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

[RicoLX]

Yep I use my phone for business as well, and both calls and data usage goes up. I never tether either... and thats why interested in your discussion so to see if an explanation gets'n posted for why they sent that notice of threatening to swap your plan because of tethering.

It sounds to me there are some kinks in the system and "dayam" if you get one of the kinked messages a.d trying to convince att that you are not. They seem not to have this process wel in place, but rather, "any" usage that moves the needle gets a flag-type of situation....not good.

[jachmar15]

Exactly, they have no clue what they are doing.  They openly admit they can tell im not abusing the data by tethering or anything like that yet they dont want to do anything about it.  Its garbage

[RicoLX]

Something definitely should be done, thats for sure. This is what happens when,the gov allows one or two companies to monopolize.

[jachmar15]

Another quick tid bit. all those att apps that come installed like maps and driving and yellow pages etc.. will go out about once a week and download about a gig of data for you.

[RicoLX]

YUP! thats why I yanked whst little att g l o a t was on my non-att purchased device.. Its a sneeky way to eat what they already limiting you.

[jachmar15]

exactly. i just havent had a chance to root the phone to get rid of them.

[jachmar15]

Another interesting tidbit for you rico incase you didnt see my other post.
They tell you hundreds upon hundreds of email and hundereds of text and hours upon hours. In real life, 10 normal emails a day, 10 emails with attachments, 1 hour of pandora a day, and 20 minutes of youtube a day with no web pages viewed, app, games or songs dowloaded or facebook/myspace photos uploaded and your at 2gigs............

[Jamus75]

Got the warning text today. I'm at 9 gig so far with 4 days left. This is how AT&T deals with those of us who have unlimited data plans. If u pay extra on your tiered data plan u will not be throttled but because we only pay 30/ month we get punished. I am disgusted by AT&T and will not be renewing my contract with them after 10 years of service. I'm looking at how I can opt of my contract early due to AT&T breaching it. I don't believe I'm in the top 5%. I think this is a lie and whoever has unlimited data an exceeds 5 gb will probably end up getting the same threat. They cannot produce any proof to me that I did, said the computer knows. Well someone monitors this. Everyone affected needs to file a complaint with the FTC so that maybe however doubtful something may be done about this.

[RicoLX]

Y UP. this is howthey will either force you to give it up or make it where its not worth keeping.

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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Jamus75 wrote:
Got the warning text today. I'm at 9 gig so far with 4 days left. This is how AT&T deals with those of us who have unlimited data plans. If u pay extra on your tiered data plan u will not be throttled but because we only pay 30/ month we get punished. I am disgusted by AT&T and will not be renewing my contract with them after 10 years of service. I'm looking at how I can opt of my contract early due to AT&T breaching it. I don't believe I'm in the top 5%. I think this is a lie and whoever has unlimited data an exceeds 5 gb will probably end up getting the same threat. They cannot produce any proof to me that I did, said the computer knows. Well someone monitors this. Everyone affected needs to file a complaint with the FTC so that maybe however doubtful something may be done about this.

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You might want to trry reading the terms of service,  pay particualr attention to the fair use policy that is part of every carriers agreement - from Sprint to the lowly Cricket, so there really is nothing to do about it, the agreement is already there and is being enforced. Full expect at one point for them to remove the grandfathered status of the unlimited smartphone data and jus flat not let it transfer to a upgrade, same way they did with mandatory data plans for smartphones, modify the clause to tie to teh device and not the number

[RicoLX]

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jachmar15 wrote:
Another interesting tidbit for you rico incase you didnt see my other post.
They tell you hundreds upon hundreds of email and hundereds of text and hours upon hours. In real life, 10 normal emails a day, 10 emails with attachments, 1 hour of pandora a day, and 20 minutes of youtube a day with no web pages viewed, app, games or songs dowloaded or facebook/myspace photos uploaded and your at 2gigs............

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And as you can see, this is just another way for att to squeeze unlimited from the customers that , upt to know  have held onto it. So they "modify" and revamp their terms and conditions around their efforts to remove it or make it not worth having .  They know they cant just "take" it, so, instead , they "technically put you in the 2G bucket" by their adjusted means for usage.

Jackmar15 you fight the charges and let us know your results.

[jachmar15]

Im affraid i can fight it all i want but the outcome will be the same. Im going to end up opting out of my contract for a breech of terms on there part. While they dont guarantee your data speeds they do guarantee the data and they have slowed me down so much that i cant get on a website and even the android market times out. So unless a backdoor way comes around i will end up swapping and having my boss take the other 15 phones with me.

