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For the past few months, AT&T and the FCC have been battling over whether or not AT&T is allowed to throttle users with so-called unlimited data plans after they reach 5GB of total data usage. AT&T attempted to justify this restriction under the dubious guise of guaranteeing quality of service, only to be brought up short when the FCC pointed out, via a lawsuit, that only unlimited data plans were treated in this manner. Users who purchased a set amount of bandwidth from AT&T saw 100% performance until they burned through that data, even if they sat right next to an unlimited subscriber. Bandwidth management is permitted under the FCC’s rules, but not when the sole goal is to enrich the company providing the service.

AT&T has now stated that rather than simply throttling users near congested cell towers when they hit 5GB, it will allow customers to use up to 5GB of service before it begins slashing their performance to 2G or below. The company is still trying to argue its way out of the FCC’s $100M fine, but that’s not the only problem here. AT&T’s website may state that it won’t throttle users before they hit 22GB, but the company’s automated systems haven’t gotten the message.

I’ve been an AT&T customer since 2003 and had an unlimited data plan since 2009. I accidentally left my phone in LTE mode the other day and watched multiple Netflix shows before I realized my mistake this morning. Today, after the 22GB news had already broken across the ‘Net, I received the following:

I’m going to keep an eye on this situation, but I can’t say it surprises me. In my years of being an AT&T customer, I’ve long observed that it takes one phone call to make a change to my account, one phone call to make the change correctly, and at least one more phone call to make certain the change actually takes effect. The errors are manifest and legion — earlier this year, I called in to request a new SIM card for an old iPhone 4S I was using as a back-up device. I specifically mentioned that I needed a SIM card for this exact device — and instead received a nano-SIM for the iPhone 5 I’d just removed from the account. That kind of error isn’t unusual, it’s actually the norm.

AT&T may have quietly ended the 5GB limit, but they haven’t actually decided to tell any customers about it yet. We’ll see whether or not they amend their previous notification policies at my next billing cycle.

Read more http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/214472-att-claims-it-will-throttle-users-after-22gb-of-data-not-5gb-but-forgets-to-inform-customers