[Atrix 4G General] compuw22c:
Well, appears they jumped the gun early on this one. When they said they'd begin throttling in October they meant October. Meaning: I received the following text message:

"Your Data use this month places you in the top 5% of users. Use Wi-Fi to help avoid reduced speeds" at 11GB. I also received the following e-mail:

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Dear ME,

[FONT=&quot]Like other wireless companies, AT&T is taking steps to manage exploding demand for mobile data. We're responding on many levels, including investing billions in our wireless network this year and working to acquire more network capacity.

As mentioned on a previous bill, we're also taking additional, more immediate steps to help address network congestion and improve reliability. One of these steps involves a change for some customers who use extraordinarily large amounts of data in a single billing period - about 12 times more data than the average smartphone user.

For the current billing cycle, your data usage indicates you could be affected by this change. Here's how it works:

Smartphone customers with unlimited data plans may experience reduced speeds once their usage in a billing cycle reaches the level that puts them among the top 5 percent of heaviest data users. These customers can still use unlimited data and their speeds will be restored with the start of the next billing cycle.

We're writing because you are in the top 5 percent of heaviest data users for this billing cycle. Because we recognize that data usage can change from month to month, you will not see reduced speeds this billing cycle.

Beginning with your next billing cycle, we'll send you a text message if you are

approaching

the top 5 percent of heaviest data users. We'll also send you a second text message if you cross into the top 5 percent of heaviest users, at which point you may see reduced speeds for the rest of the month.

Customers have several ways to manage extremely high data usage.

Wi-Fi offers great speeds and doesn't add to your wireless data usage. Consider using Wi-Fi when possible for applications that use the highest amounts of data, such as streaming video apps, remote web camera apps, large data-file transfers (like video) and some online gaming.

You may also consider switching to a tiered data plan if speed is more important to you than having an unlimited data plan. Customers on tiered plans can pay for more data if they need it, and will not see reduced speeds.

To estimate how much data different activities use, and find out more about Wi-Fi or tiered data plans, visit https://www.att.com/dataplans or call Customer Care at 866-344-7584. [/FONT]

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So as you can see, they're really implementing this plan this month, with the consequences (for those who like myself, appear to have already used their grace period according to this e-mail) of throttling occurring next month. I will certainly be trying to stay on top of this and INTENTIONALLY get myself throttled next month to find out a) at what point this happens (if 11GB is the mark, or if they just turned the system on and I was past their mark of 5/7/8/10GB) and b) just how bad the throttling is.

I can make due with 500kbps if that's what they throttle to. 18kbps that I've seen on some T-mo users' throttled speed tests though, that's ridiculous and unusable.

I completely understand throttling at a tower level in an attempt to split the available bandwidth fairly between users. Given similar signal levels, all users connected to the same tower should be load balanced to approximately the same speed at a given time based on the amount of available backhaul bandwidth. HOWEVER, throttling my connection during non-peak times in low-load areas (4am in a chicago suburb) regardless of how much data I've used previously in the month doesn't help anyone. It's simply a method to squeeze more money out of customers for bandwidth that, lets be honest, once the lines are put in place (that are also owned by AT&T, the largest ISP in the world, possibly only second to comcast in the US) don't cost more to them to simply pass data across. Not to mention if they reduce you to edge service you're actually consuming MORE spectrum, not less, since it is so much less efficient.

The truth is carriers don't make money on voice anymore, and the 2 things that are easily the highest margin (texting for SURE which costs them basically NOTHING esp within a given carrier, and to a slightly lesser extent data) are what they're trying to rip people off with now. I miss the old days when the heavy talkers got taxed more... :(