[johndhynes]

My cell data download speed has been throttled again. This time my usage was at 2300 MB.

What will the cap be next month, 200 MB?

[totalimmortal]

It's the pace at which youre using it.

[noaim]

my question is why do you guys need to use so much data.. I have an unlimited plan and have never went over 2gb at all during an entire month.. quit using so much data and you wont be throttled..

[E_Brown]

my question is why do you guys need to use so much data.. I have an unlimited plan and have never went over 2gb at all during an entire month.. quit using so much data and you wont be throttled..

I've never went over 2gb either. I can understand even up to 3 or maybe 4 with streaming, but people doing 10 or 20gb's a month. Thats more then I use on my home computer some months.

[Garz]

I never been throttled. I am over 2GB's used right now and get very 5-6 kpbs download

[bamf-hacker]

I have not been throttled either. I use way more than 2gb per month, but I am a corporate customer so I may not be subjected to the same throttling policies.

[Bias X]

I've never went over 2gb either. I can understand even up to 3 or maybe 4 with streaming, but people doing 10 or 20gb's a month. Thats more then I use on my home computer some months.

If they have tethering and use tethering a lot it would increase it quite a bit.
And hotspots.

[Rockdog97]

My cell data download speed has been throttled again. This time my usage was at 2300 MB.

What will the cap be next month, 200 MB?

I think you've been blacklisted by AT&T due to the prior 11GB usage before..

[MattMJB0188]

My cell data download speed has been throttled again. This time my usage was at 2300 MB.

What will the cap be next month, 200 MB?

I agree with the others. STOP using excessive amounts of data. Get a home internet service provider or use WIFI. You don't have unlimited bandwidth. This is bogging down the network for those of us who just check web sites or stream very very little content.

[Munky#AC]

I use mine to tether my iPad during the day at work during breaks, watch a bit of a movie, but rarely go over 2GBs a month and have never had my speed throttled.

[MattMJB0188]

I use mine to tether my iPad during the day at work during breaks, watch a bit of a movie, but rarely go over 2GBs a month and have never had my speed throttled.

I would not tether with the unlimited plan. People who have tethered have lost their unlimited plans and automatically been switched over to the 4GB $45/mo plan. I wouldn't risk it.

[johndhynes]

I just worked eight straight nights, so I have not had time to follow up.

First of all, AT&T is not going to blacklist me or cancel me. They don't do that. Instead, they throttle. Besides, they just paid for my new 4S, so they'd rather I keep paying them. I am paying a premium for the unlimited data plan. I'm only using what I'm paying for. I have never tethered.

I don't know why anybody would assume that their own situation would apply to everybody in the world. Everyone has different needs. Some people fill up their gas tanks once a month, while others, like me, do so daily. Again, I cannot use wifi or home internet. I drive for a living. I spend up to twelve hours a day on the road. I use my iPhone mainly for things like GPS, Pandora, podcasts, etc. Is that so horrible? If you're away from wifi as long as I am, the data usage simply racks up. I used to do video, but I stopped doing that and I'm still throttled anyway.

The problem is not really heavy users. It's that lots of people tend to use their phones at the same peak times. This happens for any provider who has oversold its capacity. In fact, the heaviest users are more likely to be online at times when demand is lower. Since I work the graveyard shift, most of my usage is late night/early morning, when there is no congestion. BTW, see the article on the subject at .

It does seem like I'm using more data since I upgraded last month. I just found a setting for iCloud to backup documents and data over 3G and turned it off, so maybe that will help.

[liquidzoo]

I understand the draw of things like Pandora for your situation, but wouldn't it be easier to download podcasts/music at home and just sync it to your iPhone? Pandora (and SiriusXM, if you use that) use a LOT of data. I used something like 7GB's in less than 10 days streaming Sirius when I had my Droid (was on the VZW Unlimited plan before I switched carriers, thankfully)

I'm on my phone constantly when I'm at work, but I sync things to it from home and just play local content. I have enough video/music/podcast files to keep me happy, and not watching/listening to the same thing over and over on a daily basis.

There are plenty of ways to limit your bandwidth, and don't presume that AT&T won't blacklist/cancel you. They can, it's in your TOS. They can do anything they want (for the most part), and we as consumers just have to take it. Any cell phone company has similar wording in their terms (probably the same group of lawyers who got together to write the most human-unreadable document in history )

[johndhynes]

To be honest, I don't use Pandora very often, since I usually use the FM radio, but occasionally I don't have one. At any rate, a little Pandora in the middle of the night is hardly going to bring the network to its knees. I do try to download on wifi as much as possible, but that's sometimes hard to do when I'm on the road for long periods of time. It's not one particular thing that uses up all the data, but using the iPhone for lots of different little things over long periods when I don't have another computer or wifi. I use more data with Google Map than Pandora. Kinda hard to sync that at home.

