Those who are lucky enough to be grandfathered at AT&T with unlimited data plans are still not sure what's happening with throttling. Many believed that 2GB was the amount of data for throttling.
Now, AT&T has changed it throttle tune to "throttle where bottle-necked."
The New York Times contacted , Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman who stated that as of last summer, the top 5 percent of AT&T’s heaviest data users have typically used 2 gigabytes or more per month.
Mr. Siegel added that if you use 2 gigabytes of data usage and qualify as one of the top 5 percent, that doesn’t absolutely mean you’re going to be throttled.
AT&T claims it will reduce speeds for the top 5 percent of users in areas where network capacity or spectrum is insufficient.
Throttling is done on a case-by-case basis, not based on a hard number.
"There's a very good chance you wouldn’t be slowed," Mr. Siegel said. "In the last month, less than 1 percent of AT&T smartphone customers were affected by the policy"
Meanwhile, although Verizon Wireless does not throttle but calls it "throughput-reduced for network optimization", as of midnight tonight is offering double data deals on 4G LTE.
Throttling "less than 1%" will have virtually no impact on their network. What a crock. The problem with a bottle-necked network is that they've oversold their bandwidth, not that a select few are single-handily bringing down the entire thing.
This is nothing more than a move to frustrate people into getting of their grandfathered unlimited plans so that they can charge them for overages.