AT&T has adjusted its data-throttling policies in an attempt to make heavy data users (a bit) happier.
The carrier will allow those with unlimited data plans to consume up to 22GB of data per month until their Internet access is throttled. Unlimited data plan customers will get an alert when they reach 75 percent, or 16.5GB, of their monthly limit.
AT&T didn't say how slow speeds will be after the 22GB mark is hit, but it's typically in the 2G speed range. AT&T previously throttled access at 5GB of usage for customers on 4G LTE and 3GB of usage on 3G networks, though it tweaked that a bit in May to only throttle during peak times.
The move may help AT&T partially sidestep complaints that have long followed its data-throttling rules. As AT&T and other carriers have attempted to phase out unlimited data options with new plans, some customers have stubbornly clung to the grandfathered plans. In some cases, certain customers use massive amounts of data, leading some providers to scale back speeds. In AT&T's case, some customers could see their connections drop to as low as half-a-megabit per second.
Last year, AT&T was sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for allegedly misleading customers. The government agency argued that it was inappropriate for AT&T to promote "unlimited" plans that were in fact throttled after certain usage limits were hit. In June, the Federal Communications Commission then fined AT&T $100 million for the same thing.
For its part, AT&T stays far from the "data throttling" nomenclature, instead calling it "network management." In a statement on Tuesday, the company said that its network management is an attempt to "provide the best possible experience for all of our customers" and is in line with "common industry standards," adding that they're especially useful during heavy usage periods "when network demand exceeds available network resources."
To further make its point, AT&T shared statistics showing that over the past six years, its wireless data traffic has grown by 30,000 percent, due in large part to the rapid adoption of data-hungry smartphones.
It's worth noting that AT&T is not alone in trying to throttle data. In October, Verizon Wireless canceled plans to throttle its heavy data users after facing criticism from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.
Source: pcmag.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment