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If you’re still boasting a grandfathered-in unlimited iPhone data plan, AT&T’s just effectively said they’re going to stop honoring it. If you use more than 2GB of data per month, AT&T will now throttle your data speeds down to completely unusable levels.
AT&T has been forecasting for a while its intention of throttling heavy data users if they fall within the top 5% of unlimited data users, and started sometime in December. When the first users were throttled, though, they were using 10GB+ of data a month… an excessive amount by most estimations (although again, AT&T has signed a contract with them promising them a la carte data, so hardly beyond the pale).
Now, though, unlimited customers who merely go over 2GB in a billing cycle are finding themselves tossed into AT&T’s data throttle hell.
Over on his blog, John Cozen describes his own experience being throttled at a mere 2.1GB a month. When he contacted AT&T, he was told firmly that there was no mistake, and that going over 2GB per month on his unlimited data plan automatically made him one of the “top 5% of data users.”
The only way to get his 3G speeds back? Predictably, AT&T wanted Cozen to change to a tiered data plan. And Cozen is not alone.
So here’s the new world order, AT&T “unlimited” customers. AT&T has decided that you may very well be an unlimited data customer, and recognize that by law they must honor their contract with you. However, they never promised you that you’d be able to get both unlimited data and fast data: you have to pick one or the other.
AT&T treating customers like dirt? What a surprise from the wireless provider voted worst carrier in the country for two years in a row. I smell a class-action lawsuit, frankly. This is just a complete insult to unlimited data customers, almost all of whom have been loyal customers since the original iPhone.
Has AT&T’s new data throttling policies affected you? What are you going to do about it? Let us know in the comments.
[teaser-top]Ma Bell is aiming to kill off unlimited data once and for all.[/teaser-top]
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