TMCnet Feature

The number two U.S. mobile carrier AT&T (News - Alert) has recently started cutting its data speeds as part of an attempt to manage data usage on its network. In its newly implemented policy, AT&T may consider you to be in the top five percent of the heaviest cellular data users in your area.

According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, AT&T has 17 million customers with "unlimited data" plans that can be subject to throttling. In 2010, it stopped signing up new customers for those plans and warned that it would start slowing speeds for users who consume the most data.

On Applieinsider.com, AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said that the company doesn't actually throttle all of the top five percent of "unlimited" data users, but only about 200,000 people.

The most surprising aspect of this situation is how little data use it takes to reach that level. Customers who pay $30 a month for “unlimited data” may see their phones slow down just two weeks into the billing cycle after using just 2.3 gigabytes of data.

Users reported that if they call the company to ask or complain about the throttling, AT&T customer support representatives suggest they switch to the limited plan.

The unlimited plan worked well for AT&T a few years ago, when the iPhone (News - Alert) was new, because the company had large capacity on its network. Now, a majority of AT&T subscribers on contract-based plans have smartphones.

The limited data plans force users to monitor their data usag, so they don't overwhelm AT&T's network. Verizon Wireless has adopted similar plans; however, it differs from AT & T on how it manages the remaining "unlimited" subscribers.

Unless the cell tower is congested, Verizon (News - Alert) doesn't slow down the five percent using the most data, while AT&T users will find service slow for the rest of the billing cycle even when there are no other cell phones competing for the capacity of that particular cell tower.

T-Mobile (News - Alert) is up front about the level it starts throttling at, 5 gigabytes, while AT&T subscribers have no idea if they might be among the top five percent until their phones stop working properly.

On the other hand, Sprint (News - Alert) Nextel Corp. is hanging on to unlimited data plans without throttling, alone among the "Big Four" national wireless carriers.

AT & T is still providing unlimited data usage to throttled customers, even if the speeds are low enough to make the phone only workable for phone calls and text messages.