AT&T in a updated policy statement, indicated that customers on its unlimited data plans who have crossed the monthly fair usage allocation will now be throttled to lower speeds only when the cell that they are connected to is congested. At present, AT&T customers who exceed the 5GB of monthly mobile data quota will be throttled to a lower speed for the rest of the month.
The updated policy will enable customers on unlimited data plans, especially those using bandwidth hungry applications such as streaming video to continue experiencing high speeds and maintain their user experience in areas where the network is not heavily loaded.
Last October, AT&T was sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for allegedly deceiving consumers on its unlimited LTE data plan as the Operator actually throttles the speed upon the subscriber reaching an allocated data quota during a bill cycle. FTC claimed that AT&T did not adequately inform its customers on the condition.
The updated policy reads as follows:
As a result of the AT&T network management process, customers on a 3G or 4G smartphone with an unlimited data plan who have exceeded 3 gigabytes of data in a billing period may experience reduced speeds when using data services at times and in areas that are experiencing network congestion. Customers on a 4G LTE smartphone will experience reduced speeds once their usage in a billing cycle exceeds 5 gigabytes of data. 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.
