explained at the time.

Despite such announcements, Internet providers such as these also announce improved speeds and service plans. For example Comcast recently introduced its next-generation wideband, providing customers with speeds of up to 50 Mbps.

AT&T also announced recently the successful completion of a new bandwidth capacity test, which incorporated 100 Gbps technologies to transmit data at 114 Gbps per second over 161 separate channels on a single link, which resulted in a total bandwidth capacity of 17 Terabits per second.

So what we’re looking at right now is a trend that will soon be equally shared among all Internet service providers: as companies work on delivering faster speed and the newest technologies for the benefit of consumers, they also begin to limit bandwidth consumption for users. Most analysts believe this is good business for them, and less of a good deal for consumers.