In the morning everyone, time to take a break from the ORA reviews to document my own little ‘issues’ with AT&T and what they define as ‘unlimited data’.

Here’s a little riddle:

If you ‘turn off’ all 3G and cellular data the night before your data ‘turns over’ or resets like this, say around 7pm PST the night your billing cycle ‘ends’….

What would you expect your data to be at the start of the next day? Maybe, uh…. zero? 

No. If you’re on AT&T, you can expect something like this:

And yes, I’ve been home, on my WiFi with all cell data off for the whole time. Pity me.

This is NOT the first time this has happened. But it is the first time I feel the need to document it, seeing as this is 21.7% of the way before AT&T will unilaterally ‘throttle’ my so-called ‘unlimited’ data plan.

Ergo, I’ve been ‘saving’ my data for when I need it, that is, when I’m out in the countryside with no AT&T WiFi APs to be found. I expect to be able to have that data available for my use. Not to be miscounted. If the count is wrong then why ‘save’ it?

This is not the first time I’ve noticed this issue, and is one of the reasons I will never move to a ‘metered plan’ with AT&T. This is also not the first time the issue has been raised. Even by folks other than me. Twice. And even in AT&T’s own forums.

Update to the Update: What AT&T told me requires it’s own blog entry. I’m… stunned.