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

Is it really worth it to them? How many people are left with an unlimited plan, anyway? I don't think these people are really crippling the AT&T network at all.
Ridiculous that AT&T can so obviously lie to everyone's face and there's no one to keep them in check.
 
LOL! Here we go again... I can feel the love! :rolleyes:

Personally... I think they are all going to do this soon. With 4G speeds and everyone running around with MB hungry phones, they're going to need to throttle it back or all of us will have crappy speeds from the systems being overloaded.

Besides.... when it comes to over the air updates, why would you want to do that over 3G or even 4G when you can wait until you're home on WiFi? I think it's funny how some people make comments like WiFi is not an option.
 
levitynyc said:
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.
Click to expand...

Actually, I know people that are using their phone/tablet (any manufacturer) to hook up to their TV sets and watch online programming.

Now that online programmers are starting to charge for much of the programming and the newly implemented data caps is sort of bad timing...
 
powaking said:
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.
Click to expand...

Just curious, how many hours a day would you say you stream on 3G?

Is this all Audio or Video as well?
 
Mlrollin91 said:
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.
Click to expand...

I hadn't thought about iOS updates over the air, but remember, they're incremental updates, not the whole enchilada. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has already thought of this and will have AT&T and Verizon exclude these downloads from counting towards the data downloaded. Either way, the all-you-can-eat for a fixed price is going.
 
levitynyc said:
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.
Click to expand...

*********. I have 15 days left in my billing cycle and I've used 8075.76 MB (8 GB). It's all from Netflix.
 
This news article is all primed up for a nice class action suit against AT&T. The '5%' abusers and perhaps even others (who can claim that they were emotionally concerned and did not use data in the fear of being labelled/targeted as an 'abuser') will have some additional dough coming their way. Seriously, sometimes I wonder how their board fancies that they can issue these press releases on a whim without thinking about the ramifications.
 
Top 5% people.. This isn't going to be an issue for anyone on here.

And I'm sure they don't care if they upset the top 5%, they want them off their network anyway.
 
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)

cozmot said:
Mlrollin91 said:
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.
Click to expand...

I hadn't thought about iOS updates over the air, but remember, they're incremental updates, not the whole enchilada. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has already thought of this and will have AT&T and Verizon exclude these downloads from counting towards the data downloaded. Either way, the all-you-can-eat for a fixed price is going.
Click to expand...

Beta 4 was still 133MB! so it's a decent size
 
When I travel I use my iPhone 4 with tethering to watch MLB at bat on my iPad. It's easy on a two or three day trip to use 2GB of data. Two trips and I'm over the cap. No big deal on AT&T they just give you another GB for 10 dollars.

I think in the 3G era 4 or 5GB is more than enough for most people. But with LTE on the horizon these caps are going to have to change.

I've asked AT&T and they say the throttling only applies to customers on the old unlimited tier.
 
mctape said:
*********. I have 15 days left in my billing cycle and I've used 8075.76 MB (8 GB). It's all from Netflix.
Click to expand...

Where are you watching Netflix? Bus? Train? Kids in the car?

If you're using it on the go, I'm sympathetic to your situation and those in your boat. I just don't have a lot of sympathy for people who are trying to substitute $30 unlimited data for an internet connection at home.

I use about 300-500 MB/month, but that's because I have WiFi access at home and work. I could see myself using substantially more if that weren't the case.
 
Jesus AT&T. I was your biggest advocate until now. I'll just stream the s*it out of netflix until then just to cost you more money in bandwidth out of spite.

Sprint? Hello Photon?
 
Dr Kevorkian94 said:
That is just horrible
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No it isn't. The tiered plan was put in place to help combat the few that take advantage of a good thing. This is the way of life that a few take advantage of something and ruin the experience for the whole. Directly targeting the problem is the best solution. This isn't going to effect 95% of their customers and will only target the few that take advantage of their service.
 
Elven said:
Just download less :/ use free open wifi more.
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I can't even get my iPad to reliably connect to my home router. It just prefers 3G. Don't notice the non-WiFi connection until I hit some Wi-Fi-only feature - no, I'm NOT always going to watch the tiny indicator in the corner, nor am I always going to stop what I'm doing and go toggle Settings -> Cellular Data -> Off to force it (and then be annoyed by having to turn it back on again).

Some of us do use video editing or other reasonable yet high-data activities with iOS devices.

Remember: one of the major ground-breaking paradigm-shifting selling points of the iPad was unlimited data. There's a reason it was negotiated and offered, even if reneged later (ah, my precious unlimited service, rattled yesterday when the auto-renewal choked for some stupid reason).

And, BTW, open Wi-Fi routers are few and far between now.
 
pito189 said:
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:
Click to expand...


You bring up a good point. At least Comcast set a 250 GB limit per month and I can log into their site to see how much of that 250 GB I've used. That is what AT&T needs to do.

But this 5% thing... there will always be those in the upper 5%. Someone has to be.
 
I went to Myrtle Beach for 5 days and didn't bother paying for the hotel internet connection. I tethered my phone to my Macbook Pro and my iPad so I could use Slingbox in my hotel room to watch the Yankees. 3 days of doing this and 3 days using LogMeIn Ignition to connect to my office computers 5 hours a day and I checked in at about 2GB of data.

What in the world are you people doing with so much data?

Don't you have Wifi in your homes?
 
pito189 said:
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%.
Click to expand...

What's more. Assuming that the plan drives off the "over utilizers", regular joe blow using the same regular amount on a monthly basis might suddenly jump to the "top 5%" because of the removal of those spikes from the "over utilizers". All without doing something different. Sort of like being legislated into a felon with no input.
 
applephysci said:
This news article is all primed up for a nice class action suit against AT&T. The '5%' abusers and perhaps even others (who can claim that they were emotionally concerned and did not use data in the fear of being labelled/targeted as an 'abuser') will have some additional dough coming their way. Seriously, sometimes I wonder how their board fancies that they can issue these press releases on a whim without thinking about the ramifications.
Click to expand...

No, it won’t end in any lawsuits. There’s nothing illegal about this or “emotional damaging in any way”.

AT&T is still giving unlimited data to the customers, unlimited does not mean unlimited speed. AT&T has the rights to modify their services and each customer give that right to AT&T when they sign the agreement.

Usually, when a service provider modifies something in the service, it also activates the option for the customer to cancel their agreement without paying for the cancellation fee. I don’t know if it is true for AT&T plans as well.
 
I know someone who has set up a 3G iPad in the back of their SUV to stream netflix for their kids. They use it 30 minutes a day to and from school and they still don't come close to using 2GB a month.
 
levitynyc said:
I went to Myrtle Beach for 5 days and didn't bother paying for the hotel internet connection. I tethered my phone to my Macbook Pro and my iPad so I could use Slingbox in my hotel room to watch the Yankees. 3 days of doing this and 3 days using LogMeIn Ignition to connect to my office computers 5 hours a day and I checked in at about 2GB of data.

What in the world are you people doing with so much data?

Don't you have Wifi in your homes?
Click to expand...

there are how many days in a month? you do the math
 
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