Sometimes it’s as if the wireless carriers WANT you to be disgruntled with them.
Per iLounge, AT&T has begun to throttle—or downgrade the data speeds of—customers on unlimited data plans that go over 2GB in data usage for the month.
As AT&T customer John Cozen wrote on his blog, “I received a message during my last billing cycle, warning I was in the top 5% of my region and would experience reduced data speeds next time I reach that level of data use. I immediately checked my data usage on the AT&T iOS app. 2.1 GB. Less than I expected considering AT&T offers a 3GB plan for US$30 a month. The same amount I’ve paid for the unlimited data plan since signing up with them many years ago. AT&T no longer offers an unlimited data plan, anyone still on it has been grandfathered in.”
“Data consumption by all smartphone customers, including the top 5 percent of smartphone data customers, varies by month and by market,” said Emily Edmonds, Director, AT&T Corporate Communications. “As of August 2011, the average data use across the country by the top 5 percent of AT&T smartphone customers was 2 GB per month.”
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available and if you’ve seen this change on your end, please let us know in the comments.
2 replies on “AT&T begins data throttling on “Unlimited” data plans at 2GB mark”
The word unlimited was apparently only a marketing term. It’s not as if carriers will actually provide unlimited use of their expensive wireless broadband after the ink is dry on the contract. Speaking of contracts, at what point have they failed to uphold THEIR end of these unlimited plans? Lack of useable signal? Charging extra for tethering? Throttling? How about I only pay half of my bill next month AT&T?
No matter how much or little data people use, there will always be a ‘top 5%’. This is just a technique to get people to move people from their unlimited plans to plans with limits [as their unthrottled data limit gets lower and lower each month].