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A Look at AT&T's Throttling for High-Use Unlimited iPhone Data Customers

re original article

data throttling and data caps are for the birds

wireless industry need to build larger data pipes
 
I love that HSPA+ is supposed to be 14Mbit theoretical, and these unthrottled phones are only getting 1Mbit.

How the hell can they justify throttling it down to 1% of the possible bandwidth?

At very best I've seen 5Mbit on my 4s, but rarely break 1Mbit.
 
It's fine really. All you people who signed up for unlimited- you must have known that by "unlimited" they meant "unlimited to an arbitrary data cap and then we throttle you down to unusable speeds"

I know that's what I thought. It's not a limit, after all. They aren't capping your data. You can still download at 1 bit per second after you cross the threshhold.
 
IMG_1270.jpg


In the UK, O2 take a different approach, they throttle speeds before you download anything. the above screenshot shows speedtest struggling to even get a ping from it's servers. when my contact is up in june I won't be sticking with o2.
 
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guess ive been lucky, maybe

Since September when i started listening to podcasts as work I have been consistently over 2 mb every month and even in November after the IOS 5 backup error I was up to 5gb for that month. I still have yet to receive a single text warning me of excessive usage. That being said though there are times when my data is almost non existent. Ive run the speedtest app and gotten very poor readings like .06Mbps down and 0 up. This seems to happen every few days for a few hours. Guess I'm just hesitant to complain because I do use so much data on a normal basis.

photoid.png
 
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nylonsteel said:
re original article

data throttling and data caps are for the birds

wireless industry need to build larger data pipes
Click to expand...

Building "larger data pipes" is only an option when the wireless spectrum itself isn't saturated like it is in many areas. It's physically impossible to create more spectrum, and the FCC decides who gets to use which portions of it in which areas. It's not like they can just say "yay more bandwidth!" and have it magically happen.
 
I've never received this text before, but I've noticed AT&T's 3G speeds are periodically pathetic... I think it's mostly just during busy times (around noon... lunch? Might have something to do with the cafe where I often have lunch is in the basement of a building...)
 
If they're going to make the "unlimited" plan so unappealing, why not just discontinue it and make those people switch to the regular plans?

Of course that wouldn't be great press for them, but probably no worse than putting on a charade of "unlimited" then crippling service at such a low threshold.
 
r2fa3l said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)


"I honestly don't know why people fuss about data, most networks sell 1GB for $10 - it's not that bad."
Click to expand...


If AT$T offered the $10/1GB data plans, I am sure over 75% of people would jump to that plan.

Of course they won't offer the $10/1GB data plan. Instead have a huge gap between the 200MB data plan for $15 and the 2GB/$25 data plans.

It's like the whole text messenging plans. 200 text/$5. But they never offered a 500-1000 text plan. Instead you would have to jump to the 1500/$15 text plan. When ATT finally offered the $10/1000 text plan, it only lasted for months before they just abandoned that plan.

All about bottom line for corporations.
 
When AT&T changed their data plans they said that less than 2% of their subscribers were using over 2 GB of data a month. Therefore the top 5% of throttling would be effecting those who are using less than 2 GB of data. Also, that means it would fluctuate per month. So if all unlimited users were using 10 GB of data per month then they would not be in the top 5 and would not be throttled. This whole idea of a % is annoying. I wish it could just be a set number until throttled, like the capped plans but no charges when going over, just slowing.
 
I LOVE the fact that one can be on the unlimited plan - and find themselves to fall in the top 5%. And, then finding themselves crippled (not thoddled) these people are seek to buy extra data from AT&T - and they are not allowed to.

really AT&T? sounds pretty stupid - on all sorts of levels - doesn't it?
 
Unlimited in the UK

Move to the UK, use Three......... :)

And get truly unlimited downloads and decent speeds.

Even after 125GB in a month I was still getting 4Mb-8Mb/sec...

Three says unlimited really means unlimited......

Blitz
 
I've found something that has helped me reduce my total amount of data used... I don't know why we should even need to do this, but at least you can save about 30% of your data each month. The free app is called Onavo (http://www.onavo.com/) and I'd recommend all grandfathered iPhone users to download it.

I do not work for the company or anything, but I had the IT guy at our company research into my throttling and this was the solution he found for me. I haven't had any issues with rendering websites, but if you are a user of hulu and netflix, this might not be the solution for you as it does not appear to work with those apps unless you are on wifi.

I hope this helps those of you in the 2-3gb range that are getting this message. I installed the app roughly 1 month ago and it's saved me about 200mb of 500.
 
