It’s been a few years since AT&T has offered Unlimited data. In fact, they were the first to stop offering the service, and Verizon followed pretty quickly afterward. While T-Mobile and Sprint still offer unlimited data. Those that have the unlimited data plan from AT&T from a few years ago, were grandfathered in. And there are still many of them with unlimited data. AT&T has been throttling them as soon as they hit 5GB, however after some scrutiny from the FCC, that has changed – as of today – to 22GB.
According to AT&T’s statement, this is all due to their network management. And that their network management has evolved over time and they can now change the throttling threshold to 22GB. That’s actually a pretty big jump. We’re looking at 4x almost 5x the limit you had before. For those with unlimited data, you’re pretty lucky.
“As you would expect, these network management practices have continued to evolve over time to benefit our customers and take advantage of the billions we have spent to expand and augment our networks. As a result of this evolution, we recently revised our practices such that Unlimited Data Plan smartphone customers can now use 22GB of high-speed data during a billing period…”
Admittedly, this is a somewhat surprising move for AT&T. While they didn’t mention the FCC at all, I’m sure they have something to do with this. So for those of you that are lucky enough to still have unlimited data, well you got some fantastic news this morning. This is definitely going to help keep unlimited data users on their unlimited data plan. Why would they even think about going to a plan with a data cap. Doesn’t make much sense now does it?
AT&T isn’t the fastest network in the country, but they do have a pretty strong network with decent speeds depending on where you live. They aren’t the number two carrier in the US for nothing. With all of the smartphones coming out this fall on AT&T’s network, this is great news ahead of those launches, for those looking to upgrade their phone this year.