Besides Verizon and T-Mobile, AT&T is another leading telecom provider in the US with more than 171 million connections per the second quarter of 2020. The company is famous for providing the highest data caps and being relatively cheaper than other service providers, and thus it generated over 170 billion in revenue only in 2020.
However, despite offering the highest data caps, AT&T’s name surfaces around the unfair practice of throttling. The telecom provider throttles the internet speed and ruins their browsing, streaming, and downloading experience in various instances. However, the good news is that now you can bypass AT&T and boost your internet speed.
Does AT&T Throttle Your Connection?
AT&T is among the top telecom providers but still follows the shady practice of throttling the users’ internet connection. A research study reveals shocking facts about AT&T throttling. It was found that AT&T throttles users’ bandwidth on various streaming services. 61% of the users’ bandwidth was throttled while they stream on YouTube, 59% on NBCB sports, and 56% on Netflix.
The company on their website has also clearly mentioned throttling and justified it. If you’re an AT&T user, you will experience slow speed when there’s a lot of load and congestion on the network.
Like Comcast, AT&T also has a history of throttling users’. In 2014, the company was found violating Net Neutrality rules, and in response, the FTC also filed a lawsuit against them. The FTC later confirmed that AT&T does slow down the mobile data access of over 3.5 million users without their consent.
How Does AT&T Throttle Your Connection?
From 2007 till 2010, AT&T offered an unlimited data plan for all smartphone users. Though later the company stopped offering unlimited plans, it still allows the subscribers to renew the plan. However, AT&T was pretty clever here as it started to slow down the data speed of users of the unlimited package. Even though the unlimited plan users have been promised unlimited bandwidth in reality, they don’t have enough bandwidth to surf the internet they want.
Moreover, A&T also introduced a Sponsored Data program that rewards the users for using the sponsored third-party services without any data counting against them. The catch here was that the non-sponsored companies couldn’t enjoy the same benefits, and thus it was another occasion when AT&T set an example to violate Net Neutrality laws.
Recent Development
In July 2021, AT&T announced that it wouldn’t throttle data on the unlimited plan. The subscribers of the unlimited package won’t be a target of deprioritization after hitting the data caps and can access the unlimited high-speed data. Moreover, the users can also avail themselves of the 30GB of the monthly hotspot and 4K video streaming feature.
At What Speed and Time AT&T Throttle Your Connection?
If you use over 50GB or 22GB of data in a month, then AT&T might start throttling your data, and you may experience slow and sluggish connection speed over the web. After reading different users’ experiences, it was found that AT&T is involved in throttling at night around 8 pm onwards. During this time, users come across slow internet speed, making it difficult to stream, download, or browse the web.
How to Prevent AT&T Throttling?
To check for AT&T throttling, you can first undertake a few tests. Follow this link and learn the methods that confirm whether you’re being throttled or not. Once you are sure that you are facing the case of throttling, the next thing you need to do is look for a permanent solution such as using a VPN. A VPN is one of the most efficient solutions for bypassing AT&T throttling. Sure there are other evasive techniques that you can use but using VPNs is hassle-free and convenient.
Moreover, a VPN is the perfect privacy tool to boost your digital privacy and circumvent filters to detect high-bandwidth-related activities. It makes you utterly anonymous over the web by hiding your actual IP address. Moreover, a VPN’s strong encryption prevents the broadband company from viewing the contents of your online data traffic. All the data is routed through the remote VPN servers, which means that AT&T won’t detect certain types of data, services, or websites accessed. Hence you can stream on Netflix or download torrents from BitTorrent without hassle.
Make sure that you end up choosing the right VPN for bypassing throttling. Such as ensuring that it is a paid VPN that promises ultimate privacy and security with super-fast speeds.
Final Thoughts
Throttling has become a common practice where even top internet service providers like AT&T actively participate. The company admits that they throttle users’ connections and have been significantly criticized. If you want to stream on Netflix or any other streaming platform with fast and consistent speed using the AT&T connection. You should consider using a VPN. With the best VPN for speed, you can bypass AT&T throttling and make your web browsing experience worth amazing without any speed throttling issues.
