I was also thinking, 5% of top unlimited users in their entire U.S network? It will be pretty hard to fall in this category, even if it's just because there will always be people who will juice their unlimited plan to to the maximum. In the whole U.S. territory I'm certain that after all 5% will seem like a very small number the average unlimited user won't be catalogued in without trying very hard.
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AT&T to Throttle Unlimited Data Plan Customers Starting in October
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5% is a HUGE number... and I highly doubt that 1 in 20 users are tethering a home network to their phone (I'd wager that number is less then .5%).
I'd guess that the number to avoid going over will somehow just magically be the same as their comparably priced limited data plan.
I disagree. THEY are not harming you. AT&T not living up to what they promised their users is harming you.
EVERYONE on an unlimited plan signed up for the same thing. If AT&T oversold their capacity, that's their fault and you should hold THEM accountable.
If you arrive at the gate and the plane is overbooked, you don't get pissed at the other passengers for buying a ticket on the same flight, do you?
Incorrect. When signing up for a new "plan" with subsequent subsidized iPhones, your original contract was "grandfathered" in, meaning the TOS were extended. So yes, all of us Unlimited users are still on the original TOS. Even if you purchased another iPhone non-subsidized, AT&T allowed you to continue using the Unlimited plan as long as you didn't ever cancel it. This means even a month-to-month plan is still under the original TOS. You may be correct, however, that they could terminate after a month if they chose.
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I'm tired of apps that have stupid ads. They use up data. Not much but still. AT&T should blocks ads. **** wasting my data.
I'm tired of apps that have stupid ads. They use up data. Not much but still. AT&T should blocks ads. **** wasting my data.
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Perfectly fair and reasonable. In fact more fair and reasonable than NOT doing this.
Perfectly fair and reasonable. In fact more fair and reasonable than NOT doing this.
I am still an unlimited plan holder, and this just upsets me. There is a reason I adopted early and got the unlimited plan; it was so I could use it in an unlimited fashion if I need to. Effectively limiting my ability to data is dick move. I say this with the knowledge that I have never come close to being in the top 5% of users. The most data I have ever used in 1 month is about 1GB, but I usually about half of that. I keep my unlimited data plan for the off chance I may need it for some reason...someday.
However, if ATT wanted to just sell me Data as I go, I would be happy to buy that, but they do not want to do that because they know it would make them less money over the long run. Instead, they choose to only offer me plans that go by the month and not by actual usage.
However, if ATT wanted to just sell me Data as I go, I would be happy to buy that, but they do not want to do that because they know it would make them less money over the long run. Instead, they choose to only offer me plans that go by the month and not by actual usage.
Here in the UK, there is BT Openzone. If you have an internet connection with BT (British Telecom), you can join BT Openzone, which means your WiFi router is open for use to anyone who joined it, on the other hand you can use anyone else's WiFi router for free. If you don't have an internet connection with BT, I think you can use these routers for £3 a month. There are supposedly about 1.8 million around the country.
I like how the most down votes in this thread are probably coming from those 5%ers for people pointing out the obvious. The top 5% are probably cheaping out on paying for home internet and instead are taxing the network by using their phones as their only source of internet.
I'd also like to know how someone manages to use 8gb just from Netflix on 3G. You are really away from any sort of computer or WiFi THAT much?
I'd also like to know how someone manages to use 8gb just from Netflix on 3G. You are really away from any sort of computer or WiFi THAT much?
@#$!, looks like I'll be affected. My cellular data averages around 10GBs per month. So much for unlimited being truly unlimited.
autrefois
macrumors 65816
I'm surprised no one has apparently commented on AT&T's parting blow in the press release mentioned in the OP (Source)
Talk about blatant propaganda, which is only marginally related to the issue at hand.
So are we to believe that if only the FCC would have approved the merger immediately, then we wouldn't have started throttling unlimited plans?? I'm sure if/once the merger gets the final go-ahead, AT&T will immediately rescind this new policy, right?!
With an AT&T / T-Mobile merger, unlimited customers wouldn't have to be throttled, competition would increase, jobs would be created, everyone in the US would have access to high-speed cellular networks, and Santa Claus would give us all a pony for Christmas!
AT&T said:
Talk about blatant propaganda, which is only marginally related to the issue at hand.
So are we to believe that if only the FCC would have approved the merger immediately, then we wouldn't have started throttling unlimited plans?? I'm sure if/once the merger gets the final go-ahead, AT&T will immediately rescind this new policy, right?!
With an AT&T / T-Mobile merger, unlimited customers wouldn't have to be throttled, competition would increase, jobs would be created, everyone in the US would have access to high-speed cellular networks, and Santa Claus would give us all a pony for Christmas!
i wish Apple would buy out AT$T and fire everybody over there. This is another example of Capitalism failing the average consumer.
Why not just download/sync the podcasts you're listening to? I have all of mine pulled down and synced every morning. That way, if I end up being on a train/tunnel, I don't lose the stream anyway.
I agree that a big issue is who will fall into this top 5%. I'm hopeful that AT&T choose that number to weed out the abusers and not weed out all the unlimited users. That may be overly optimistic.
