AT&T to throttle unlimited data plan users...

[tken]

Best place to post it is on the xda android forums. There is a skyrocket subforum, stick it in the general or qa section.

[Stryderjess]

Well I for one am mad as heIl. I hit 4gb yesterday and now I'm throttled from around 400kbs to about 45kbs, I use my phone alot for pandora and videos and now its useless. I will be going to sprint tomorrow to discuss options. AT&T just lost a customer that pays over $200 a month for 3 lines. That's over $2400 a year for the last 3 years. They can kiss my butt goodbye.

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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Stryderjess wrote:
Well I for one am mad as heIl. I hit 4gb yesterday and now I'm throttled from around 400kbs to about 45kbs, I use my phone alot for pandora and videos and now its useless. I will be going to sprint tomorrow to discuss options. AT&T just lost a customer that pays over $200 a month for 3 lines. That's over $2400 a year for the last 3 years. They can kiss my butt goodbye.

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read and understand sprints fair use policy as a word of caution, do not take the word of the retail sales person, it does not hold water for contractural agreements

[Wild Banchi ACE - Professor]

I think these Unlimited Data plans were a bad idea to begin with. It basically just tells the customer, "Gosh, I can use as much data as I want and there's no limit to it! How fantastic is that?!"

The throttling of data speeds would not be happening if people had been on limited plans years ago. That would likely have taught them to control their data usage and use their phone for what they really need it for. Also, the various activities available to use on the Internet are not contributing, either.

[dselevan]

Hi,

I purchased an unlimited plan so I would not have to monitor or control my usage as has been suggested in this thread. I purchased iTunes match so I could stream my entire music collection without having to worry about space on my phone. Now I get this e-mail from AT&T that I have exceeded their data limits. I have many questions about this, and AT&T cannot answer them. Their phone reps just have the limited information from the e-mail.  Am I in the top 5% of users for unlimited plans, or all users, including those who do not purchase data plans? Does the data usage that puts on in the top 5% change every month now that iTunes match is out and people are using cloud services for their media? Doesn't the switch to iCloud in general require large amounts of data to be streamed to my phone? How much will they slow down the phone? Will I still be able to use it for work if their is music being downloaded by iTunes Match in the background? I called at&t with these simple questions, and none of their representatives could answer them. After 10 years on a business plan with AT&T I am going to talk to my work tomorrow about getting on a Sprint or Verizon plan. Any suggestions on which is better? I am in Los Angeles. Plan on waiting for next iPhone, then paying the early termination fee. It will be worth the $150 termination fee to get onto a better plan anyway. Thank you.

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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dselevan wrote:

Hi,

I purchased an unlimited plan so I would not have to monitor or control my usage as has been suggested in this thread. I purchased iTunes match so I could stream my entire music collection without having to worry about space on my phone. Now I get this e-mail from AT&T that I have exceeded their data limits. I have many questions about this, and AT&T cannot answer them. Their phone reps just have the limited information from the e-mail.  Am I in the top 5% of users for unlimited plans, or all users, including those who do not purchase data plans? Does the data usage that puts on in the top 5% change every month now that iTunes match is out and people are using cloud services for their media? Doesn't the switch to iCloud in general require large amounts of data to be streamed to my phone? How much will they slow down the phone? Will I still be able to use it for work if their is music being downloaded by iTunes Match in the background? I called at&t with these simple questions, and none of their representatives could answer them. After 10 years on a business plan with AT&T I am going to talk to my work tomorrow about getting on a Sprint or Verizon plan. Any suggestions on which is better? I am in Los Angeles. Plan on waiting for next iPhone, then paying the early termination fee. It will be worth the $150 termination fee to get onto a better plan anyway. Thank you.

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be aware - verizon does not have a unlimited dta plan anymore, it was dropped about 6 months ago. Sprint is the only carrier in th etop 3 that still has a unlimited plan, but they do have a fair use policy in effect also. If you plan on waiting till the next Iphone it will be sometime next year before you change then. If you are currently runing a 4S you etf is going ot be a lot more then 150.00, the etf for a smartphone starts at 325.00 and goes down for each month

As far as better - neither, the built in limitations of the CDMA voice / data restrictions are unaccepteable for business use, the issue maybe resolve by the next release of the phone in the next couple of years but until then they are ot worth it. 

[dselevan]

I thought part of a free market society was the ability to take your business elsewhere. I've been a loyal customer for 10 years and am part of a business with over 150,000 employees. I have a hard time believing that Verizon would offer so little in the way of customer support.

