AT&T raises usage allowance on U-verse, GigaPower fiber broadband

AT&T (NYSE: T) has taken another step to sate the appetite of its broadband customers by once again increasing the monthly usage allowances for its U-verse and GigaPower broadband plans.

U-verse customers that are on plans with speed tiers up to and including 300 Mps will see a monthly allowance of 1 terabyte (TB) of data. 

What this means is that for customers that subscribe to internet speeds below 12 Mbps, the new plans triple their current amount of data. Likewise, customers with internet speeds ranging from 12 Mbps to 75 Mbps will see their current allowance double.

Meanwhile, AT&T GigaPower customers will receive unlimited home internet data.

As an added bonus, U-verse internet and DIRECTV or U-verse can pay for services on a single bill. Customers that subscribe to the 1 Gbps speed tier on the AT&T GigaPower network will automatically get unlimited home internet data at no additional charge.

AT&T customers can also sign up for unlimited home internet data for $30 more a month.

To help customers estimate, monitor and manage data usage, AT&T will offer customers a data calculator via its att.com/myatt online portal.

The service provider said customers that don't have unlimited home internet data will receive multiple notices as they approach their data allowance at any point during the billing cycle. When a customer exceeds their data allowance, they will receive increments of 50 GB of additional data for $10 each.

Beginning on Aug. 1, AT&T will notify U-verse internet customers via their monthly statement, email and online tools about this increase and unlimited internet data options.

This is not the first time AT&T has moved to up its usage allowance for broadband customers. In May, the service provider upgraded its usage data allowances so that only AT&T's U-verse broadband service could sign up for its unlimited home internet data plan for an additional $30 a month.

For AT&T, the timing of increasing the allowances on its broadband services is telling as the telco reported in the second quarter that customer additions were down significantly.

During the quarter, AT&T added only 74,000 IP broadband subscribers, a figure that included 20,000 new business broadband additions. AT&T ended the quarter with a total of 14.2 million broadband subscribers, down from 14.4 million as it lost 110,000 broadband customers.

AT&T was hardly alone in seeing slow broadband subscriber additions in the quarter. Fellow telco Verizon (NYSE: VZ) did not fare well on the broadband addition front either.

While Verizon saw its FiOS revenue grow in the second quarter, the work stoppage due to a two-month wireline workforce strike took its toll, resulting in the loss of 13,000 internet subscribers during the quarter.

By comparison, Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), which is one of AT&T and Verizon's largest competitors, reported that it added 220,000 high-speed internet users in the quarter – the best it has seen in eight years.

For more:
- see this blog post

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