I completely disagree with this statement. As I stated in my post, data usage has grown and continues to grow exponentially. At what point would you say that AT&T shouldn't be forced to keep up? If all users used 5Gb/month, 25Gb/month, 1Tb/month? At some point we shouldn't expect AT&T to have to maintain a network where users are constantly upgrading their usage habits. AT&T couldn't have predicted how widespread data usage would have become back in 2007/08 when they first offered these services.
And it does harm all of us. A user who has jailbroken his phone and is using mywi to run internet throughout his home is slowing down the network. And this is the individual's fault for breaking the TOS, not AT&Ts. This is the same person though that will yell at AT&T (and threaten to sue) for changing the TOS to him. He feels that AT&T should abide by the rules even though he doesn't.
If these other passengers had so much luggage that for weight reasons they had to leave some seats unfilled, then you would not look too friendly at these passengers.
If if is reasonable to expect an unlimited data contract it would also not be unreasonable to expect unlimited checked (or carry-on) luggage. But we all know that unlimited does not work unless the provider has enough surplus capacity to handle these cases without significant cost to the provider or significant service degradation to the other customers. If you tethered your iPhone to your Mac and then used the Mac to provide WiFi in a coffeeshop and charged the coffeeshop customers there for WiFi access, I don't think a lot of people would approve.
Humans have a fairly strong sense of fairness, and if somebody consumes 80 GB for the same price as somebody else who consumes only 2 GB (in particular since we know that any data somebody else consumes on a saturated network will slowdown everybody else), then we are not too happy.
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This will only improve your service.
Jolson247 said:
This will only improve your service.
It depends on how they throttle it. If they throttle you down to 5-10 kbps, that is effectively cutting you off.
You might not be paying for a specific speed (although if they advertise "3G" service, you arguably are), but if AT&T does something that essentially prevents you from using the service, I'd say it violates your contract.
It actually has cost AT&T a lot to beef up their backhaul network to support the data usage of smartphones.
While there's no incremental cost per byte of data delivered to you, there's a tremendous investment in infrastructure driven directly by smartphone data use.
"Pay for what you use" is the future.
Yes, because as technology advances and networks get faster, it makes sense that we'd have to pay more and more to use less of it.
How so? Please do explain this logic because this reasoning escapes me.
I don't understand how revoking the contract rights that people pay for is fair or reasonable.
First, AT&T knows, and has known, how the iPhone would effect their network. If they didn't, that's a bad business model, and still THEIR FAULT.
They certainly knew the problems with the 3G model. And yet they still did NOTHING, and continued to sell faster, more featured iPhones. Don't even try to defend them. They knew what they were doing, and the continued to do it without upgrading their network capacity.
And no it doesn't. Users paid for unlimited data, and regardless of which device they choose to use, the data is still data. It doesn't matter if it's going to a phone or a computer - it's STILL data. Data doesn't magically increase three-fold when you use a computer vs an iPhone... it's the same size, and this argument is flawed.
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Couldn't this be grounds for escaping my contract without paying an ETF?
I REALLY WANT TO SWITCH TO VERIZON. Or maybe Sprint.
Even if this doesn't mean I get out of an ETF, I'm still switching AT&T. It's gotten to the point that I have failed calls at home now, and I live right next to your freaking tower! I can see it out the window. It's right over there! I used to get 6mbps down and 1.7mbps up at home. Now I get 0.4mbps down and 0.1mbps up! What would that get throttled to? 56k?!?
It MIGHT have something to do with the fact that in my college town of 150,000 people you only have 2 freaking towers within the city limits! Ridiculous. Forget going to the mall. It's like I drop off the freaking grid. No data, and I miss at least half or more of my calls. UNACCEPTABLE!! I hope you go out of business and I never hear your name again. Every day that goes by you make me more angry!
I REALLY WANT TO SWITCH TO VERIZON. Or maybe Sprint.
Even if this doesn't mean I get out of an ETF, I'm still switching AT&T. It's gotten to the point that I have failed calls at home now, and I live right next to your freaking tower! I can see it out the window. It's right over there! I used to get 6mbps down and 1.7mbps up at home. Now I get 0.4mbps down and 0.1mbps up! What would that get throttled to? 56k?!?
It MIGHT have something to do with the fact that in my college town of 150,000 people you only have 2 freaking towers within the city limits! Ridiculous. Forget going to the mall. It's like I drop off the freaking grid. No data, and I miss at least half or more of my calls. UNACCEPTABLE!! I hope you go out of business and I never hear your name again. Every day that goes by you make me more angry!
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I only pay $53.03 a month for pretty much unlimited everything. Even if they throttle my speeds I'm still paying cheaper than most. I have unlimited text, unlimited data, unlimited mobile to any mobile (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and etc), free nights and weekend. I don't tether and I use 3-4 gigs a month.
I only pay $53.03 a month for pretty much unlimited everything. Even if they throttle my speeds I'm still paying cheaper than most. I have unlimited text, unlimited data, unlimited mobile to any mobile (AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and etc), free nights and weekend. I don't tether and I use 3-4 gigs a month.