Received interesting letter from AT&T for using 20+ GB / month of data

[Snide]

A friend recently received the following letter from AT&T. I jailbroke his iPhone months ago so he could tether his MacBook at home, and cautioned him not to get carried away with his data usage, as AT&T might notice if he went hog-wild. Needless to say, he has been streaming Netflix every night ever since, which resulted in this rather cordial letter from AT&T. I took a photo of the letter (no scanner handy) and am including the un-cropped and cropped versions. Enjoy!

 

[rjohnstone]

A lot of people who are considered "heavy users" get these.
It's not a warning letter, just a reminder that AT&T has a lot of free hotspots available and they suggest you may want to try and use those when possible.

 

[Small White Car]

It's not a warning letter

Yeah, I generally consider a "warning" to contain some sort of "do this or we'll do that" kind of statement.

This is more like a 'feature reminder' letter.

Does at&t have ulterior motives here? Sure, they'd like him to use Wifi more often. But that's not really the same thing as a warning.

 

[macsrcool1234]

Your friend deserves to have his contract terminated and should be charged separately for the data he used.

Seriously, people. If you're going to tether without paying, don't ****ing use it as a home internet connection and download multimedia files from it.

Tell your cheapass friend to get a job and buy a real connection.

This is what happens when you make jailbreaking so easy. Every moron in the world can jailbreak their phone (or another persons) and tether recklessly, ruining the network for the rest of us.

 

[Looon]

Not a warning
thanks for re sparking the stupid 5gb cap debate though real helpful

Your friend deserves to have his contract terminated and should be charged separately for the data he used.

Seriously, people. If you're going to tether without paying, don't ****ing use it as a home internet connection and download multimedia files from it.

Tell your cheapass friend to get a job and buy a real connection.

This is what happens when you make jailbreaking so easy. Every moron in the world can jailbreak their phone (or another persons) and tether recklessly, ruining the network for the rest of us.

Why are you so angry over this? His friend is not affecting you in any way by doing this.

 

[Pinkstiletto66]

Hilarious.

 

[nate1220]

I got this same letter for only using 8

 

[macsrcool1234]

Not a warning
thanks for re sparking the stupid 5gb cap debate though real helpful






Why are you so angry over this? His friend is not affecting you in any way by doing this.

It's people like his friend that result in the loss of unlimited data and higher prices for the rest of us.

 

[Looon]

It's people like his friend that result in the loss of unlimited data and higher prices for the rest of us.

Sorry buddy that's not how that works
AT&T said right in the letter that he uses more than 99.9% of the other customers
do you really think .01% of people can really make that much of a difference to the network overall? Stop being brainwashed and use your head

 

[RaceTripper]

Why are you so angry over this? His friend is not affecting you in any way by doing this.

Not other than doing his part to drive up costs which AT&T is happy to pass on to everyone else.

I'll bet the top 1% use what the other 99% do.

 

[macsrcool1234]

Sorry buddy that's not how that works
AT&T said right in the letter that he uses more than 99.9% of the other customers
do you really think .01% of people can really make that much of a difference to the network overall? Stop being brainwashed and use your head

AT&T has about 90 million customers. .01 of 90 million is 900,000. That means there 900,000 people using more than 50 GB of data a month. That is a LOT for a mobile operator.

It's not a secret that the top few customers use an extraordinary amount of bandwidth in any ISP (250,000 people use 90% of Comcast's total bandwidth for example.

The next time you post something so stupid, please take your own advice and use your head.

Not other than doing his part to drive up costs which AT&T is happy to pass on to everyone else.

I'll bet the top 1% use what the other 99% do.

Exactly. Unfortunately Looon has absolutely no idea what he's talking about

 

[Rodimus Prime]

A lot of people who are considered "heavy users" get these.
It's not a warning letter, just a reminder that AT&T has a lot of free hotspots available and they suggest you may want to try and use those when possible.

I would consider it a warning. I would not be surpised if they start looking at the tower data, and when it is being pulled. It is not hard for them to start detecting tethering and in that case they will crack down hard.

I think ATT should take a note out of T-Mobiles book. After a certain point on the unlimit people lock them out of 3G and force them to use EDGE and be trapped at EDGE speeds. Nothing in the contract says they can not do that.

If they leave AT&T will just say do not let the door hit you on the way out. They are costing AT&T money.

