AT&T Offers Unlimited Plan Deal For First Responders, But It Can Be Throttled (theverge.com)

AT&T is offering a new promotion for first responders and their families. Firefighters, paramedics, and police officers can opt for 25 percent off either of the unlimited plans AT&T announced back in June. But in the fine print, as The Verge points out, "AT&T admits it may throttle data speeds 'when the network is congested.'" The promotion comes soon after Verizon came under scrutiny for throttling firefighters' data as they fought wildfires in California. From the report: AT&T says that first responders looking for completely unlimited internet without data speed caps can use FirstNet, the network it recently began operating specifically for first responders. AT&T was contracted by the U.S. government to built out FirstNet, which offers features that specifically cater to first responders. The company says that it's actively promoting FirstNet, but at the same time, its promotion page doesn't make a mention of the superior plan at all. In an email, AT&T clarified that the promotional plans subject to throttling are for first responders' personal use and family plans. "We're offering first responders and their family members a discount on the consumer plans available today for their personal use," a spokesperson said. "These lines and devices are separate than the FirstNet lines purchased and issued by the first responder agencies, which do not have a data limit."

The deal allows first responders to choose between the AT&T Unlimited & More plan or the Unlimited & More Premium plan, which has more entertainment add-ons to choose from, including HBO, Showtime, and Amazon Music. With the ongoing promotion, a single line alone on Unlimited & More will cost $52.50 a month, while four lines on a plan would cost $30 a month per person. Unlimited & More Premium costs $60 a month for a single line, and $35.62 a month per person for four lines.

Comments

Fix your texting groups first

[FatAlb3rt]

The problem we've seen with AT&T is that any members of our text groups that have AT&T lines can't reply to group text messages with more than 10 people. Their phones truncate the group to 10 - so now you have another group and have to figure out who didn't get the reply. Primitive guys - up your game. That's enough to prevent me from bringing your promotion to our fire department.

https://forums.att.com/t5/Data...

Re:Emergency services should get a gov't service

[uncqual]

Maybe something like FirstNet which is clearly pointed out? (Except for, perhaps, the "low price" feature.)

Although, since these plans include "Preemption - priority access to the domestic AT&T 4G LTE network", they may not be able to offer them in California if it passes the pending "net neutrality" legislation (or any other state that legislates "net neutrality").

I don't see any reason for such plans to necessarily be "low price". Private enterprises should not be expected to provide governments with "bargains" that they wouldn't offer to other similar volume users. Should Ford sell SUVs to police departments cheaper than they would to a similar volume non-first responder, non-governmental organization? Why?

Re:Stop calling plans "Unlimited"

[uncqual]

They are offering you unlimited data in the sense that you don't pay a different amount for data based on usage.

What they don't guarantee you is bandwidth -- just as they don't guarantee bandwidth on any plan including a 1GB/month plan.

Do you take unlimited to mean "Infinite" since that's what it means in the extreme? Even bandwidth of 100PB/sec 7/24 for a whole month doesn't give you that because 2.7e20 bytes << infinity bytes.

I'm not a big fan of the term 'unlimited' either, but now that everyone understands what it probably means, it really doesn't matter much. Would you prefer "Unmetered Data"? Perhaps "Fixed Price Data".