[RicoLX]

How is the "throttled" performance while linked into a wi-fi connection? So we are back to the "nations fastesr network" as long as you use "someone elses juice"... Still dont sto speaking your mind about the issue.

[jachmar15]

As long as you use wifi your good to go. Problem is, we dont have wifi on construction sites. If im on the road i dont have it either. It was nice to be able to be on the other side of the country and still get to see my little boy but now i cant even do that unless i find wifi.

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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jachmar15 wrote:

Im affraid i can fight it all i want but the outcome will be the same. Im going to end up opting out of my contract for a breech of terms on there part. While they dont guarantee your data speeds they do guarantee the data and they have slowed me down so much that i cant get on a website and even the android market times out. So unless a backdoor way comes around i will end up swapping and having my boss take the other 15 phones with me.

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Going to have a hard time proving breech of contract, first they have always had a fair use policy and the grandfathered data plan is not part of your contract so is not included in that

[RicoLX]

Jachmar, its your contract and your account, you be diligent in your analysis and keep this open as a ticket till you get some help. Yes, its going to be hard proving when att isnt giving you the info you are requesting that they cant back up the charges.. So keep working on it regardless of how hard it may be.

[RicoLX]

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jachmar15 wrote:
As long as you use wifi your good to go. Problem is, we dont have wifi on construction sites. If im on the road i dont have it either. It was nice to be able to be on the other side of the country and still get to see my little boy but now i cant even do that unless i find wifi.

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Yes I figured , it would take wifi to push the data on an "unlimited" plan. I can see very well how and why so many customers get so upset with att, for their network structure. Gladly, they are upgrading the network as we speak , so thats good news... Lets hop att doesnt need to piggyback off of our home and work wifi so much in the future

[spd2demun ACE - Master]

And then there's the issue of capping home HSI, regular DSL is already doing it, Uverse capping has been delayed.  But could a smartphone even handle enough data on a home network to be capped?

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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spd2demun wrote:

And then there's the issue of capping home HSI, regular DSL is already doing it, Uverse capping has been delayed.  But could a smartphone even handle enough data on a home network to be capped?

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Uverse is probably the only higher end provider that is not doing it yet, charter caps, if you violate the cap more then a specificed number of times they cancel your account,  the otehr broadband carriers are doing the same thing,

[spd2demun ACE - Master]

I know, and it was supposed to start, but the meter still isn't running...not complaining there.

But data is being throttled or capped everywhere, nowhere to hide.

[RicoLX]

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spd2demun wrote:

And then there's the issue of capping home HSI, regular DSL is already doing it, Uverse capping has been delayed.  But could a smartphone even handle enough data on a home network to be capped?

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Just a way to make more money and deliver a.smaller package like you see in the grocery stores. Att brags about all this spectrum they are "sitting on" yet back in 3G days u had to piggyback off of your home dsl to experience a decent connection... Same today , but nlw that they are "tapping" into some of this treasure trove of network on reserve, yes, the network in our area is moving fast without the need of wifi, but now ur getting capped if you use it...contradiction

[jachmar15]

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wingrider01 wrote:

Going to have a hard time proving breech of contract, first they have always had a fair use policy and the grandfathered data plan is not part of your contract so is not included in that

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Wont be that hard, even one of there tech guys said the reason i cant get on the internet or the android market 98% of the time is because i have been throttled down to slower than dialup speeds.  Like i said, they never guaranteed me my data speed but they did guarantee me that i would have the data available for use.  They have essentially taken that away from and im paying for something i cant use. 

[RicoLX]

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jachmar15 wrote:

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wingrider01 wrote:

Going to have a hard time proving breech of contract, first they have always had a fair use policy and the grandfathered data plan is not part of your contract so is not included in that

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Wont be that hard, even one of there tech guys said the reason i cant get on the internet or the android market 98% of the time is because i have been throttled down to slower than dialup speeds.  Like i said, they never guaranteed me my data speed but they did guarantee me that i would have the data available for use.  They have essentially taken that away from and im paying for something i cant use. 

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I am glad you see that Jachmar, again, it a way to make us give up the unlimited and take one of their tiered moneymakers

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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jachmar15 wrote:

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wingrider01 wrote:

Going to have a hard time proving breech of contract, first they have always had a fair use policy and the grandfathered data plan is not part of your contract so is not included in that

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Wont be that hard, even one of there tech guys said the reason i cant get on the internet or the android market 98% of the time is because i have been throttled down to slower than dialup speeds.  Like i said, they never guaranteed me my data speed but they did guarantee me that i would have the data available for use.  They have essentially taken that away from and im paying for something i cant use. 

