Edible Apple

Back in late July, AT&T announced its intention to throttle the bandwidth speeds of users who reside in the top 5% of data consumed amongst smartphone subscribers. These top 5% of data users, AT&T articulated, often use upwards of 12x as much data as the average smartphone user.

Starting October 1, smartphone customers with unlimited data plans may experience reduced speeds once their usage in a billing cycle reaches the level that puts them among the top 5 percent of heaviest data users.  These customers can still use unlimited data and their speeds will be restored with the start of the next billing cycle.  Before you are affected, we will provide multiple notices, including a grace period.

And now that October is finally here, AT&T has begun notifying said data hogs about upcoming throttling measures.

To wit, the image above was posted to Reddit by user “TheReverendZ”.

Naturally, the data usage that would put someone in the top 5% bandwidth users varies from month to month. Giving us some insight into where that moving target tends to hover, TheRevrendz notes that he uses about 10-12GB of data per month.

Why, you ask?

Well, he explains that he has no Internet service at home and subsequently relies on AT&T’s 3G service for all of his surfing needs – including watching an hour or so of streaming TV a night.