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Corporate Memo

'Unlimited' Data Plans Get an Asterisk for the Heaviest Users

Carriers still call it unlimited. They've just quietly agreed on how much unlimited actually means.

The Complaints Department

The Complaints Department

— 1 min read
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A cell phone tower against a clear blue sky
Photo: Ervins Strauhmanis (CC BY 2.0)

T-Mobile classifies any customer using more than 50GB of mobile data in a billing cycle as a "Heavy Data User" — a label that puts them last in line for bandwidth whenever the local network is congested. Home internet plans get more room, with the same deprioritization kicking in at 1.2TB.

AT&T got there first: in 2011, it announced it would begin throttling the speeds of its heaviest unlimited-data smartphone customers starting that October.

Both carriers frame the practice as neutral network management rather than a cap — it only bites when the local network is busy, and every customer is still, technically, unlimited.

In practice, "unlimited" turned out to mean unlimited for everyone, right up until enough of them used it at once.

Filed from public reporting:

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