After years of customer complaints which culminated in an FCC complaint last October, AT&T has officially ended its practice of automatically throttling unlimited data customers after using a specified amount of data, 3GB per month for 3G customers and 5GB for 4G LTE customers, respectively. AT&T’s amended policy is below and select parts bolded for emphasis:
As a result of AT&T’s network management process, customers on a 3G or 4G smartphone or on a 4G LTE smartphone with an unlimited data plan who have exceeded 3 gigabytes (3G/4G) or 5 gigabytes (4G LTE) of data in a billing period may experience reduced speeds when using data services at times and in areas that are experiencing network congestion. All such customers can still use unlimited data without incurring overage charges, and their speeds will be restored with the start of the next billing cycle.
The previous policy included automatic throttling regardless of phone type and led to customer complaints, as AT&T continued to attempt to force the minority of customers still using unlimited data plans onto potentially more expensive plans with specific monthly data allotments and additional charges for data overages.
