
AT&T verifies data throttling for top 5% of users - Flemlord
http://9to5mac.com/2011/07/29/att-verifies-our-throttling-information-officially-for-october-1st/
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NathanKP
This doesn't really make sense to me because it seems that over time it will
reduce the threshold for the entire network. Here is what I'm thinking:
suppose that for the first month the top 5% uses 50gb of data per month. Well
once the throttling kicks in they will not be able to reach the 50gb per month
that they usually hit, and instead they only hit 40gb.

Next month the top 5% of usage rates is 40gb per month, and so the threshold
kicks in sooner. If this repeated over the course of months then the threshold
would get lower and lower, until it began to infringe on normal usage. I'm
willing to assume that AT&T is doing this intelligently, and that the top 5%
is a static measurement, but the way it is described makes it sound like a
sliding scale that will lower the threshold more and more over time.

And that doesn't even touch the issue of always throttling connections for 5%
of their customers...

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dkokelley
They're not capping the top 5% each month. They're throttling it. That means
that the top 5% could always be a certain range. So if the top 5% is over
50GB/month, then once you hit 50GB you'll be slowed down, but not stopped. You
can keep going, and this is why the top 5% can stay the same from month to
month.

It's possible that they can hit 50GB next month just as before, unless their
behavior changes.

You're right that this plan could bring the top 5% down to 40GB over time, but
that's only if the users behavior on aggregate changes. Once you're in the
95th percentile of users, I'm not sure how much extra usage is needed to get
to the 99th, or even how much changing your behavior will significantly lower
the averages.

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NathanKP
When your bandwidth is limited it becomes difficult to get many more gigabytes
as that is the whole point of a throttle. So when that throttle is applied to
the power users then they physically can't download as many gigabytes as they
used to. So my theory is that over time the difference between the 99th
percentile and the 95th is going to decrease as the power users who used to
raise the bar higher are throttled down to a more normal gigabyte per month
usage.

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nextparadigms
My problem with this is that they've advertised "UNLIMITED" data and convinced
a lot of people to join their network because of it, and now they are saying
that's not actually true.

I know they have footnotes in the contract, but isn't it some kind of false
advertising? It's not "unlimited", it's more like "a lot", and they get to
decide what a lot means.

If you're not going to really give people unlimited data, and you're going to
get upset about it when people actually try using it as if it was unlimited,
then how about you stop advertising it as such?

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awj
To play devil's advocate: does cutting back on the transfer rate constitute a
data limit? Users that hit that 5% threshold aren't blocked from sending and
receiving data, they just don't get the same transfer speeds.

Granted, it sucks to see this happen, but if transfer rates aren't _also_
specified in the plan/advertising it's hard to argue that this represents
going back on an "unlimited data" promise.

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derefr
> To play devil's advocate: does cutting back on the transfer rate constitute
> a data limit?

I would say yes: if you have, say, a 1MB/s line, which you keep constantly
saturated, you can transfer (1 month * 1MB/s) = ~2.5TB in that month. Whether
you have a data cap or throttling, it translates to such a line getting being
able to transfer less than 2.5TB of data per month.

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omaranto
So you're saying absolutely no plan at all can be considered unlimited because
with current technology there is some maximum download speed? I guess that's
right (and probably not just about current technology: I would think there are
theoretical limits to download speeds as well).

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bartl
No. "Unlimited", to me, means you get the advertised speed every second of the
month, no matter the data volume you transfer. As soon as they start slowing
you down, it is no longer unlimited.

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alanfalcon
On the surface it seems like a fair and balanced approach to the problem. I
wish there was an actual number set, rather than the top 5% of each month's
users which means that they're promising to always throttle speeds of 5% of
their customers. Perhaps they're hoping this will cause a race among the
customers who use the most data to reduce their data usage every month?

I also find great humor in the throw-away line concerning the necessity of the
acquisition of T-Mobile at the end.

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hugh3
_I also find great humor in the throw-away line concerning the necessity of
the acquisition of T-Mobile at the end._

Apparently AT&T has hired Cato the Elder to do their PR. This is bad news for
Carthage.

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gtank
We shall lay low their towers and sell their engineers to the Shanzhai.

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modeless
A couple of changes would make this into an actually reasonable policy that I
wouldn't mind other ISPs adopting: 1. Define a usage threshold instead of
always throttling 1/20th of your customers, and 2. Allow customers to pay a
reasonable fee to boost their speeds back up after they hit the throttling.

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roblund
Isn't #2 pretty close to their tiered data plans?

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lpolovets
_One new measure is a step that may reduce the data throughput speed
experienced by a very small minority of smartphone customers who are on
unlimited plans – those whose extraordinary level of data usage puts them in
the top 5 percent of our heaviest data users in a billing period._

If 1 out of 20 people qualifies, then it's by no means "extraordinary".
"Extraordinary" should be something like 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000. If 3
people on your block fit the bill, then that's just called "ordinary".

