A new independent report from a mobile data analysis firm called Validas claims that AT&T has been unfairly throttling users on its now-defunct unlimited data plans. As has previously been noted, a number of AT&T users have been complaining of data throttling on unlimited plans even when the monthly usage has barely exceeded a couple of gigabytes. On its part, AT&T claims to be throttling only the most data-intensive of the top 5% of mobile data bandwidth users of its network, which the company has clarified is anyone using more than 2 GB per month.
AT&T has stopped offering unlimited data plans for a long time now, and offers only tiered data plans. However, many users have opted to continue on unlimited plans, even though new users have only the option of a tiered plan. The new study by Validas shows that the top five percent of users on the unlimited AT&T plan use only an average of approximately 4 GB per month. On the other hand, the average monthly usage of tiered data users is approximately 3.20 GB; not a very vast difference. Validas claims that the difference between 4 GB and 3.20 GB is so small as to not merit any throttling measures at all.
The company goes on to say that based on these statistics, unlimited plans are not the threat to AT&T’s network that the company makes them out to be. Earlier this month, a number of users had complained that they were getting extremely slow speeds after having consumed as little as 2.20 GB of data, which is in stark contrast to similar tiered plans which offer up to 3 GB of data without throttling. In any case, the picture which emerges suggests that AT&T is clearly trying to force unlimited plan users into switching to tiered plans in a supposed attempt to protect the quality and reduce the burden on its network.
PC World columnist Angela West has noted that Validas is an independent firm which charges money from consumers to estimate the best plan for their mobile needs; hence it has no vested interests in recommending a particular carrier over another. Among other carriers, T-Mobile offers transparent data throttling upwards of 5 GB usage. Sprint still offers unlimited data plans to new customers, but with a much more relaxed throttling policy at top 1% of users. AT&T ideally needs to either come out with concrete data relating to its throttling practices or allow unlimited plan users to at least use up to an amount offered on a similarly situated tiered data plan.
