AT&T Begins Warning High-Volume Data Users of Upcoming Throttling

Really.

I was under the (mistaken) impression that when one pays for unlimited access, they get unlimited access.

Throttled access ≠ No access. And as always if you're dissatisfied, switch to Sprint. Voting with your wallet always works.

Interesting, being in the top 5% is relative. If the top 5% reduce their internet consumption then the data limit for being in the top 5% reduces. So the more you reduce your consumption the lower the overall limit decreases.

So if everyone is downloading only 1kb per month, and someone downloads 2kb then they would be in the top 5%.

I wonder if they have a 'lower' limit?

Seems reasonable to me, as much as I dislike AT&T.

Really.

I was under the (mistaken) impression that when one pays for unlimited access, they get unlimited access.

This is almost a perfect way of handling this. AT&T is still providing unlimited access (like they promised) just at a reduced speed so you don't degrade the service of 19 in 20 for the sake of the 1 in 20 who wants to download 10GB of data per month (compared the average user which is typically under 250MB).

Effectively the guy using 10GB of data per month is throttling everybody else's service downward since there is only so much network pipe. And regardless of what AT&T does there will always be only so much network pipe. The more you increase bandwidth the more people will consume. So they need to throttle people who are over-using it and they clearly can't give any sort of minimum guarantees on bandwidth since there are so many variables.

Howerver, the problem with this is that it can't just be the top 5% of users. It needs to be two conditions:
1) You are in the top 5% of usage
2) Your network usage is greater than X GB per month (say 4 or 5 GB)

Why? Because if all these folks in the top 5% reduce their usage next month by 10%, they will likely STILL be in the top 5%. That's how percentages work. If everybody using AT&T only used 2GB of data per month on their unlimited then the person in the top 5% would be the person who used 2.01GB.

So AT&T's current policy will eventually fail if the top users seriously start dropping their usage because they will all come down together and therefore the net effect is to ask them to drop even further the next month.

I personally think that if you are using less usage than their current premium data plan (e.g.: 4GB) that they should never subject you to this throttling. Since effectively the "unlimited" plan's closest equivalent in the new structure is the 2GB + 2GB tethering plan (i.e.: the current top premium data plan).

So this is a good first step from AT&T, but it comes up short in the long run if it actually is effective in getting folks to reduce their usage.

10 GB of data? Good lord.

Throttling sounds reasonable in this case.

Most people who have unlimited don't really need it anyway. It's one of those psychological things.

Seems reasonable to me, as much as I dislike AT&T. Every other ISP has fair use policies to prevent the select few from affecting everyone else.