Reminder: AT&T data throttling begins Oct. 1

Just a reminder that starting Saturday, AT&T will begin throttling customers who use excessive data on their unlimited plans. Customers identified as bandwidth hogs will have their speeds reduced for the remainder of their billing cycle. Once a new cycle starts, full service will be restored.

AT&T says these changes should affect only 5 percent of its customers. It will send out notices and give customers a grace period before it throttles an account. AT&T is not the only carrier with a throttle policy. Both Virgin Mobile and Verizon Wireless recently introduced similar bandwidth throttling policies.