AT&T Bolsters U-Verse Standard Plan Data Caps, Gigapower Users Go Unlimited
Usually when there's an announcement about data caps, it's bad news for subscribers. Refreshingly, that isn't the case with AT&T, which is raising the ceiling on the amount of data its U-verse customers are able to use. It's a welcome acknowledgement that the Internet is growing and that, collectively, users are spending more time streaming, downloading, and even uploading content.
AT&T says as much in its blog post announcing the change, and for that it deserves some amount of kudos. How much kudos? That depends on how happy you are with raising the monthly allowance of data to 1 terabyte on standard U-verse plans with speed tiers up to and including 300 megabits per second. That effectively triples the amount of data for anyone on a plan below 12Mbps, and doubles the data allotment for anyone on a plan with Internet speeds ranging from 12Mbps to 75Mbps. Not too shabby.
To put the new data cap into context, AT&T points out that 1TB is enough to stream up to 400 hours of HD video per month, or more than 13 hours per day.
GigaPower customers have it even better. For customers rocking AT&T's 1Gbps Internet service, AT&T is removing the data cap altogether, giving them unlimited data consumption. Of course, companies have been known to freak out when users take advantage of unlimited plans by uploading/downloading unusually large amounts of data compared to the average user (Microsoft and Verizon come to mind), so we'll have to wait and see how AT&T handles things.
Finally, if you're subscribed to a regular U-verse plan and want the freedom that unlimited data provides, you can add it for $30 per month. That's kind of a hefty charge, but if you use a ton of data per month, it's an option. Otherwise, AT&T tacks on 50GB chunks at $10 each when you go over your limit.
The new data limits go into effect starting August 1, 2016.
AT&T says as much in its blog post announcing the change, and for that it deserves some amount of kudos. How much kudos? That depends on how happy you are with raising the monthly allowance of data to 1 terabyte on standard U-verse plans with speed tiers up to and including 300 megabits per second. That effectively triples the amount of data for anyone on a plan below 12Mbps, and doubles the data allotment for anyone on a plan with Internet speeds ranging from 12Mbps to 75Mbps. Not too shabby.
To put the new data cap into context, AT&T points out that 1TB is enough to stream up to 400 hours of HD video per month, or more than 13 hours per day.
GigaPower customers have it even better. For customers rocking AT&T's 1Gbps Internet service, AT&T is removing the data cap altogether, giving them unlimited data consumption. Of course, companies have been known to freak out when users take advantage of unlimited plans by uploading/downloading unusually large amounts of data compared to the average user (Microsoft and Verizon come to mind), so we'll have to wait and see how AT&T handles things.
Finally, if you're subscribed to a regular U-verse plan and want the freedom that unlimited data provides, you can add it for $30 per month. That's kind of a hefty charge, but if you use a ton of data per month, it's an option. Otherwise, AT&T tacks on 50GB chunks at $10 each when you go over your limit.
The new data limits go into effect starting August 1, 2016.
