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AT&T Scales Back Throttling of Grandfathered Unlimited Data Plans
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Earlier this month, I was on a trip and accidentally went over 5GB on the 5th day of my billing cycle. Browsing has been extremely slow and I've peeked at .5mb every time I've run a speedtest. This morning, after seeing this post, I have retested and received decent results (10mb). Not sure if it's a coincidence of if they actually changed something, but this is the first time I've ever notice being un-throttled above 5gb.
Not necessarily. During congestion, it makes some sense to throttle the unlimited data guys to ensure there is sufficient bandwidth available for those who bought the bucket of data. From AT&T's point of view, those are the "paying" customers who have a higher priority than the "freeloading" guys with old unlimited plans.
Not quite. How is paying for unlimited free loading? You need to recalibrate yourself. With that said - there were so many folks using 100GB data per month at the beginning of the unlimited plan - no idea how one uses that kind of data but it is absurd. These are the users that ruined it for all unfortunately. Anyway, I have a much better plan for me now anyway so the point is moot.
I've been happy with AT&T since I got my iPhone 5G. I don't use very much data but I have kept my unlimited data plan. It just seemed like the smart thing to do. AT&T and my current iPhone 6 perform really well.
Nice! I use much less of the data, as a percentage of my plan than Mrs. thequick...
Mrs. thequick: 2.5GB/3.0GB, or 83% of her plan
Me: 40GB/Infinite, or an insignificant percentage of my plan
Mrs. thequick: 2.5GB/3.0GB, or 83% of her plan
Me: 40GB/Infinite, or an insignificant percentage of my plan
That's not true in my case. I never used more than a gig of data a month on "unlimited" so I switched to the new shared plan. AT&T gives me 15gb per month, and I never get close to the limit. I also now have tethering and unlimited texting, which I previously would have had to pay for separately. But best of all, I'm saving $30 a month compared with the "unlimited" plan. So I don't see how it's more profitable for AT&T. It's certainly better for me.
Which is what never made sense to me about the grandfathered "unlimited" plans. Slow internet annoys me more than $10 per gig overage fee, or no internet at all for that matter. You are better off getting 6GB of data plan.
Nailed it. This is what I've been saying all along! I had only been throttled on my unlimited plan a few times, but those few times made for an awful experience. I just recently switched to a shared family plan with data rollover. So far I've have had no issues with running out of data plus my bill is cheaper.
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Those "freeloading" guys with old unlimited plans are customers who have had a plan with the company since at least 2010 when they stopped offering unlimited data plans to new customers. Seems pretty unfair to punish the those long-term customers...
If you read the quote from the article, that's what they're doing:
According to that quote, if you're are:
1) an unlimited plan user
and
2) over the threshold (3GB 3G/4G or 5GB 4G LTE)
and
3) in a congested area
then you may 'experience reduced speeds.
Each of those conditions are linked with an *and*, so they must all be true before you get throttled.
If you're not an unlimited user, the other two don't matter, because the first will never be true.
At the start of your billing cycle you're no longer over the threshold, so you're given the same priority as non-unlimited plan users.
When you're not in a congested area, then you're given the same priority as non-unlimited users.
At least that's what the quote says.
Nice trick ATT. They are just rewording the language and wont actually change the way they throttle. When will this take affect?
I'll wait a couple months and then test this in my quiet residential neighborhood at midnight and see if they throttle me after my 5 gigs are used up. When I was getting throttled at 3 gigs with my non LTE connection my phone was useless.
I'll wait a couple months and then test this in my quiet residential neighborhood at midnight and see if they throttle me after my 5 gigs are used up. When I was getting throttled at 3 gigs with my non LTE connection my phone was useless.
Congested is a measurement of number of users and average data consumption
So a tower with 500 users streaming 1Mbps or 250 users at 0.5Mbps is the same thing. If the tower can only handle 500Mbps and has 500 users it's maxed out. But congested could mean 80% or 400 users.
Apologies. I should have been more clear in my original quote. You weren't the type of customer I was referencing. AT&T disliked the customers with unusually high data usage: 40,50 to 100GB or more. Those were the ones they were more concerned about. Their usage soured it for everyone. Is that type of use excessive? To me, yes. But in a general sense if you offer unlimited then the expectation has to be there will be outliers. Cumulatively they weren't losing money because the vast majority of the unlimited customers were not using that much data (AT&T claimed 98% use less than 2GB per month).
The excessive throttling of unlimited plan customers, regardless of network traffic, was simply a stick to get customers off the plan. They probably could have gotten more acceptance with a carrot.
i havent kept up w/ Verizon. in the old days you couldnt talk on the phone and use data at the same time -- has this been resolved? im often on the speaker phone but looking things up.
$30 a month for 5 years equals $1800. Sounds like a lot right? Unlimited iPad data plans are selling for $2000 on eBay. Not only does he get his money back and then some, but he got free data usage for 5 full years.
And if you're wondering why someone would pay such a large amount. If someone spends $100 a month on data (a power user), they make their money back in one year and a half. That is why these sell for $2000 and up.
I wanted to leave for Verizon, but could not get past the problem where verizon would not let me talk and surf at the same time. Maybe that has been resolved now, but the significant quality difference between the two is not so significant anymore.
I am pretty ambivalent about the carrier these days. I am looking forward to services that can auto-switch between the carriers to give me the best experience, speed, etc at any given moment. Probably a few short years away, but that may arrive before my watch.
Because they are looking for ways to make UNLIMITED inconvenient enough for people too switch to TIER plans.
