AT&T Tweaks Throttling for Unlimited Data Users

If you're on AT&T, and you've been clinging to your grandfathered unlimited data plan, you've probably been irked by the fact that the plan actually throttles you after you eat up a certain amount of data.

Throttled unlimited plan customers could see their connections drop to as low as half a megabit per second, if not worse. But AT&T has now quietly changed its throttling policy for unlimited users to only throttle when necessary.

"Customers on an unlimited legacy data plan may experience reduced speeds only when using data services at times when in an area where the network is experiencing congestion," an AT&T spokesman told PCMag. "Like other wireless companies, we manage our network resources to provide the best service possible for all of our customers."

Those on 3G unlimited plans get 3GB of data per month before any possible throttling; 4G LTE users get 5GB.

So, if you hit the 3GB or 5GB cap in a month, you won't automatically get throttled, but will instead see slowdowns during heavy traffic times. AT&T didn't specify what exactly qualifies as congestion or when that typically occurs.

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In October the FTC sued AT&T for misleading customers by charging them for "unlimited" data plans while reducing their data speeds, in some cases by nearly 90 percent. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, alleges that AT&T failed to adequately warn customers that unlimited data doesn't necessarily mean unlimited high speed data.

Amidst pushback from the FCC, meanwhile, Verizon last year canceled plans to throttle heavy data users on 4G LTE.