[spd2demun ACE - Master]

I started out with them, and they were horrible, so much so that I resorted to outside *agencies* to get help (to no avail).

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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dselevan wrote:
I thought part of a free market society was the ability to take your business elsewhere. I've been a loyal customer for 10 years and am part of a business with over 150,000 employees. I have a hard time believing that Verizon would offer so little in the way of customer support.

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never dealt with verizon I take it - verizon dropped their unlimited data when the acquired the iphone recently

http://www.suntimes.com/business/6361043-420/verizon-drops-unlimited-data-for-new-customers.html

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/verizon-to-drop-its-unlimited-mobile-data-plan-july-7...

http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/21/technology/verizon_data_plan_changes/index.htm

Now this is a interesting find on sprint

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/analysis-will-sprints-lte-push-force-it-abandon-unlimited-data/2...

Granted the Sprint is is the 5th estate and it is speculation, but interesting no matter

[spd2demun ACE - Master]

Have to agree with you, WB; and I still blame iPhone!  This is like the all-you-can-eat buffet, and when you tell someone they've been to the bar 15 times, and that's too much...a big fight breaks out.  Actually, that has happened in the news--you advertise it's unlimited food, but some people don't know when to quit.

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Wild Banchi wrote:
I think these Unlimited Data plans were a bad idea to begin with. It basically just tells the customer, "Gosh, I can use as much data as I want and there's no limit to it! How fantastic is that?!"

The throttling of data speeds would not be happening if people had been on limited plans years ago. That would likely have taught them to control their data usage and use their phone for what they really need it for. Also, the various activities available to use on the Internet are not contributing, either.

---

[Wild Banchi ACE - Professor]

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spd2demun wrote:

Have to agree with you, WB; and I still blame iPhone!  This is like the all-you-can-eat buffet, and when you tell someone they've been to the bar 15 times, and that's too much...a big fight breaks out.  Actually, that has happened in the news--you advertise it's unlimited food, but some people don't know when to quit.

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Wild Banchi wrote:
I think these Unlimited Data plans were a bad idea to begin with. It basically just tells the customer, "Gosh, I can use as much data as I want and there's no limit to it! How fantastic is that?!"

The throttling of data speeds would not be happening if people had been on limited plans years ago. That would likely have taught them to control their data usage and use their phone for what they really need it for. Also, the various activities available to use on the Internet are not contributing, either.

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I'm glad you see it my way.

And I now have quoting privileges on this iPhone...hooray!

[Ekajduncan]

Ok throttling unlimited data users I understand by crippling it I don't. The speed reduction and @ what data usage it starts at is ridiculous. This needs to be addressed. After gb3 per billing cycle you have completely destroyed any web browsing features my phone is capable of. If you are in the same boat as myself speak up when need the reduction to be reduced to something not as slow as the current speed once meeting the data usage per month. Also can a AT&T rep please tell me how slow this throttling is, itcuts my normal 4g speed down to pretty much 56kbs.

[aristizzle]

its fast enough for email and web browsing, but any other data usage will be extremely slower like streaming music or videos or using applications.

[mikewho]

Yeah the data intensive stuff will slow down quite a bit. Emails and things should work well.

[scottymnyc]

Its not like an all you can eat buffet where people have taken 15 plates and been told to stop. It's like buyingan all you can eat buffet and being told you can only have one entree!

I understand there are abuses that may make some throttling needed.... BUT.... It just started and they are already threatening throttling at 2GB per month! And they are hiding behind vague definitions that give us no proof of what they say and them all the leeway to do whatever they want.

LIke I said, their service in NYC sucks. It is far worse than Verizon. I get dropped and no internet calls with full bars, a lot. I stuck with them for a new contract and this is my reward? Again, I believe that the bad phone service is enough to negate my early termination fee and if they continue with these low throttling thresholds I will definitley look into it and encourage others to do the same.

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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scottymnyc wrote:

Its not like an all you can eat buffet where people have taken 15 plates and been told to stop. It's like buyingan all you can eat buffet and being told you can only have one entree!

I understand there are abuses that may make some throttling needed.... BUT.... It just started and they are already threatening throttling at 2GB per month! And they are hiding behind vague definitions that give us no proof of what they say and them all the leeway to do whatever they want.

LIke I said, their service in NYC sucks. It is far worse than Verizon. I get dropped and no internet calls with full bars, a lot. I stuck with them for a new contract and this is my reward? Again, I believe that the bad phone service is enough to negate my early termination fee and if they continue with these low throttling thresholds I will definitley look into it and encourage others to do the same.