 

[dal20402]

do you really think .01% of people can really make that much of a difference to the network overall?

Yes, they can.

Each cell can accommodate only a certain amount of bandwidth at once. He's hogging a huge amount of it. Because of him, people around him probably are getting misconnected calls and slow webpages -- he is using 10 to 100 times as much as the people around him.

Unlimited data is stupid, because most of us pay more to subsidize people like that. We should be paying by the MB just like we pay by the kWh for electricity or the gallon for water; let the extremely heavy users pay their own way.

 

[Looon]

AT&T will charge the same regardless
look at texting costs versus how much it actually costs them.

 

[JCCL]

AT&T has about 90 million customers. .01 of 90 million is 900,000. That means there 900,000 people using more than 50 GB of data a month. That is a LOT for a mobile operator.

It's not a secret that the top few customers use an extraordinary amount of bandwidth in any ISP (250,000 people use 90% of Comcast's total bandwidth for example.

The next time you post something so stupid, please take your own advice and use your head.



Exactly. Unfortunately Looon has absolutely no idea what he's talking about

Dude before tell someone to use their head, learn some math. It is not 1% of users of heavy usage, it is .1 %. That would be .001 not .01, therefore, the number would come down to 90,000.......not really as bad as the 900,000 you originally posted.

 

[barkingDog]

... <snip> Does at&t have ulterior motives here? ... <snip>

Not sure. But there's a definite trend here. If you notice, this post • Here • shows a user to have received a letter with a 2GB figure, and a 98% of fellow users who don't exceed it.

The letter in this current thread states figures of 20GB and 99.9% of fellow users who don't exceed it. Interesting.

Trend is the key word here, me thinks.

 

[GoCubsGo]

And here I came in expecting an interesting letter.

 

[i3igsmooth5769]

Your friend deserves to have his contract terminated and should be charged separately for the data he used.

Seriously, people. If you're going to tether without paying, don't ****ing use it as a home internet connection and download multimedia files from it.

Tell your cheapass friend to get a job and buy a real connection.

This is what happens when you make jailbreaking so easy. Every moron in the world can jailbreak their phone (or another persons) and tether recklessly, ruining the network for the rest of us.

Lmao

 

[james92se]

Some of you guys are are seemingly trying to correct the OP by stating that it's not a "warning" letter. But the OP never said anywhere in his post that he considered it a warning letter. He merely said it was interesting. But thanks for the correction anyway?

 

[macsrcool1234]

Dude before tell someone to use their head, learn some math. It is not 1% of users of heavy usage, it is .1 %. That would be .001 not .01, therefore, the number would come down to 90,000.......not really as bad as the 900,000 you originally posted.

Thanks, good call. I knew something didn't seem right as I wrote that. But it absolutely does not change the point in my original post at all. 90k people using 50 or more GB on a mobile network is a lot of traffic.

 

[Pink∆Floyd]

Your friend deserves to have his contract terminated and should be charged separately for the data he used.

Seriously, people. If you're going to tether without paying, don't ****ing use it as a home internet connection and download multimedia files from it.

Tell your cheapass friend to get a job and buy a real connection.

This is what happens when you make jailbreaking so easy. Every moron in the world can jailbreak their phone (or another persons) and tether recklessly, ruining the network for the rest of us.

+1

Probably somebody took his jahb...lol

 

[thetexan]

If AT&T were smart they'd institute packet sniffing to determine what kind of traffic is being used on these heavy consumers and kick them off their network for tethering. It'd be a breeze to check the user agent of a browser, or to determine if those packets are torrent or Xbox live packets.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Your friend deserves to have his contract terminated and should be charged separately for the data he used.

Not if he has unlimited data. It says unlimited, he paid for it. Nothing wrong with it at all.

 

[rjohnstone]

Not if he has unlimited data. It says unlimited, he paid for it. Nothing wrong with it at all.

Not true.
Tethering is not permitted on the iPhone unlimited data plan.
If AT&T were to determine that the user was in fact tethering, they would have every right to charge the user for the data usage at Laptop Connect rates or simply terminate the contract.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Not true.
Tethering is not permitted on the iPhone unlimited data plan.
If AT&T were to determine that the user was in fact tethering, they would have every right to charge the user for the data usage at Laptop Connect rates or simply terminate the contract.

more so they can back charge him back to when he started plus all the overage charges then terminate his contract.