AT&T changes their throttling techniques:

[Eileen89]

AT&T is now getting ahold of their throttling plans by laying out the numbers which will get users put into the ?reduced data scenario?. Instead of the sliding scale ?top 5% of users? which often was people under 2GB, they now have a hard maximum of 3GB for HSPA users like those with iPhones and 5GB for their new LTE offerings. Users will receive a warning the first time but won?t get a notice thereafter.


LINK AT&T changes its throttling techniques: 3GB for HSPA+ (iPhone) or 5GB for LTE gets you on the naughty list | 9to5Mac | Apple Intelligence


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[ghostface147]

Looks good to me. It's fair.

 

[cardfan]

Enjoy your 3gb "unlimited" plan.

 

[fury]

Well, this is bull. They started throttling me at 10 GB, then it was 8 GB, now I'm throttled after 6 GB, this month they're gonna throttle me at 3 GB. For me, that is roughly 3 days. So, are they going to give me a 90% refund on the 27 days of each month that I won't be able to use my data? (of course, I know the answer is no)

And of course I get attacked and told I'm a data hog and ruining it for everyone else. I don't buy that story for even a minute. It's just what AT&T's press machine has been hammering into the minds of those who believe it.

One thing is for sure. I'm never signing another 2 year contract again with any company.

 

[Garz]

Phone still becomes almost useless after 3GB's. So do you go tiered and have fast HSPA+ with $10 per GB overage once you exceed 3GB or data that is hardly useful? The 3GB unlimited doesn't sound very good to me.

 

[fury]

Paying that outrageous of a price for a GB of data is not an option for me. If I managed to squeeze in all of the data that I wanted to use to within 5 GB, I might have gone for it, just for the added luxury of tethering, but no... I can use 30 GB in a good month just downloading apps and podcasts.

Maybe if their overage was more reasonable, or there were an incentive for me as a long time customer to switch to the tiered data plan, but no... their customer service has started to suck since the throttling began, and I get no impression from them that they want to keep me in any way (except to gobble up half of my paycheck per month for the data that I use). It's as if they are trained to not give any customer service once the throttling flag is set.

AT&T makes almost 100% profit off of my account, I never use even close to 550 minutes a month, and hardly any text messages even though I've got unlimited text messages. I've got 3 lines.

Only a matter of time before they start throttling unlimited text messages and voice minutes too.

 

[jakeless.123]

I agree with the fact that's it's preposterous that AT&T is essentially putting a cap on its "unlimited" data plans.

It is good news however that at least they are giving people a heads up saying if you reach this amount you will be throttled. Whereas before, they just seemingly throttled ppl at random based on some invisible formula.


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[Eileen89]

Phone still becomes almost useless after 3GB's. So do you go tiered and have fast HSPA+ with $10 per GB overage once you exceed 3GB or data that is hardly useful? The 3GB unlimited doesn't sound very good to me.

I still have the unlimited plan, and no, it wouldn't be worth it for me to give it up now when I don't even use 1GB per month. I'm going to keep it until AT&T takes it away.


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[Eileen89]

Looks good to me. It's fair.

Really? How is it fair to "cap" an unlimited plan? Kind of goes against every dictionaries definition of the word unlimited, IMO.


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[Garz]

I still have the unlimited plan, and no, it wouldn't be worth it for me to give it up now when I don't even use 1GB per month. I'm going to keep it until AT&T takes it away.


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I dropped unlimited. I need my data to work properly at all times. I average 4-5 Mbps DL on a given day. Throttled takes you down to .15 Mbps from all the videos I have watched. Web pages can take several minutes to load at those .15 speeds. If I exceed the 3GB's, I pay the $10 per GB. Most importanly is it works. I never have exceeded 5 GB's so not like my bill will be affected much.

 

[Eileen89]

I dropped unlimited. I need my data to work properly at all times. I average 4-5 Mbps DL on a given day. Throttled takes you down to .15 Mbps from all the videos I have watched. Web pages can take several minutes to load at those .15 speeds. If I exceed the 3GB's, I pay the $10 per GB. Most importanly is it works. I never have exceeded 5 GB's so not like my bill will be affected much.