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Actually even a "all you can eat buffet" has a policy written into the reciept that allows them to right to cut you off if they feel you are abusing the buffet

[davidusr]

After talking to an ATT store manager the other day, about this throttling business, he informed me that "unlimited plan users, are being throttled once they exceed 4GB". He sourced an internal document he has. I asked about the users on here saying they are getting throttled just above 2gig, he just shrugged and said he didn't know what that's about. All he knows is what his memos state.

[scottymnyc]

right... abusing it would be like 15 plates.... maybe 30 GB, maybe less, maybe even 15GB

refusing you service after 2GB, the size of one entree in my analogy, is absurd!

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Actually even a "all you can eat buffet" has a policy written into the reciept that allows them to right to cut you off if they feel you are abusing the buffet

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[spd2demun ACE - Master]

Yup, and I've seen it in the news!

And VZN limits its customers as well, IIRC?  See they're now offering 4GB for the price of 2GB at $30 per mo., wow!

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wingrider01 wrote:

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scottymnyc wrote:

Its not like an all you can eat buffet where people have taken 15 plates and been told to stop. It's like buyingan all you can eat buffet and being told you can only have one entree!

I understand there are abuses that may make some throttling needed.... BUT.... It just started and they are already threatening throttling at 2GB per month! And they are hiding behind vague definitions that give us no proof of what they say and them all the leeway to do whatever they want.

LIke I said, their service in NYC sucks. It is far worse than Verizon. I get dropped and no internet calls with full bars, a lot. I stuck with them for a new contract and this is my reward? Again, I believe that the bad phone service is enough to negate my early termination fee and if they continue with these low throttling thresholds I will definitley look into it and encourage others to do the same.

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Actually even a "all you can eat buffet" has a policy written into the reciept that allows them to right to cut you off if they feel you are abusing the buffet

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[abenusa]

45kbps = 45,000 bps = 5,625 Bytes per second

5,625 Btyes * 60 sec. in a min * 60 min in an hour * 24 hours a day * 30 days a month and you get.... approximately  14,580,000,000 Bytes per month = 14.6GB per month.

The answer will be slightly different if you use 1024 for K, 1024K for M, and 1024M for G.

[scottymnyc]

All I can tell you is I got the email after I hit 2.1 GB this month and a csr spelled out in the email I quoted earlier in this thread that "around 2 GB" is when they would throttle speeds downwards.

a later email said this 

"After reviewing your inquiry, I would like to provide some additional information in reference to the Data Speed Impacts for the Top 5% of Smartphone Unlimited Data Plan Customers.
To give you a baseline - the average data use across the country by the top 5% of AT&T smartphone customers was 2GB per month, as of August 2011.

The amount of data usage of our top 5% of heaviest users varies from month-to-month and by market, based on the usage of others and the ever-increasing demand for mobile broadband services. "

They leave it completely unprovable so they can do whatever they want. 

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davidusr wrote:
After talking to an ATT store manager the other day, about this throttling business, he informed me that "unlimited plan users, are being throttled once they exceed 4GB". He sourced an internal document he has. I asked about the users on here saying they are getting throttled just above 2gig, he just shrugged and said he didn't know what that's about. All he knows is what his memos state.

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[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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scottymnyc wrote:

right... abusing it would be like 15 plates.... maybe 30 GB, maybe less, maybe even 15GB

refusing you service after 2GB, the size of one entree in my analogy, is absurd!

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Actually even a "all you can eat buffet" has a policy written into the reciept that allows them to right to cut you off if they feel you are abusing the buffet

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 nope, had a friend asked to leave after his 4th plate of all you can eat snow crab legs.

at the end of the day you have three choices,  adhere to the documented policy, switch to a tiered paln and pay for your overages, go to sprint for their unlimited plan with the fair use policy - if you choose sprint do the research becasue the 5th estate is reporting they will be dropping unlimited plans also - and their bandwith speed is poor to start with

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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spd2demun wrote:

Yup, and I've seen it in the news!

And VZN limits its customers as well, IIRC?  See they're now offering 4GB for the price of 2GB at $30 per mo., wow!

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wingrider01 wrote:

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scottymnyc wrote:

Its not like an all you can eat buffet where people have taken 15 plates and been told to stop. It's like buyingan all you can eat buffet and being told you can only have one entree!

I understand there are abuses that may make some throttling needed.... BUT.... It just started and they are already threatening throttling at 2GB per month! And they are hiding behind vague definitions that give us no proof of what they say and them all the leeway to do whatever they want.

