AT&T Internet customers, your service contract is changing

All eyes might be on AT&T's pending acquisition of T-Mobile, but AT&T Internet customers shouldn't overlook some significant changes the company has just made to their service contract.

Perhaps the most noteworthy addition is a new provision that allows AT&T to limit the online activities of heavy users. Customers who hog bandwidth by downloading high-definition movies or vast quantities of digital music slow the pipeline for everyone else, said AT&T spokesman John Britton. So now AT&T says it will impose caps on data use or limit a customer's download speed — or even impose additional fees — if they're slurping too much online soup. "People have a right to behave however they want online," Britton said. "But we have a right to manage the bandwidth so that everyone has a good experience. This is targeting the top 2% of people who use about 20% of the bandwidth."

AT&T's contract changes include a few other eye-opening provisions. The company has inserted language allowing it to unilaterally upgrade a DSL user's service to U-verse. On the one hand, this is cool because U-verse is faster and more versatile than DSL. On the other, AT&T says U-verse would come with "applicable rates, terms and conditions, which may differ from your previous DSL service rates, terms and conditions." In other words, AT&T might charge you more for a level of service you never wanted or asked for.

One other provision of note: AT&T's contract now stipulates that the company can cancel your service "if you engage in conduct that is threatening, abusive or harassing" to the company's workers, or for "frequent use of profane or vulgar language" when dealing with service reps.