AT&T Raises Phone Insurance and Slaps Data Hogs

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/09/30/att_to_raise_insurance_throttle_heavy_data_users_ahead_of_iphone_5_launch.html' target='_blank'>http://www.appleinsider.com/article...e_5_launch.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"AT&amp;T plans to raise insurance costs for iPhone users and begin to throttle the top 5 percent of its data users as it prepares for the launch of Apple's fifth-generation handset."</em></p><p><img height="285" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1299211621.usr105634.jpg" width="600" /></p><p>You can go here to see the updated insurance information, but basically they are raising their rates from $5.00 USD to $7.00. And that is for current as well as new users, so no grandfathering here! On top of that will be a $199.00 USD deductible for this new tier they are calling "Device Tier 3." Supposedly this is for iPhones and other smartphones in the lineup. Heavy data users are also being sent text messages from AT&amp;T with a warning of a reduced speed come October 1st if they don't watch it. I never have to worry about that as I'm close to WiFi most of the time, thankfully, but even if I wasn't, I'm not sure I would hit that top 5% of users threshold. How about you, do you ever come close? What are your thoughts?</p>

[Sven Johannsen]

I wish throttling was the norm for going over your chosen limit. When on 200M I came close now and again, and even shut data down for the last few days of a cycle to avoid it. The first 200M costs $15. If you go over they automatically sold you another 200M for another $15. Of course buying 2G only costs $25 in the first place. Guess that's their point, if you need more than 200M once in a while then you should just spring for 2000M, every month.

Like I said, as rarely as it happens to me, and by AT&Ts own stats, to the majority of users, I'd just as soon get a slowdown for a few days, than a big surprise in the bill. Like Jeff though, I'm near WiFi the majority of the time I have the opportunity to do any heavy data use. When I'm not, it's normally just checking e-mail which is fine at lower speeds.