What AT&T can do and what they will do are two different things. They have no reason to single me out over millions of other high use customers (%5 of 100 million) who are not breaking any rules. The facts are that they have not been cancelling accounts. What they have been doing, just recently, is throttling them. They have no incentive to cancel me one month into a 2-year contract, after they just subsidized a new iPhone. I may use more data, but I also pay more for it. I pay twice as much for data as my wife does. Why would they stop taking my money, when they could just slow me down?

My only intention here is to report to the world what is happening. AT&T has started throttling unlimited accounts after using 2 GB of data. It's not about me, but about the millions of customers who still have unlimited accounts. Nobody else is reporting on that here.

[jpf22467#IM]

my question is why do you guys need to use so much data.. I have an unlimited plan and have never went over 2gb at all during an entire month.. quit using so much data and you wont be throttled..

No offense, but why should you care? If the company is offering unlimited, then they should be able to support unlimited.

I never understood why some people think if you take from one person, it will make others happy

[jpf22467#IM]

To be honest, I don't use Pandora very often, since I usually use the FM radio, but occasionally I don't have one. At any rate, a little Pandora in the middle of the night is hardly going to bring the network to its knees. I do try to download on wifi as much as possible, but that's sometimes hard to do when I'm on the road for long periods of time. It's not one particular thing that uses up all the data, but using the iPhone for lots of different little things over long periods when I don't have another computer or wifi. I use more data with Google Map than Pandora. Kinda hard to sync that at home.

What AT&T can do and what they will do are two different things. They have no reason to single me out over millions of other high use customers (%5 of 100 million) who are not breaking any rules. The facts are that they have not been cancelling accounts. What they have been doing, just recently, is throttling them. They have no incentive to cancel me one month into a 2-year contract, after they just subsidized a new iPhone. I may use more data, but I also pay more for it. I pay twice as much for data as my wife does. Why would they stop taking my money, when they could just slow me down?

My only intention here is to report to the world what is happening. AT&T has started throttling unlimited accounts after using 2 GB of data. It's not about me, but about the millions of customers who still have unlimited accounts. Nobody else is reporting on that here.

how can you tell that you are being throttled down? What rate are they doing this?

[kch50428]

I never understood why some people think if you take from one person, it will make others happy

I never understood how someone can take 'unlimited' to mean it's perfectly OK to hook the phone to a computer and use it like a home internet connection replacing cable or DSL... smh...

[Garz]

To be honest, I don't use Pandora very often, since I usually use the FM radio, but occasionally I don't have one. At any rate, a little Pandora in the middle of the night is hardly going to bring the network to its knees. I do try to download on wifi as much as possible, but that's sometimes hard to do when I'm on the road for long periods of time. It's not one particular thing that uses up all the data, but using the iPhone for lots of different little things over long periods when I don't have another computer or wifi. I use more data with Google Map than Pandora. Kinda hard to sync that at home.

What AT&T can do and what they will do are two different things. They have no reason to single me out over millions of other high use customers (%5 of 100 million) who are not breaking any rules. The facts are that they have not been cancelling accounts. What they have been doing, just recently, is throttling them. They have no incentive to cancel me one month into a 2-year contract, after they just subsidized a new iPhone. I may use more data, but I also pay more for it. I pay twice as much for data as my wife does. Why would they stop taking my money, when they could just slow me down?

My only intention here is to report to the world what is happening. AT&T has started throttling unlimited accounts after using 2 GB of data. It's not about me, but about the millions of customers who still have unlimited accounts. Nobody else is reporting on that here.

How are you postive you are being throttled? Since you drive for a living, maybe your hitting slow data areas. I hit slow areas as well when I travel. Sometimes so slow, Slacker Radio starts buffereing for me even though it says I am on 3G. I have been over 2GB's before. Especially when I start catching on on shows on HBO Go. My data speeds are still fast in all the areas that I am familiar with.

[Milenkod]

my question is why do you guys need to use so much data.. I have an unlimited plan and have never went over 2gb at all during an entire month.. quit using so much data and you wont be throttled..

