AT&T is still throttling you unlimited data. Here’s how

Believe it or AT&T still throttles your unlimited data plan. This is something that AT&T started doing back in 2011 when smartphones were gaining popularity during the 3G era. Although the latest 5G technology has vastly improved through the two generations, data throttling still takes place in a similar way. Throttling has evolved into what carriers now call data deprioritization.

So what’s the difference between the two?

Throttling is an old method of limiting users to use less cellular data. The main difference between throttling and deprioritization is that when throttled, the carrier would cut off or reduce your data speeds until your next billing cycle.

On the other hand, when you’re deprioritized, the carrier slows down your data only if the tower you’re connected to is overloaded or congested. Once the tower gets uncongested, your data speeds will return to normal without you waiting until your next billing cycle.

The top 5 percenters

AT&T has a darker past than other carriers when it comes to data throttling. In 2010, AT&T stopped offering its unlimited data plan but continued to provide it to users who already had it.

Unfortunately, those grandfathered users started to get throttled on October 1, 2011. The main problem was that AT&T arbitrarily throttled those users on unlimited data and classified them as the top 5% of users.

It was not until several lawsuits that the carrier revealed that users who use 3GB a month over 3G or 5G over 4G LTE were throttled and considered to be in the top 5 percent of users.

Because of this practice, the FTC filed a lawsuit against AT&T on October 28, 2014. The lawsuit was settled in 2019, forcing AT&T to refund $60 million to customers affected by the throttling method used between 2011-2015.

So, do we still get throttled by AT&T?

Unfortunately, since bandwidth is a limited resource, neither AT&T nor any carrier can offer truly unlimited data.

While AT&T does not practice throttling like it used to before the FTC lawsuit, it will deprioritize our data speeds on our devices. They, however, still practice network throttling for personal hotspot after a certain threshold.

Based on their four current unlimited data plan, here’s when AT&T will deprioritize your cell phone data and throttle your unlimited hotspot.

None of the plans offer unlimited hotspot without throttling. The Unlimited Premium PL plan, however, gives you unlimited data without deprioritization but plays video in standard definition which is considered a type of throttling through Video Management.