AT&T cautioned over the summer that it may reduce data speeds for smartphone subscribers with unlimited data plans who are the heaviest users.
It appears the phone giant plans to follow through with its promise: AT&T has begun sending SMS messages, alerting certain customers that they are among the top 5 percent of data users on its network, WIRED reported. The messages suggest that customers use Wi-Fi to avoid reduced data speeds in the future, according to the report.
The development was not unexpected. AT&T previously revealed that beginning on Oct. 1 customers might experience reduced data speeds once their usage in a billing cycle placed them in the top 5 percent of the heaviest data users. Dallas-based AT&T said it would issue multiple notices before it reduced a customer’s speeds.
“As we said in July, before any customer is affected, we will provide multiple notices – that’s what we’re doing," AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel told Vision2Mobile in an email.
AT&T and other wireless providers have explained they need to enact such measures to manage unprecedented demand on their networks. AT&T has said that its mobile data traffic grew 8,000 percent over the past four years and by 2015 it is expected to be eight to 10 times what it was last year. The top 5 percent of the heaviest data users consume, on average, 12 times more data than the average of all smartphone data customers, according to AT&T, the second-largest U.S. wireless operator with 98.6 million customers based on second-quarter figures.
In June 2010, AT&T eliminated unlimited data plans for future subscribers and unveiled tiered data packages that offer a certain amount of data each month for a specific price. But AT&T let customers that subscribed to unlimited data keep their plans, and such subscribers can still stay on the plan even if they switch phones. The carrier doesn’t reveal the number of customers that subscribe to its unlimited data plan.
“It’s worth noting that the overwhelming majority of our customers’ needs would be met on one of our tiered data plans …," Siegel said.
As of the second quarter, 15 million customers subscribed to AT&T’s tiered plans. AT&T revealed over the summer that about half (49.9 percent) of its 68.4 million postpaid customers now have smartphones, reflecting consumers’ growing appetite to access data and other services on sophisticated mobile devices like Apple’s iPhone and the HTC Thunderbolt.
The company has often cited its need for spectrum as one of the most compelling justifications for its $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA. The merger is currently in limbo, thanks partly to an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.
