AT&T Acknowledges Throttling Unlimited Users

[Marshall Honorof]

If you have an unlimited data plan, AT&T can and will throttle you to unusable speeds if you exceed 5 GB in a single month.

AT&T Acknowledges Throttling Unlimited Users : Read more

 

[Christopher1]

Law-suit time. Seriously, unlimited means EXACTLY that.... no limitations on usage period and done with. AT&T needs smacked over this by the FCC and perhaps broken up over this.

 

[nxtnttt]

I have initiated the change to T-Mobile after learning this last month that AT&T applied this practice to my business account after almost 10 years being a loyal customer.

 

[LB23]

"Verizon does not throttle its remaining unlimited users." That is a lie and why I switched to T-Mobile.

 

[agentbb007]

If AT&T wants to throttle their unlimited plan users that is their business decision (a bad one IMHO) but they need to be upfront about how they are throttling so users know what to expect.

 

[thxext]

Shady Greed!

 

[maxpowerdwp]

AT&T Unlimited Plans don't have limits, they have 'thresholds.' That is what the CSR said when I called to complain.

 

[lancelot123]

AT&T Unlimited Plans don't have limits, they have 'thresholds.' That is what the CSR said when I called to complain.

Did you threaten to 'threshold' their mother? Cause you should have.

 

[lithium451]

Once again AT&T proudly trumpets it's position as the poster boy for anti-competitive, anti-consumer practices...thanks Randall!!

 

[pjmelect]

Although I can see the need for throttling heavy users, the limit of 5Gig is a joke, my usage is close to 40gig a month and I do not consider myself as being a heavy user. Watching TV online will eat 5Gigs very quickly.

 

[JamesSneed]

If you sell an unlimited plan then the customer should be able to pull 100% of the bandwidth 24/7. Some board lawyer should get a class action going and get the FCC involved. Its not the customers fault ATT sold unlimited plans and heavy users are the ones that jump on the unlimited plans Of course heavy users are on the unlimited plans wasn't that the sole purpose?. Reason 356 I don't like ATT these days.

 

[eriko]

I'm sorry, but this is product mis-representation, and is covered by existing laws.

I bought the top tier at my ISP, as I was aware the lower two (now three tiers) are throtteled during peak hours, for four hours, after either uploading, or downloading 3GB. So back in 2009, this translated into a terrible service, with 10Mb/s dropping to 2Mb/s, and the upload, which I need most, and was already small to begin with dropped similarly.

If they were to do that now (they told me I did over 400GB last month), I'd hand it over to my lawyer.

Ulimited, means umlimited. If you mean something else, then say something else. I'd go nuclear war on this one...

 

[Guest]

I'm glad to have an ISP that doesn't throttle my unlimited connection. They did send me a letter once, I had done about 1.5 TB that month, they told me I had 200 GB left for the month or they would cancel my account. Then I got another letter the next month, thanking me for being a good customer!

 

[wildkitten]

It's rather amusing to see some of the outrage by some. This is a known thing. And for those calling for lawyers, this isn't illegal. The reason it's not illegal is that cell towers can only support so many concurrent users at one time. Faster speeds means more people connected at once and cell carriers are allowed to manage their networks. The only spectrum that can not be throttled legally is the C block of 700MHz spectrum that Verizon owns, which is why they do not offer any sort of unlimited data any more.

AT&T as well as the other carriers that offer unlimited data packages are very upfront that they throttle after a certain number of GB per month so if someone didn't realize it, they paid no attention when they were signing their contract.

And for those of you who talk about watching TV and using hundreds of GB's per month, cell networks are not meant for this. Just because LTE speeds approach that of home broadband does not mean cell phones are intended for home broadband replacement. Just one person using it in such a manner can degrade performance for everyone else on that tower. It is merely a limit of the technology.

 

[wavetrex]

Wait.
Are we talking wired or wireless internet here ?

 

[DecafTable]

I used to work for T-Mobile Customer Care. It's no surprise that companies throttle data. Frankly, how could anyone not know this? Even cable ISP set limits in some cases. Honestly I'm just happy Time Warner in my area is truly unlimited in the sense. I use LTE with Verizon when I need it, but rely on my wireless internet at home for pure un-altered speeds.

You cannot always rely on speed test software either, as there have been reports of companies altering the statistics...

 

[neon871]

Verizon does the exact same thing, I am one of those users grandfathered in and the fist time I ever gone over (last month) 5 gig I was reduced to 35kps until next pay cycle. I never gone over 2 gig in 10+ years, I been using Pandora with my car Radio that caused the overage.

 

[Guest]

Unlimited =/= unthrottled.

Now if it says somewhere in the ToS that they will NOT THROTTLE users, then you have a case.

 

[Christopher1]

Unlimited =/= unthrottled.

Now if it says somewhere in the ToS that they will NOT THROTTLE users, then you have a case.

In your opinion. In the opinion of my lawyer boss's friend, who is also a lawyer who specializes in cases like this, you are splitting hairs.

 

[caughy]

These 3 or 5gb plans are ridiculous. Why have a smartphone if you can't use it as you wish? They take advantage of the average user's lack of knowledge of what gig even is. A billion sounds like a lot but is small in the context of data downloads. Now, what AT&T is doing is unsavory at best and illegal at worst. If you are grandfathered in as unlimited then you should receive unlimited 4g data. It is a slippery approach to switch the user over to the 2g network when 5gb is used in a month.