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harder then you think, fair sue policy has been around for years and it is a grandfathered plan

[RicoLX]

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jachmar15 wrote:

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wingrider01 wrote:

Going to have a hard time proving breech of contract, first they have always had a fair use policy and the grandfathered data plan is not part of your contract so is not included in that

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Wont be that hard, even one of there tech guys said the reason i cant get on the internet or the android market 98% of the time is because i have been throttled down to slower than dialup speeds.  Like i said, they never guaranteed me my data speed but they did guarantee me that i would have the data available for use.  They have essentially taken that away from and im paying for something i cant use. 

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Jachmar, please post your.progress here and share with those who will benefit from your experience. I appreciate your not takimg it for what att says anf as a paying customer seeking answers and clarification... Keep up the good work.

[Jamus75]

So I called AT&T today to complain about the throttling threat I received yesterday. Basically they said they were right and I was wrong. They even offered to cancel my 4 lines of service with an early cancellation fee of course. I stated they didn't understand the definition of unlimited and that if they throttled me to the point of where I could not use services such as Netflix, that they were indeed limiting my unlimited data. And he shoots back I still have unlimited but I have slower access to it. Potato pototto. Well my point was that if my connection is slowed to a crawl, services such as Netflix and pandora will fail to function, in turn limiting my access to my unlimited data. They replied same answer time and time again. Stating they have the right to cancel and modify anything anytime. Also to point out he stated that 95% of people only use 2 gig or less a month. Wow just so happens 2 gig is the exact amount of the tiered data plan. So anyone with unlimited who exceeds 2 gig will essentially be in the top 5%. Of course no proof of these numbers can be given. The reason this person said AT&T is doing this is to fix network congestion. This is complete and total garbage for 2 reasons. 1. This only applies to people with unlimited who pay 30/month. If u are on a tiered plan and pay the 10/gig extra you can hog all you want 20gig a month or more. So as long as you pay more u get more. 2. They let me congest their network for the first 25 days of my cycle and then start worrying about it for the last 5? Makes no sense at all. AT&T please quit lying to us and say its all about money, please. It's okay to hog the network as log as you pay more to do so.

[abenusa]

Out of curiosity, how MUCH data did you actually use? How much do you typically use per month?

[Jamus75]

I use around 10-12 gig a month. Not too much in my book. I don't have wifi at work but I do at home. Usually download and update on wifi. But I stream Netflix and pandora radio as I have the right to

[abenusa]

It is the streaming of Netflix that is probably cosuming the the most data.  Consuming 10-12 GB of data is probably about 5 times the data of a normal user.  As for being able to cosume data at full speed, and being throttled back the last 5 days, it is probably all balanced out by many heavy users that get throttled.  As customer bill periods all start at a different day of the month.

Here is the deal:  You are getting unlimited data. AT&T made no promise as to the SPEED that you would always get.  AT&T has to provide a good experience to everyone, so one way to do this, is to throttle back the heavy users.  AT&T is not the only company doing this.  Online data backup services that offer an "unlimited" amount of data that can be backed up, are doing the exact same thing.  They throttle the speed as you backup more and more data.  Cable companies are starting to do the same thing, and some are doing the extreme measure of data caps.

And before anyone goes off that wireless companies are "greedy", the main issue is not necessarily money.  There IS only so much bandwidth available.  Can more towers be put up and make the cell size smaller?  Sure, but it is not a quick process.  It can take over a year or more to get permits and get the tower up and running.  So the short term solution and to manage growth is to thottle users.

So what is the heaver user "magic number?"  We know it is more than 2GB and less 12GB.  5GB maybe?

[wingrider01 ACE - Geek]

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Jamus75 wrote:
I use around 10-12 gig a month. Not too much in my book. I don't have wifi at work but I do at home. Usually download and update on wifi. But I stream Netflix and pandora radio as I have the right to

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10 - 12 GB a month? Slight overage, utilize a iphone for business, average 100-250 emails a day with attachments, rarely go over 3gb in a given month, about the only time I do is when I am on a extended trip and have multiple webex's to attend. Suspect that is considered "excessive", you are right you do have the right to do this, but in turn the crrier has the right to impose limitations