LIke I said, their service in NYC sucks. It is far worse than Verizon. I get dropped and no internet calls with full bars, a lot. I stuck with them for a new contract and this is my reward? Again, I believe that the bad phone service is enough to negate my early termination fee and if they continue with these low throttling thresholds I will definitley look into it and encourage others to do the same.

---

Actually even a "all you can eat buffet" has a policy written into the reciept that allows them to right to cut you off if they feel you are abusing the buffet

---

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do a little more digging on that - the plan is a promotion and only avaialable for 4G based phones, being a promotion it can be pulled at any time

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/11/07/verizon.offers.4gb.data.for.30.dollars.from.nov.8/

[spd2demun ACE - Master]

I see, but they are more expensive than ATT and they cap...who doesn't?

[Highlanderx]

My issue with the throttling is a few:

1) No way to know how is the calculation done. If it's the month prior result and you get throttle cap on your next? or how is it calculated?

2) If you cap your highest 5%, that means:

Every month, the cap will go lower and lower, because there will be NO way to consume more as you are throttled sooner each month. It could get to the point where the CAP will be 2gb and after that throttle, which could be the reason why most people are being capped a tad over 2gb.

3) is the bare minimum we can consume unthrottled 2gb? What if ALL unlimited customers only consume 1gb? Will the cap hammer come at that point?

I understand you want to throttle 30gb people... maybe even 15gb people and get them down to a respectable level but the way it's being done looks a little bit shady AND arbitrary, which it shouldn't be.

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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Highlanderx wrote:
My issue with the throttling is a few:

1) No way to know how is the calculation done. If it's the month prior result and you get throttle cap on your next? or how is it calculated?

2) If you cap your highest 5%, that means:

Every month, the cap will go lower and lower, because there will be NO way to consume more as you are throttled sooner each month. It could get to the point where the CAP will be 2gb and after that throttle, which could be the reason why most people are being capped a tad over 2gb.

3) is the bare minimum we can consume unthrottled 2gb? What if ALL unlimited customers only consume 1gb? Will the cap hammer come at that point?

I understand you want to throttle 30gb people... maybe even 15gb people and get them down to a respectable level but the way it's being done looks a little bit shady AND arbitrary, which it shouldn't be.

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why are you claiming that very month the cap will go lower and lower? Looks like you don;t understand what is happening - the user that exceeds the top 5 percent for that billing cycle is capped, once the billing cycle has ended and the new one starts the cap is removed until that user exceeds the cap again, so it will never go lower and lower as you claim.

In no way shape or form is it shady, pull up the terms of service and fair use policy that has been in affect for years and that you agreed to either electronicly or phoysically when you got your device - it is all stated in there, so that elimitates your claim of "shady", arbitrary, now that I agree with - their infrastructure, their towers play by their rules or go to another carrier - if you can find one that does not have a fair use policy and the simple fact of still offering a unlimited data plan Of the top 3 carriers - Sprint is the only one that is left - if you review their policies you will see they have similiar rules in affect AND it is being reported that with the new bandwidht technology that is starting to roll out their unlimited plans may die also. One ofhter thing to factor in - tests have shown that even the throttled att users get better bandwidth speeds then sprint users get nornally.

[Wild Banchi ACE - Professor]

I believe that the ideal usage Unlimited Data customers should start being throttled at is around 5GB. People using more than that should definitely start being throttled. For those that are using several times that amount should be restricted to data access.

Anything under 5GB, I think is acceptable - especially 2GB. I feel that being throttled at 2GB is unfair because that's the amout tiered customers are being allowed and they are not being throttled. All they would be doing is paying more money for overage fees if they went over the 2GB limit.

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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Wild Banchi wrote:
I believe that the ideal usage Unlimited Data customers should start being throttled at is around 5GB. People using more than that should definitely start being throttled. For those that are using several times that amount should be restricted to data access.

Anything under 5GB, I think is acceptable - especially 2GB. I feel that being throttled at 2GB is unfair because that's the amout tiered customers are being allowed and they are not being throttled. All they would be doing is paying more money for overage fees if they went over the 2GB limit.

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2gb is actually logical if you think about it - it is the largest tiered plan that does not include tethering that att has now.

Tiered are not being throttled becasue if they go over the plan limit they are charged for a new block of 2GB

[Wild Banchi ACE - Professor]

I suppose that 2GB sounds fair since there is such a large gap between using 2GB and 5GB.

It's just silly that we're all arguing in this thread over something so simple as a data plan for smartphones. As long as people have one, they might as well be happy even if it's not completely what they wanted. They still have access to the cellular data network.

[Kingbaby]

this is dumb....

I continue what I do unless notified!