AT&T Data Throttling Is Just a Political Stunt

AT&T has confirmed that it will start throttling download speeds for unlimited data accounts. The move impacts relatively few users, and may be more political than technical, but it also begs the question "who is going to keep any eye on AT&T to make sure they measure usage accurately and don't abuse the throttling?"

AT&T plans to throttle the data speed for the top five percent of data consumers--with a few significant caveats. The throttling only impacts users still grandfathered on the extinct unlimited mobile data plan, and it doesn't count or throttle data over Wi-Fi, just the data consumed over AT&T's wireless data network. Something doesn't seem to add up, though. Either AT&T is exaggerating the impact of this five percent and making a spectacle out of the policy change as a political move to justify the case for why it "needs" the T-Mobile acquisition approved, or AT&T is not being completely honest with regard to how many users will be affected or what the impact will be.