AT&T smart phone users say unlimited plan has limits

TAMPA - Joe Konopinski is a caretaker.  He looks after his elderly dad in Lake Placid and another client in Fort Lauderdale.

"In between taking care of both people, I figured I'd communicate through the iPhone,” he said.

Konopinski says his lifeline is often his unlimited data plan through his AT&T iPhone which is how we spoke with him through Skype.  But lately, he has noticed some changes.

"Sending a picture text took forever. Trying to even upload lottery results from the lottery website, I could not get them at all,” said Konopinski.

Konopinski says he recently got a letter from AT&T.  It reads: "AT&T is taking steps to manage exploding demand for mobile data."  It goes on to say that customers who use an “extraordinarily large amounts of data” could be affected by a change.  T&T smart phone customers with unlimited data plans "may experience reduced speeds" once their usage puts them among "the top 5-percent of heaviest data users."

In other words, he says, his unlimited plan isn't exactly unlimited.  It’s a policy called ‘throttling.’

"A lot of people have no clue they're being throttled.  A lot of home users, when their network's being congested because a lot of people are just using it at one time, just seems like their internet is running slow.  They have no clue it's because they're being throttled, because the internet service provider is trying to free up some bandwidth,” said Lee Wilson, with the Best Buy Geek Squad.

According to the Associated Press, AT&T has 17 million customers with unlimited data plans who could be affected by the cell phone provider's new policy.

In the letter Konopinski provided us, AT&T suggests switching to a tiered data plan where he would pay for more data if he needs it.

Konopinski says he feels like he has no good options.

"So they have that leverage on people.  That makes it seem like with that kind of power, you're going to stick with them,” he said.