Mark Siegel attempts to justify AT&T’s 2GB throttling Behavior

A few days ago we brought you guys a story that reflected how AT&T is throttling its grandfathered unlimited plan customers. The two users that were identified were getting text messages and letters from AT&T stating they were in the top 5% of data consumers. Fully expecting them to have used some ungodly amount, we were surprised to find that it was happening at the 2GB range. Which is rather odd since AT&T offers a 3GB data plan for the same cost as the $30 grandfather plan.

To combat this media frenzy of information, AT&T spokesperson, Mark Seigel, jump on a phone interview to better explain the situation. He stated that as of last summer, the top 5% of AT&T’s heaviest data users were consuming an average of 2GB a month. He continues on to point out that even if a user exceeds the 2GB point doesn’t mean that they will be throttled. In actuality only roughly 1% of those users are notified of their usage. The throttling technique isn’t based on a hard facts number, instead they base it on a users area, network capacity or spectrum that is insufficiently capable of supporting their use.

So in other words, if you live in a large city with millions of customers causing network strain, you are most likely going to land in that one percent. In a round about way, Mark just admitted that AT&T’s network is overloaded and because of this, they can’t support you and your usage. Based on a variety of number that I looked up, AT&T has roughly 71.3 million subscribers. 5% translates into 3,565,000 and if it was roughly 1% of them that were throttled, that means 35,650 people were effected last month. That is just based on rough numbers, since we can’t find the number of active subscribers that are actually still on an unlimited plan.

“There’s a very good chance you wouldn’t be slowed,” Mr. Siegel said

There is still to many questions left in our minds to take AT&T for their word. It would be nice if they could release more detailed information so customers know exactly what they getting and when they will potentially get slowed down. From our perspective, they are still basing the top 5% of heavy data users on all data plans not just those unlimited users grandfathered in. This seems like an unfair metering system. If they have managed to force or “migrate” more people to lower plans, then those users are using less out of fear or overage, bringing the average down.

What do you guys think needs to happen? Should AT&T re-evaluate how they are throttling, or do you feel they are doing it right? We know throttling is here to stay in the U.S. and that unlimited data while mobile is gone, at least for a while.

Via New York Times