I just noticed a posting on AT&T’s own discussion forum indicating an important terms & conditions change for all Data Connect plans. (Note: This does not appear to impact iPhone plans but does include Blackberry plans that allow tethering). Details and a link to the full terms and condition are on the next page.

You’d think it would only a matter of time before the FTC or another government agency chases these companies advertising “unlimited data” when in fact the fine print indicates a cap of 5GB of monthly data transfer. They seem to have since wised up from the earlier days when they would just close your account.

DATACONNECT PLANS
DataConnect plans may ONLY be used with AT&T-certified LaptopConnect (PC Data) Cards and eligible AT&T-certified customer owned and maintained (COAM) devices for the following purposes: (i) Internet browsing; (ii) email; and (iii) intranet access (including access to corporate intranets, email, and individual productivity applications like customer relationship management, sales force, and field service automation). The parties agree that AT&T has the right to limit throughput or amount of data transferred and/or deny, disconnect, modify and/or terminate Serviceif you use more than 5 gigabytes in a month. If you require more than 5 gigabytes per month, ask us about our DataConnect 5GB Overage plan.

So what wising up did they do? They re-wrote their contracts to give the option to keep collecting your 2 year contracted $59/mo plus fees and throttle you back to 200k download speeds.

There’s no indication of how vigilantly AT&T will police this data cap. It’s also hard to tell whether exceeding the 5GB per month limitation will result in a permanent throttle or if they just throttle you for the month.

Here’s the link to the updated terms and conditions of AT&T: http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/legal/plan-terms.jsp