Users Help AT&T Figure Out "Throttling"

AT&T’s new plan to throttle access speeds of customers on grandfathered “unlimited” service plans seems to have been withdrawn. AT&T had planned to throttle users in the top-five percentile of usage at any specific location.

But AT&T now says it will now throttle 3G network  users after 3 GBytes of usage and LTE users after 5 GBytes of usage. The former plan meant users could not tell whether they would face throttling. Under the new plan, they in principle will know when the throttling kicks in.

The rules do not affect customers on AT&T’s current tiered service plans.

The change came after significant pushback from customers who properly objected that the rules did not allow people to protect themselves. Even lighter users might find themselves in a coverage area where their usage put them, temporarily, into the “top five percent of users.”

Essentially, users complained that there was no way to modify and regulate their own behavior and consumption to comply with the guidelines. AT&T now seems to agree.


Just an observation: sometimes users can help their service providers figure out fair ways to manage networks. Most users are not unreasonable about usage limits. But they do understand rule clarity and fairness. In this case, users helped AT&T craft a "better" policy, in the sense that users agree it is fair.