AT&T Throttling iPhone Data 'Hogs' Down To 2G Speeds

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lamorpa

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[citation][nom]rawful[/nom]I didn't intend to begin this kind of debate, especially not in a news article about AT&T's new policy. I believe myself to be an independent thinker as well. Historically,...[/citation]
I may not agree with all of your precises, the argument is well put. I guess I don't worry about it too much, because those with these kinds of sinister lives will live in a personal hell of their own creation, with themselves as the worst victims. It would be nice of more people worked for the common good, but you can only effect something like that by doing it more yourself...
 

Fusion777

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OK I'm going to come off like an AT&T apologist, and I'm not - trust me. But, here's my $0.02:

There are no networks on earth which offer unlimited bandwidth. The idea of an "unlimited" data plan is nifty, but unsustainable as bandwidth speeds increase. As a consumer, I hate tiered data plans, but accept their necessity.

As for throttling, it is reasonable to know when we as a customer will actually experience it - and given that ads virtually promise it, we do have a RIGHT to not be throttled at all. That said, the reality is any network which is saturated requires throttling. One would expect that paying more for more bandwidth would gauruntee its availability, but sometimes there's just none left. AT&T's only alternative - to go completely lessez-faire - would be to increase the COST of bandwidth as you used more. Yuck!!! But then again, fair, if you think about how the technology works.

I expect throttling to happen at some point, but I agree with the consensus that we as consumers deserve to know exactly when that will occur.
 

mrmike_49

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[citation][nom]jacekring[/nom]Let the free market work itself out...people will leave AT&T for other carriers when their plans are up, and then AT&T will have to do something drastic to gain consumer trust back.[/citation]

3 carriers does not make a free market
 

Raid3r

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I agree with a few on here. If a free market were in place then you can use the argument of free market. But there is not a free market to be held accountable it's all monopolies and their way or the highway. It's obvious the oversight from the power at hand is not doing it's job and is in fact increasing the pressure on it's populace to "deal with it-hahaha stupid thinker's"(or close to that).

Cry conspiracy when a set of value minded people speak up because it does not fit into your paradigm of if they can be rich then so can I as long as I do as they do. Obvious corruption is obvious. If you want to lead a corrupted lifestyle then settle on it and stop using red flag words to defend your position. At&t is the exact formula it was when they split and the big game player's who keep using the same lobbying will continue to do so. Just denying that they are not coddled by big B does not make it so.
 

Uberragen21

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This comes as a fact that AT&T executives know their infrastructure is crap, and the only way they can keep "reliable" service (and I say that with quotes because we all know AT&T's service is anything but reliable) to the rest of their customers is throttling the high usage customers. This will occur until AT&T upgrades their infrastructure sufficiently to handle all the smartphones being used. Sadly, they will most likely continue this data throttling long after they have upgraded their infrastructure.
 

Uberragen21

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[citation][nom]soldier37[/nom]You AT&T haters make me lol, Everyone I know that has Verizon hates them and their cs. Ive had AT&T since 2003 and no issues so go cry a river somewhere else.[/citation]
Actually I've had AT&T service in the past, and their customer service is horrible, not to mention their service blows goats. Verizon has been nothing but amazing for me. But hey, like I said before, enjoy your crappy AT&T service and leave us Verizon customers happy and amused.
 

phyco126

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I'm confused. Is AT&T getting rid of tiered data plans in favor of this new scheme, or are they going to implement this in addition to tiered data? If its the latter, it seems stupid to me to punish someone for using their data plan that they are paying an outrageous price for already.
 
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f you don't think Sprint will have to do the same thing eventually, you're kidding yourself.

so from this statement id say your way to young to remember when broadband frist came out.... these same companies tryed this crap on my generation when dsl and cable first hit the market.... and we didnt take it... the broadband carriers even begged congress to let them cap data saying it would be impossable to keep up with demand now that data could be downloaded at such high speeds....
Suprise, suprise... they survived and were capiable of providing great service as long as they invested in their network.... the providers who didnt, were like comcast with a monopoly in a area and they cap data... because they can.

wireless is the same argument, just 20 years later and it seems people are now stupid and gullable enough to believe these gready companies when they lie....
If there was proper competition in this country, AT&t would never get away with this....
 

enPhotic

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As I recall, Comcast suffered a class-action lawsuit over the exact same throttling practices. Granted they were mostly targeting torrent traffic, some of that traffic was still legal. They went as far as resetting my modem when the d/l speeds exceeded their comfort zone. I assume that smartphone traffic has a higher percentage legal content.
Guess I should be expecting a check from AT&T any day now..
 

DroKing

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[citation][nom]greeninil[/nom]How is AT&T making money from this? They are not billing more as in the B of A scenario. That's a poor analogy. Seems this is being done to protect the limited network capacity. The T-Mobile merger should help alleviate this issue.[/citation]

AT&T employee ^^ I bet because nobody with sane mind would say merger is a good idea.
 

sentinelspark

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Yet again the Corporate Greed. Will you all ever learn, its not about data or numbers its about control. If they know that people will buy into there scheme and just bitch about it. We have to boycott AT&T and Verizon. Cancel your service and when they tell you to pay a cancellation charge you can tell them, "You can shove it up your rich ***!!!!
 

cschuele

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What no one metions is that you could be on an UNLIMITED DATA PLAN and get throttled, yes AT&T still has people who are grandfathered in from the original iphone plans before they made it a 2GB limit.. I had that and switched to Tmobile and payed $80 fee to leave but I couldnt stand AT&T and my $100 phone bill for the lowest minute plan they offered
 

eddieroolz

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This is just disgusting. 2G speeds? Is AT&T so handicapped they can't even give 3G speeds (not 3.5/4G)?

Maybe instead of buying T-Mobile AT&T should spend that billions to improve customer service...oh...that would cut into their profits.
 

snurp85

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When figuring out the top 5%, are they including ATT customers who DO NOT have a data plan? Cause that would drop the resulting average data usage significantly... though this is something we will probably never find out.

Assuming ATT is only taking into account people who have data plans, couldnt everyone (with unlimited plans) just start streaming HD movies 24/7, thus increasing the average data usage? Though this would only work if the majority of people have unlimited data plans, which I highly doubt.

 
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i would really like to see how they calculate their 5% im being throttled after only 2gb, and i have never hit more than 3.5gb
 
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I talked to a rep yesterday and they said this program may end in late February because that is when her "specialized High Usage" department is going to get disbanded and integrated back into regular customer service.


Who knows if that's true, but she did sound knowledgeable
 
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