AT&T: Here’s Your Unlimited Plan, Now with New Limits!

December 14, 2011 1:44pm

AT&T signed up with Apple to reap massive profits by being the only iPhone carrier in the US way back in the 2000s. Steve Jobs wanted unlimited data plans with iPhone, and AT&T agreed. I nabbed an iPhone from day 1 pretty much, and have been running with my unlimited data plan ever since then.

Now AT&T is trying to change the definition of unlimited. I received both a txt message and email from AT&T today stating that if I kept using the amount of data that I’m using (remember, I am paying for “unlimited” data), that they’d start throttling my speeds. Their recommendation? Use WiFi.

Well, AT&T, come on over and install a free WiFi setup in my house, and I’ll be glad to use that! Oh, I forgot, you won’t even run your lines up the road to my house, so that’s not going to work. No worries, I have unlimited data…throttled.

Throttling something is by definition not allowing it to be unlimited. Take this example. Farmer Joe promises Miss Debby that if she promises to give him $50 at the beginning of every month, she can come and take as many eggs from his chicken coop as she’d like. Miss Debby thinks this is a great deal, and at first she only takes about 8 eggs a month. But then Miss Debby meets Dr. John Brown, the dashing new guy in town, they marry, and now she needs 16 eggs a month. Three babies later and they’re up to 50 eggs a month. Now Farmer Joe says he’ll still honor his original agreement, and Miss Debby (now Mrs. Dr. John Brown) can still have as many eggs as she’d like a month, but she can only take them home one at a time. Instead of being able to come and collect all 50 eggs in one go, she now needs to make 50 trips. Obviously, that isn’t the original agreement, and it isn’t unlimited, it’s limited to physically how many trips she can make. AT&T is doing the same thing.

Boo, AT&T, boo. You’re only encouraging me to use way more data in spite of you, and then switch to WiFi, as you suggested, once you start slowing my shit down.

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