"It's not how much you use, it's how you use it"

I received the message from AT&T the other day. I was 28 days into my 31 day billing cycle and used 2.05GB. I asked what the threshold for throttling was and was told by the "supervisor" that its not about "how much data you use" but "how you use it". She proceeded to tell me that its because I use pandora etc. So i asked her that if i just downloaded other types of files that weren't music or videos I would be fine? She had no answer. When I asked how they can call it unlimited she said it is unlimited data we are just limiting your speeds. I answered by asking "how can I use a unlimited amount of data if I am slowed down this much?'" Once again she had no answer. I've been with ATT since '05 and am seriously considering leaving. The whole interaction was atrocious.
 
starops777 said:
I received the message from AT&T the other day. I was 28 days into my 31 day billing cycle and used 2.05GB. I asked what the threshold for throttling was and was told by the "supervisor" that its not about "how much data you use" but "how you use it"... I've been with ATT since '05 and am seriously considering leaving. The whole interaction was atrocious.
Click to expand...

HA I love it. The rep I spoke with stated (after having asked why I'm being punished at 2.888MB's on my unlimited plan with three days left on my monthly billing cycle), "It's a reaction to your action."


Tapdawg said:
I've found something that has helped me reduce my total amount of data used... I don't know why we should even need to do this, but at least you can save about 30% of your data each month. The free app is called Onavo (http://www.onavo.com/) and I'd recommend all grandfathered iPhone users to download it.
Click to expand...

Great recommendation! I checked it out, the reviews have been fantastic. Installed it already. Thank you!
 
starops777 said:
I received the message from AT&T the other day. I was 28 days into my 31 day billing cycle and used 2.05GB. I asked what the threshold for throttling was and was told by the "supervisor" that its not about "how much data you use" but "how you use it". She proceeded to tell me that its because I use pandora etc. So i asked her that if i just downloaded other types of files that weren't music or videos I would be fine? She had no answer. When I asked how they can call it unlimited she said it is unlimited data we are just limiting your speeds. I answered by asking "how can I use a unlimited amount of data if I am slowed down this much?'" Once again she had no answer. I've been with ATT since '05 and am seriously considering leaving. The whole interaction was atrocious.
Click to expand...

The only thing keeping me with ATT is the unlimited data plan and if the iphone 5 (whatever it is called) is indeed a 4G phone, I don't see a reason to stick with ATT if I am throttled back at 2gigs.
 
Would Apple help with this lack of being able to use their device or are they just fine with it?

I would prefer to buy A certain amount then use till it is gone. I don't use much but am also paying for the iPad data as well. Again I don't use all of it.

Rollover Bytes!

How could we get MacRumours to give more attention to this?

This is something that will not just blow over for the providers.

Didn't Steve Jobs have a plan for something like this.
 
Xenomorph said:
Am I reading your post wrong? 300-400 kB/sec is around 3 Mb/s, which is more than the 1.5 Mb/s you said "must be nice" to get.

1.5 Mb/s would get you less than 187 kB/sec.
Click to expand...

I think I was sloppy with by capitals. 300-400 Kbits/sec is what I typically get, not the 1.5Mb/s that they were showing in the vid.
 
Top 5% of data users will get lower over time

iClique.com said:
This needs to be reported as a complaint to the FCC. I've also recieved a notice over the last two months, and when I called the AT&T rep said they used to send out the notice at 10gb a month and now they send it at 2gb. The Top 5% usage is not a FiXED number!!! It looks as though they are just lowering it to get people to use less. If more people are using their phones more that would drive the Top 5% number higher not LOWER!!!!
Click to expand...

incorrect
has nothing to do with the number of people the way AT&T is doing this will put the top 5% at lower and lower numbers do the math. hence the started slowing people down at 10 GB month and now down to 2GB don't know how accurate that is but no matter how you look at it and no matter how much data you use the top 5% will always be the top 5% if 100 people were using ATT and 95 of those people used 100MB a month and 5 used 200 MB a month those using the 200MB would be the ones slowed down to those almost 56K speeds then over time that top 5% would be less than 200MB and be throttled.

also another possible reason that t 2GB people are being throttled back when att publicly announced that they were dropping the unlimited plans they said then "98% of people use less than 2GB per month" there for 2.1 GB according to there own words would put you in the top 5%
 
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I just got throttled on my 4S, and instead of getting my usual 4-7 MBPS I am now getting 0.11 (according the SpeedTest.net app). It is virtually impossible to use any site except for mobile ones.
 
Got me Boiling

ok so I'm one of those ones they are trying to squeeze out of the unlimited plans.. can some one do the math and figure out if its even possible to use the 5 GB of unlimited data (LOL) un supposed to get if they throttle me at 2GB down to .01 MBPs lets be nice and day i hit 2 Gb 5 days in to my cycle
 
milo said:
If they're going to make the "unlimited" plan so unappealing, why not just discontinue it and make those people switch to the regular plans?

Of course that wouldn't be great press for them, but probably no worse than putting on a charade of "unlimited" then crippling service at such a low threshold.
Click to expand...

They don't want to lose those customers.
 
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