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drcube
Stop pretending that you're not a dumb pipe and bill by usage. The sooner
information is treated like the basic utility it is, like fuel, water or
electricity, the better off we'll all be. It's painful to watch every last
data provider dance around the subject like this. You're not fooling anybody.
All right, you're fooling a lot of people, but not me, and not anybody else
for very long.

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dpark
People don't want to pay by usage, though. They want unlimited bandwidth and
transfer for $30/month, and they aren't going to be happy with settling for
$15/GB.

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mikeash
Customers always want better products for free. The problem is that ISPs are
responding to the desire for unlimited bandwidth by providing "unlimited" with
tons of caveats. Everybody would be better off if they would just cut to the
chase and charge by usage. Advertising "unlimited" should qualify as false
advertising if it's not truly unlimited, which would push everybody towards
more sane behavior.

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dpark
I agree that they should not (and should not be able to) call a limited plan
"unlimited". However, I don't think that going to a true pay-for-usage plan is
realistic. Most people don't use much bandwidth. Those people are effectively
subsidizing the high-usage clients.

Let's assume that the average data usage is 1GB (the actual amount doesn't
matter). Right now, everyone pays $30 whether they use 1kB or 1TB. Imagine if
instead we go to a pay per MB plan. A MB currently costs $0.03 (on average,
and assuming 1000MB to the GB). We know that the top 5% are using 12x as much
data as the average user, so the top users are around 12GB, while the average
user is around 420MB. So if we keep the usage price the same, the average non-
top-5% user will be paying only $12.60. The top users are paying $360.00. Of
course, the top users aren't going to continue this kind of payment. They'll
leave for another provider or else drastically cut their usage. So now AT&T is
serving less data (yay), but they're also bringing in about 42% as much
revenue.

And bear in mind that this same calculation could be done for the next 5% and
the next. The person using 1MB today paying for the 999MB they don't use so
that someone else can use it. After the new plan, their fee goes down to
$0.03, and someone else's goes up by $29.97. A lot of people would simply stop
using any significant bandwidth and force AT&T to raise the price per MB
drastically.

I think tiered plans make more sense, where instead of a true pay-for-usage,
you basically have pay-for-max-usage. I think this might be where we end up.
And the reality is that what we'll probably see will be $30 for "average" or
slightly-above-average usage (1GB in my example), and other tiers for
"exceptional" usage. Maybe $45 for 2GB and $60 for 4GB. AT&T isn't going to
take a big pay cut on average users, because exceptional users by and large
will not make up the difference. They'll just stop being exceptional users.

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illumin8
I think you numbers are way off. The average user is using less than 100MB a
month. If your assumption is correct that the top users are using 12x as much
data (don't know where you got this info) - it seems like they'll be
throttling anyone that uses more than 1.2GB of data a month...

~~~
dpark
It doesn't matter if the number for average usage is way off. The math stays
the same. Light users are bearing the cost for heavy users. In fact light
users are by and large carrying the cost for even average users.

The 12x number came from the article.

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ajaimk
As this is in effect a change of the Terms of Service, I wonder if they will
let you get out of your 2 year contract if you were on the unlimited plan
WITHOUT a early termination fee.

I know that any change to the ToS that involves pricing/coverage is eligible
for a termination of contract with no fees, but would this be covered too?

Thoughts?

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viscanti
It seems like they're trying to get rid of the unlimited plans altogether, so
I'd bet they'd let you out of your contract if you were one of the people who
would be throttled. The people who use that much data aren't nearly as
profitable, and they'd probably love to see most of that group switch networks
or accept data limits.

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mdda
The problem for a potential competitor to AT&T that could offer a 'REALLY
unlimited' contract is that the people who would switch would be all the
really high bandwidth consumers. All the 'juicy' decently paying, (in reality)
low bandwidth people don't feel oppressed by AT&T. So the competitor would
just be setting themselves up for providing a better service, for the worst
($/Mb) customers.

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orky56
Let's hope that everyone or at least a majority start using up more and more
bandwidth so that the threshold for the top 5% is a very high amount ~30gb. At
that point, we can bring the future of high usage to the present so that AT&T
and these other telco's can create policies that are future-proof rather than
vague, temporary measures. We should make it clear that these high-bandwidth
activities are here and the telco's are the bottleneck blocking these new
services from going mainstream.

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daimyoyo
I had every intention of getting an iPhone 5 when it launched and renewing my
contract with AT&T at the same time. Now I'm going to run the contract out and
then go elsewhere.

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xkaylorx
IF you want to look at it this way, if they average users speed was 3mb/s ,
then over the course of 1 month they could download 7593.75GB, which isnt
truely unlimited. And if they decide to leave AT&T, who would they go to?
T-mobile throttles, Verizon does not offer unlimited, and Sprint has some
deffinatley has some issues with users being able to connect at all.

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rawsyntax
they do not tell us how many GB is too many

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sahaj
Why is this comment not at the top. They need to define what "unlimited"
really means.

