Confirming far-flung rumor , AT&Tannounced late on Fridaythat it will begin throttle information throughput for weighty user of its outright smartphone data design start on October 1 .
grant to AT&T , datum throttling will affect only those smartphone customers on an unlimited data programme who decrease into the top 5 percentage of datum wasting disease . Once users are count among that number , their data speed will be reduced , but their overall capacity wo n’t be touched — they can still consume as much data as they desire , just at a dense speed .
The carrier is n’t alone in that decision . In February , Verizon Wireless announcedit too would throttle the top 5 percent of its smartphone data users . At the clip , Verizon was offering unlimited datum program ; earlier this month , it switched to a tiered framework alike to AT&T.
An AT&T spokesman toldMacworldthat it is n’t specify a toilsome and dissipated data threshold that will signal the speed diminution — likely because datum consumption patterns will reposition from month to month . That seems to think of that the top 5 per centum of smartphone customer in any given calendar month will likely see their data speeds throttled , despite how much data they actually use . However , in its statement on the matter the letter carrier says it will provide notices and a blessing period before imposing the speed reductions , and the customers will find their data speed returned to normal at the beginning of the subsequent billing period .
AT&T point to specific type of data most likely to trigger gamey level of datum consumption , such as pullulate very large amounts of picture and audio and channelize large files over the cellular web . The ship’s company suggests rather using Wi - Fi for these purposes , especially since its customers get free memory access to the company ’s meshing of 26,000 hotspots around the country .
This is n’t the first metre AT&T has tried to get unlimited data customers to shift to its tiered data point plans , which it acquaint last summer . Prior to then , unlimited information was the norm for iPhone customers ; upon tweaking its plan , AT&T also enclose the much - awaited power to tether the iPhone ’s 3 gibibyte connection to a laptop — but only for user of its tiered plan .
consort to AT&T , the conclusion to throttle the overweight data users is part of a plan to combat “ a serious wireless spectrum compaction . ” Data throttling is only one part of the moves AT&T tell it is making , with the caller also indue money in building our its wireless connection as well as seek to “ larn additional connection mental ability . ”
If you took that as a not - so - obscure reference to AT&T ’s effort to buy rival immune carrier T - Mobile , well , AT&T ’s not exactly being shy about trying to force back the point home . The company concludes its announcement by saying that “ Nothing short of completing the T - Mobile merger will put up additional spectrum mental ability to address these cheeseparing term challenge . ” It ’s a jab that ’s clearly intended to bring home the bacon ammunition to help push the proposed mergerthrough the political science approval process .
