AT&T Begins Throttling Heavy iPhone Data Usage To 2G Speeds

AT&T has reportedly started throttling its heaviest data users (to be exact, the top 5% of its data users) to, well, 2G speeds. 

According to CultofMac, AT&T has been alerting customers of their data throttling move by way of a particularly terse text message, which says "Your data usage is among the top 5 percent of users. Data speeds for the rest of your current bill cycle may be reduced." And is punishing those top 5 percent of users with a woefully plodding, snail-moving 2G speed.

"Your data usage is among the top 5 percent of users. Data speeds for the rest of your current bill cycle may be reduced."

Unfortunately for AT&T carrier subscribers, it's pretty unclear just precisely how much data a user must use up to be a part of the top 5% (make your #Occupy jokes here, please). However, AT&T claims that usually these typical users will consume roughly a dozen times more data than the average data user. That's quite a bit of data, actually, although users tend to take advantage of the 4G speeds, nonetheless. It's just hard to resist the ease of accessing data on such a fast network.

While we don't know whether other carriers will make the same move as AT&T, this could potentially be advantageous to carriers like Sprint, which currently boasts unlimited data usage. Has any SlashGear readers been assaulted by a warning message from AT&T yet? Let us know by leaving your answer in the comment section below. Who belongs in the 5%?

[via Cult of Mac]