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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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AT&T announced today that they will be throttling high end users with unlimited data plans.
Starting October 1, smartphone customers with unlimited data plans may experience reduced speeds once their usage in a billing cycle reaches the level that puts them among the top 5 percent of heaviest data users. These customers can still use unlimited data and their speeds will be restored with the start of the next billing cycle. Before you are affected, we will provide multiple notices, including a grace period.
Early AT&T iPhone customers were offered an unlimited data plan for their devices. Even after AT&T stopped offering an unlimited plan, they allowed existing customers to retain their unlimited plan through device upgrades.

This change will affect any of those users who still have an unlimited plan and are considered to be in the "top 5 percent of heaviest data users". For those users, download speeds will be reduced until the next billing month. By definition, this should affect 5% of users each month.

AT&T claims that users can still "send or receive thousands of emails, surf thousands of Web pages and watch hours of streaming video every month and not be in the top 5 percent of data users."

Article Link: AT&T to Throttle Unlimited Data Plan Customers Starting in October
 

iPhone1

macrumors 65816
Apr 2, 2010
1,152
423
This is obviously aimed at those who jailbreak and use apps like MyWi vice paying for internet access at their homes. Jailbreaking is not a crime but AT&T sure as hell doesn't have to like it.
 

pito189

macrumors member
Sep 28, 2006
51
9
I am one of the grandfathered in people and my biggest problem with this is.

How much puts me in that top 5%? Don't just start sending me texts when I get close to it, tell me what qualifies for that top 5%. It seems asinine that I have a unlimited plan and they can just slow down my speed at their whim.

I'm going to start keeping a record for when my service isn't usable and then I'll just deduct that out of my bill at the end of the month and we'll see how that goes over...:rolleyes:
 

Mlrollin91

macrumors G5
Nov 20, 2008
14,119
10,106
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Goodbye Netflix over 3G and iOS updates over the air.
 

Elven

macrumors 6502a
May 13, 2008
862
1
UK
Just download less :/ use free open wifi more. I am sorry but some people must really abuse their downloads to go over some caps.
 

wordoflife

macrumors 604
Jul 6, 2009
7,564
37
Better than getting rid of them completely.
I wonder how slow they are going to throttle it.

I hate how carriers are taking more and giving less.
 

aross99

macrumors 68000
Dec 17, 2006
1,540
1
East Lansing, MI
What concerns me is what if the 5% limit is less than 2GB? might I be paying $5 more per month and getting throttled before someone with the 2GB plan?

I thought 98% of their users used less then 2GB per month? That would mean the top 5% would include people who used less than 2GB.

The top 5% part is what stinks. They should come out and say this is 4GB or 5GB or whatever.
 

cadillac1234

macrumors regular
Aug 20, 2010
144
0
I don't really come close to hitting any data caps but I still ***** hate them with a passion :mad:

Don't sell something initially as unlimited and then change the rules later on

And you can certainly blow your LTE/4G crap out yer rear.
 

aross99

macrumors 68000
Dec 17, 2006
1,540
1
East Lansing, MI
Just download less :/ use free open wifi more. I am sorry but some people must really abuse their downloads to go over some caps.

I suspect most of these people use streaming audio/video as part of their daily routine (i.e. listening to Pandora every day at work), so they don't even think about it. They aren't actively using their phones, it's like they are just on in the background...

I always thought I used my phone alot, but I don't use streaming services and I have WiFi at home. My average usage is about 300MB per month.
 

powaking

macrumors 6502
Jul 3, 2008
466
181
This is obviously aimed at those who jailbreak and use apps like MyWi vice paying for internet access at their homes. Jailbreaking is not a crime but AT&T sure as hell doesn't have to like it.

Why do you say that? Thats a very broad statement. I'm jailbroken but I don't tether at all. I mostly stream Pandora and TWiT and download a lot of podcasts via Instacast. Don't do much Netflix streaming unless the kids want to watch something on the incar entertainment system. So far this billing cycle I'm 17 days in and I'm already using 4459MB. The most I ever used was 7200 but I'm usually around 3-4 each month.
 

levitynyc

macrumors 65816
Aug 19, 2006
1,123
3,704
I fully support this.

They are not targeting the high volume user. They are targeting the abuser who tethers his entire home internet connection to his phone.
 

Jolson247

macrumors member
Jan 18, 2009
48
37
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Go ahead AT&T, throttle us. When I actually do get service on my phone it's either two bars of E or one bar of 3G and it's slow as molasses. I've done speed tests on my phone and it's barely at 700 kbit/sec.

Do you really need to throttle people when your service is slow as crap and spotty/unreliable already? And for this we pay $30/month. Very nice.
 
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