AT&T is Now Throttling 'Unlimited' Data Plans After 2GBs of Data Use

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Posted February 6, 2012 at 6:05pm by iClarified

AT&T is now throttling customers on unlimited data plans after they've surpassed 2GBs of data use, reveals John Cozen.

Cozen, an AT&T customer who had been grandfathered in to the 'unlimited' data plan with AT&T, was surprised to receive a high usage alert from the company after reaching only 2.1GB of data use. The alert informed him that he was in the top 5% of data users and would be subjected to near unusable speeds.

Thinking there was a mistake he contacted AT&T where he was informed that anything over 2GB is top 5%.

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, effective August 2011.

This is a pretty despicable move by AT&T to stay within their legal requirement to offer 'unlimited' data but at speeds so slow that you would be better off switching to a tiered data plan.

AT&T is Now Throttling 'Unlimited' Data Plans After 2GBs of Data Use

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justabrake - February 16, 2012 at 10:21pm

The explanations were explained by editor from mashable website on foxnews

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Nick - February 16, 2012 at 9:55pm

I shwtcied to one of the new 3 cell phone companies and went from $96/month with rogers to $42 a month including tax, unlimited data, unlimited long distance north american wide etc etc. It was the best decision I've made yet!

hmmm - February 7, 2012 at 9:56pm

So how is 2gb the top 5%? It sounds like 20% of the customers are being called the top 5%. If we ALL agree to use 4gb, essentially, we move the bar up, right? Let's all get together and use all of AT&T's bandwidth so they are forced to drop the stupid "top 5%" idea or to move the usage limit up

Akira - February 7, 2012 at 8:13pm

Can anyone post what they said or who they had to talk to in order to get the termination fees removed? I'd like to move to sprint

SXBB - February 7, 2012 at 5:31pm

just listening to Pandora for a few days will use up my ration of "unlimited" data. Rollover would be a lopsided compromise favoring ATT that I'd be willing to reluctantly accept. Otherwise I'll be looking for a Droid on another provider.

justabrake - February 7, 2012 at 4:31pm

I never got a warning bug lately I have had a hard time with YouTube anyone else notice this ?

Quest - February 7, 2012 at 11:41am

The wads like Tim Cook get paid $377 million a year. They need to take that money and increase the servers instead their forcing people to pay people like him even more money. Vote Democrat

Max - February 7, 2012 at 6:07am

I got limited at 2GB. I can still stream low quality audio, but during near lunch time the service slows so much!!! chat ok, e-mail ok, use Opera Mini for browsing. Sometimes no internet at all but not too often. AT&T... bleh

Aaronc - February 7, 2012 at 1:51am

I got a warning on Saturday, saying I was reaching 5% and I was only at 1.7gb

angel_92701 - February 7, 2012 at 11:43pm

same here, @ 1.6 i got the txt.

justabrake - February 7, 2012 at 1:12am

This sounds like a job for Chuck Schumer

Matt Sawyers - February 7, 2012 at 1:05am

Sounds like Onavo may be the way to go now...

Theahbal - February 7, 2012 at 12:58am

this is the problem guys at&t is offering us all to terminate at no charge I left to Sprint and their "Unlimited Data" was unusable it was just as slow as the throttled att so I went back had no choice they know what they are doing. Someone needs to put an end to this oh and no we cannot file for class action they changed the lingo in all contracts about 3 years ago. We can only pursue claims via Arbitration. Good luck guys, this sucks! at least go to the max tiered data plan! or somewhere in between 2GB is just unfair with all these apps using up my data it's just ridiculous and no I don't tether I was threatened by att and elected not to.

sirch - February 7, 2012 at 12:47am

im not sure why this is new, i posted about this over a month ago when i first got throttled after only hitting 2gb. raised some hell and got to talk to ATT " special team" and was very clearly told, that their cut off was 2gb and i asked about the top 5% and was told that it is what is and if i didnt like i could just switch to a tiered plan. I then asked what the throttle speeds would be and was told that, " its so slow most of your apps will not work unless your connected to wifi" my hope was since they raised their tiered plan to 3gb if they would also extend the throttled limit also

Wilfred - February 7, 2012 at 12:40am

Better call Saul!!!

Al - February 7, 2012 at 12:18am

This reminds me of voluntary deportation!!! Make using this plan such a pain so much so one will choose to leave to another carrier. I was also hit at 2GBs, When I called AT&T I was offered nil termination fee on my unlimited data line. I would like to get the iPhone 5 and not get locked into a new contract at the moment. AT&T what is your next move? Throttle the entire group of unlimited data users down is my guess. Why not just go to 3GBs for the same cost of unlimited? Because I refuse to be pushed around when it is me paying them money for a service.

Ben C - February 6, 2012 at 11:01pm

Happened To me last 3 days of my previous billing cycle, Then only 10 days into the current cycle. The phone is pretty unusable short of sending e-mails(up speed seems unaffected), Even receiving e-mails with attachments is pretty unbearable throttled. I had 13 months left on my existing contract; It took 3 separate 30+ minute conversations to AT&T until I found a service rep that was willing to terminate my contract and waive the early termination fee. I am now an unlimited sprint customer.

John Cozen - February 6, 2012 at 10:07pm

Hw about a link to my original post, iClarified? http://www.johncozen.com/2012/02/att-throttling-unlimited-plans-after-2gb-data/

Ben C - February 6, 2012 at 11:03pm

There is a link at the end of every article to the original (click on "Read More")

John Cozen - February 7, 2012 at 4:15am

oh cool, thanks!

justabrake - February 6, 2012 at 9:35pm

all we need is some smart lawyers that don't like there iphones being throttled down and maybe they'll start a class action lawsuit

Apple Jobs - February 6, 2012 at 9:22pm

Well! Do you think AT&T company in USA only??? Go shop around or switch to other company!!!

justabrake - February 6, 2012 at 9:14pm

Can't we have a class action lawsuit against them for throttling

edwin - February 7, 2012 at 12:53am

Let's start a class action suit against at&t and take back all the money they've been taking from loyal customers under false pretense

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