Why keep your Unlimited then? Save yourself some money and continue to lower the 5% curve an ruin it for us Unlimited folks.

[Corey]

I had no idea that people were upset with other people for actually trying to use the "unlimited" data. If the plan says unlimited, it shouldn't matter how the data is used. If they want to use the unlimited data for a hotspot, or apps, or streaming, or netflix, or Pandora, or whatever, it shouldn't matter. Data is data. If a company is going to sell "unlimited" data, then the amount used and what it is used for is irrelevant. It's just unfortunate that we've accepted low capped tiered data plans based on our current use.

In a way, what Verizon and AT&T have done by eliminating their unlimited plans and dumping people in to low capped plans is brilliant. Most people probably won't hit their caps. They'll continue to pay whatever they pay per month, and because it doesn't effect them directly, they'll continue to not care. Then they'll jump on an LTE iPhone/smartphone/whateverphone and they'll really enjoy the speed. The more people will jump on the LTE train, and their data use will nudge up. They'll still be in their cap and it won't affect them, and they won't care. Then the developers will push out more apps that take advantage of the benefits of LTE and bring you apps that have far more content. And you'll start hitting your caps, and it'll matter. You'll be left with the option of severely limiting how you use your phone, or paying more money to maintain the same level of useability you formerly had. Things will get faster, the generation of phones after that will burn through even more data, and you'll be in a position to further limit how you use your phone or be pushed higher up the ladder. You'll, again, be paying more money for the same level of useability that you had before.

This is what bothers me most about both the tiered plans and the people who seemingly lash out at people who try to get the most use out of what they pay for. If I pay for unlimited (and I'm still on an unlimited plan through Verizon, thankfully), at no time should I have to worry about what my data use is. I've paid for a service and if I chose to utilize that service at a level that is above the norm, I shouldn't be penalized for it. Yet someone with a different use case is going to judge how another person uses the same plan because their usage is different? Why? What makes one person's use case better than another?

[johndhynes]

how can you tell that you are being throttled down? What rate are they doing this?

You can tell because it's slow. Really slow. As I reported last month, I used Speed Test and found that it was consistently around 120 Kbps down. It used to be several Mbps. However, upload speed is unaffected.

[johndhynes]

How are you postive you are being throttled? Since you drive for a living, maybe your hitting slow data areas. I hit slow areas as well when I travel. Sometimes so slow, Slacker Radio starts buffereing for me even though it says I am on 3G. I have been over 2GB's before. Especially when I start catching on on shows on HBO Go. My data speeds are still fast in all the areas that I am familiar with.

I drive all over. It's the same speed everywhere. Before the text, it was an order of magnitude faster. It was the same last month. The moment my bill cycle started it got fast again. There is no mistake, it's like night and day.

[OlegWasHere]

i have to say for being a long time at&t customer im disappointed ive had the unlimited data plans since january of 2006/7 when i got my first curve 8310(which was before they required data plans)
thats about 1800 dollars worth of data. ive never been slowed until this month.

besides speedtest.net is there another data speed tool? it shows good speeds(maybe becuase its night?)



ive never really gone over the 4gb a month but recently i started streaming alot of netflix.
i used to do it on my laptop but the wifi i was on starting blocking netflix so i had to swtich to my phone

its been a little over half my cycle (16th)
im now at 6gb,
i drive alot also and had gotten tomtom as a solution but still my usage is more then id ever thought id use.
youtube videos are also really slow and i never had to wait besides the first five seconds for them to load.

but like stated its your data you pay a premium and you should do with it what you like.
when you go to a buffet for 8.95 they dont tell you to stop eating when youve eaten more then 3 plates. they figure how many people can do this and suck it up as should at&t

[johndhynes]

but like stated its your data you pay a premium and you should do with it what you like.
when you go to a buffet for 8.95 they dont tell you to stop eating when youve eaten more then 3 plates. they figure how many people can do this and suck it up as should at&t

Actually, there are generally limits on how long you can eat at a buffet. They won't let you just stay there all day. It's all you can eat in two hours, or whatever.

I've been working almost every night for the past few weeks, so I have not had time to follow up. I tried not using too much data this month, but after working ten nights straight I hit 2 GB and got shut down again. Now I sometimes have trouble just using Google Map.

2 GB is just too low. What's going to happen when they go 4G? By shutting me down so early in my billing month, I no longer have incentive to conserve data. Just because it's slow does not mean that I cannot use it. It just takes longer to download things. I actually use more data when I'm throttled.