I would just like to thank you for how kindly you are treating those customers who have been with you since before you cut out the unlimited data plan. I came to you from T-Mobile because I wanted the iPhone which you had a monopoly on at the time. When you first allowed us to use tethering and mobile hotspots, it came with the cost of losing that unlimited data, something that to me was backwards logic since if I was going to be using my phone to extend the internet to another device wouldn’t I be using more data? So I decided that I would rather keep my unlimited data than use the tethering service. Then one day Verizon came in and they took away your monopoly, but I stayed with you, keeping my unlimited data plan. Then Verizon finally dropped the axe on their unlimited plan as well and I thought to myself how I was locked in again, not wanting to give up my freedom. It wasn’t so much that I needed the unlimited data, but to never have to worry about my byte usage in any sense was always a nice feeling. Now it seems as though that nice feeling is going away since you have announced that starting October 1st you will begin throttling the top 5% of your data users. So to start that’s 1 out of 20 of us, and if I am  right it actually only affects those of us that have stayed with you long enough to hold on to this unlimited (which I don’t really think you can call it that anymore) data plan. This changes it even more, so instead of 1 out of 20 AT&T customers, it becomes 1 out of 20 AT&T customers that have kept their old data plans and have stayed with the you through the good and the bad (which there hasn’t been a lack of). You tell us this will only affect the power users, but I find this hard to believe, because with the stats I have heard this compared to (something like people who stream 5 hours of music in a month) this is more than just ‘power users’ its users. So I can only believe that you must want to push users away. Everyone is pushing cloud services as the way of the future and you are pushing down by charging more for data and then throttling those who have the better plans, these two things are working against each other. There are many rumors swirling around about a new iPhone this fall, one of them being that it would be available on other carriers, namely Sprint. If this happens I know I will be taking a good long look at the cost of switching, because they are the last ones standing with reasonable data plans. So if your end aim here is to push your customers to your competitors then I will say keep up the good work, because since you lost your monopoly on iPhone users I think you will see your fall from grace.

Thanks again,

Michael Earl