AT&T Unlimited Data

[RaulF]

Ill just chime in here and say that I used 6.5GB of data last month and have received no such text or throttling.

So I'm not sure exactly where people say that 2-3GB is the cutoff point for the top 5%.

Same boat as you.

I usually go from 3 to 6 GB.

Never gotten anything. Last week I traveled to Lynchburg VA a college town. And while there I guess I went over 2 GB (looked online) and I got the text and email .

Needless to say I was pretty pissed since they just announced their new 3 GB plan. I called them up and asked what was going on. They gave me the usual pep talk about the 5%. Once I mentioned that this was actually not as high as I usually get he said that the pool of data varies by market locations.

I guess getting connected to the tower in Lynchburg with all the college kids send a flag on my account. Will see in the next few months if I still get tag while I am back home.

I do find it funny that everyone going over 2 GB on the unlimited seems to be getting the warnings right after they put the new packages into effect. They keep this shit up and I will just freaking drop my cell phone service all together, I don't really need it. Just nice to have.

 

[gorcorps]

I dropped mine when they came out with cheaper plans that had enough data for me. I regret it to this day... should have kept it. Not enough money savings.

 

[bearxor]

I kind of had a hunch that it might be sorted by market. I can't imagine even 2GB would be top 5% of users in a college town, though. Almost seems like instead of saying its the top 5% of users, they're actually throttling based on congestion.

I'd call when I got back gone and make sure that I wasn't throttled now that I was in a new market.

 

[gorcorps]

I kind of had a hunch that it might be sorted by market. I can't imagine even 2GB would be top 5% of users in a college town, though. Almost seems like instead of saying its the top 5% of users, they're actually throttling based on congestion.

I'd call when I got back gone and make sure that I wasn't throttled now that I was in a new market.

There's wifi everywhere, especially in college towns. The school itself, most restaurants, coffee houses, etc all have wifi. Why burn your own data when you can use somebody else's?

 

[bearxor]

There's wifi everywhere, especially in college towns. The school itself, most restaurants, coffee houses, etc all have wifi. Why burn your own data when you can use somebody else's?

I can't speak for the person that said they were in a college town, but living in a college town now, there's not WiFi everywhere. Maybe in much larger metro areas, that might be true so I guess it just depends on that.

And I almost never use WiFi that's not mine. There are a few reasons but, mostly, I've found random WiFi spots to be not exactly stable. I guess this depends on your location but my experience is terrible. They'll have ports blocked that I need to use for work, or the connection is metered and impossibly slow or something else.

The last place I stayed at for work was in Waco and Temple, TX. I stayed in 5 different hotels. All of them had WiFi but every single one had it metered at 384Kb/s. It was terrible. Like this one company had won a contract to install the WiFi equipment. I tried 3G, which was better, but only about 2Mb/s. At one of the places I needed to connect to my VPN and couldn't do it over 3G. I pulled my MBP out and hooked it up wired and created a wifi network on it. 5Mb/s. so I know the hotels Internet connection wasn't terrible and they were purposely metering wifi connections.

Reminds me I need to buy a Airport Express or a Linksys travel router.

 

[Hogan773]

But even if she goes over twice a year, you're still saving $80/yr

But, you said:
"My wife is on iPhone unlimited plan w/ AT&T. She uses 100-200mb data per month consistently and never more."

yeah I hear you - and it probably is the right option - but 100 megs buffer seems tight in case something happens with her usage pattern that changes. The problem with that lower tier is the extra TWENTY bucks charge. They should sell you another 300 megs for 10 bucks or something.

But you're right - its probably a good gamble to save the extra 5 each and every month as long as she doesn't have a step-change in her usage pattern.

 

[lothar]

Is anyone on AT&T's unlimited data with LTE also getting these notifications?
I'm just asking because it doesn't seem like Verizon is sending these notifications to those using 50+GB on a monthly basis that are on their LTE network with unlimited plans.

Maybe it's just a "non-LTE" thing. Maybe it's just an AT&T thing.

 

[Red Storm]

Is anyone on AT&T's unlimited data with LTE also getting these notifications?
I'm just asking because it doesn't seem like Verizon is sending these notifications to those using 50+GB on a monthly basis that are on their LTE network with unlimited plans.

Maybe it's just a "non-LTE" thing. Maybe it's just an AT&T thing.

AFAIK Verizon only throttles if you use a crazy amount on 3G. They seem to be perfectly fine with crazy high LTE usage (for the time being).

 

[RaulF]

There's wifi everywhere, especially in college towns. The school itself, most restaurants, coffee houses, etc all have wifi. Why burn your own data when you can use somebody else's?

Believe it or not, i actually can browse faster on ATT 3G back home and most places than under wifi.

My average 3G download is 4Mb or so, my average upload is 2Mb.

Unless i am on my personal home wifi i can use the net much better on 3G than free or ATT wifi hot spots. They usually top out @ 1Mb and you have to deal with congestion with all the other users.




Something i forget to mentioned. While i was talking to the ATT guy i asked how slow it would get throtle if you go over, and he said it would be so slow that you could not do any type of streaming, pretty much like dial up was his exact words.

 

[tHa ShIzNiT]

I'm a couple days behind on this one but...I just re-established a 2 year relationship with AT&T and I have a new LTE phone. This is really, really bad news to hear about this. I dont even know what my data usage is off-hand but before LTE I was using around 2GB. Now I am going to want to stream more stuff since...well, I can. And THIS is what's going to happen to me? *Possibly*

I'm really mad to hear about this, if this happens to me I'm gonna call them with feelings of great vengeance and furious anger.

My question is, is this grounds to break my 2 year agreement without the ETF? I'm sure it isnt...they'll probably just screw me over nomatter what...But they arent providing me the service I paid for if this kinda crap is happening.

Edit: Also, I'm not tethering at all, I just want to stream pandora at work...and frankly since I paid for unlimited I just dont even want to think about going over a certain amount of data. I dont even want to worry about it. I guess thats too much to ask.

 

[gsaldivar]

Are these people using thier phone as their home ISP and streaming Netflix/Hulu, and torrenting? Honestly, it's those people that ruin it for everyone else.

This.

 

[lothar]

I'm a couple days behind on this one but...I just re-established a 2 year relationship with AT&T and I have a new LTE phone. This is really, really bad news to hear about this. I dont even know what my data usage is off-hand but before LTE I was using around 2GB. Now I am going to want to stream more stuff since...well, I can. And THIS is what's going to happen to me? *Possibly*

I'm really mad to hear about this, if this happens to me I'm gonna call them with feelings of great vengeance and furious anger.

My question is, is this grounds to break my 2 year agreement without the ETF? I'm sure it isnt...they'll probably just screw me over nomatter what...But they arent providing me the service I paid for if this kinda crap is happening.

Edit: Also, I'm not tethering at all, I just want to stream pandora at work...and frankly since I paid for unlimited I just dont even want to think about going over a certain amount of data. I dont even want to worry about it. I guess thats too much to ask.

Use 5GB on your LTE unlimited plan this month and let us know if AT&T sends you a nasty gram or throttles you.