True. I saw some of those videos, and that slow speed would kill me. But that is something I don't have to worry about at this point in time.


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[ghostface147]

Really? How is it fair to "cap" an unlimited plan? Kind of goes against every dictionaries definition of the word unlimited, IMO.

They have a right to manage their network in any way they see fit. It's in the contract. I say it's fair because at least there is a hard limit and it matches the 3 gig paid data tier. That's all I ever asked for. Not you. Before it was sporadic. Some would get throttled at 1.5, some would never get throttled at 5 gigs or above.

Is it the right tactic? No. But now I appreciate a firm number instead of the maybe 1.5, maybe 2.2 or none. People will say AT&T just needs to add more towers and spend money to build it out. They are spending money, there is no question since they're building their LTE network. There are those people don't want cell towers near their homes, but they sure want that coverage. Red tape, while not a substantial amount of the problems, is a factor. AT&T has a budget too and they aren't exactly rolling with $100 billion in the bank as far as I know.

Anyways, this is fair to me, but I don't think it's the way they should operate. However if I were in their executive shoes, you better believe I'd want to fatten my wallet as much as I could too at the expense of you. I don't care about you. I want that green. I'd be a pretty mean exec. Still doesn't make it right.

You're more than welcome to leave AT&T whenever you want, but you gotta pay the piper first and help me get that Ferrari.

 

[_heatherly]

I think people forget that AT&T is running a business and they are in the business of making money. Business re-evaluate their products and services all the time. Starbucks raises prices almost every year and so does Louis Vuitton.

In this economy, I don't think consumers can expect to receive services they used to get for free or discounted prices.


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[Eileen89]

I think people forget that AT&T is running a business and they are in the business of making money. Business re-evaluate their products and services all the time. Starbucks raises prices almost every year and so does Louis Vuitton.

In this economy, I don't think consumers can expect to receive services they used to get for free or discounted prices.


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I agree that AT&T is in business to make money. However, people like me that are paying for an "unlimited" data plan, should be getting just that. We aren't asking for free services or discounted services as you mentioned here. It has zero to do with economical times, and everything to do with getting what we are paying for. If they are going to put a 3GB cap on a "unlimited" data plan, they should just migrate all grandfathered unlimited plan owners over to the $30/3GB data plan and be done with it, period. If AT&T would have just done this instead of playing their silly little throttling games I don't believe they would have received as much bad press over this as they are now.


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[_heatherly]

I agree that if they are going to throttle unlimited users, they just need to announce that they are terminating the unlimited plans and merge the unlimited users to a 3GB or 4GB plan.


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[BrindawithanI]

Enjoy your 3gb "unlimited" plan.

Lmfao! (and I have one)

 

[BrettAU]

I'm sitting at 4.7 gigs right now. No text received.

 

[Guacho]

I wonder if they will apply this to ALL customers with unlimited plans or keep doing it according to the location of the user like they've been doing lately. ( big cities with huge data traffic), I've never been affected and I average 5-6gb per month..

 

[BrettAU]

I'm sitting at 4.7 gigs right now. No text received.

Got a text when I woke up.

If I do this again next month they'll throttle me.

I just keep re downloading Infinity Blade 2, because it is 920MB.



If they are gonna throttle me, then I'm gonna make it count.

 

[fury]

Got a text when I woke up.

If I do this again next month they'll throttle me.

I just keep re downloading Infinity Blade 2, because it is 920MB.



If they are gonna throttle me, then I'm gonna make it count.

And this is the kind of attitude that a lot of people feel justifies AT&T's heavy handed tactics. They see us all as ornery "stick it to the man" data hogs that deserve to be flattened. I think we're all just expecting them to hold up their end of the bargain and get a little rowdy when they don't. It's human nature to start to rebel when we feel oppressed or slighted.

In my opinion, though, it never would have started if AT&T hadn't started to reneg on their promise of unlimited data. So, they're getting what they had coming to them - exorbitant data load, negative press, the whole shebang.