AT&T Turbo Lets You Pay $7 for a Better Connection That Your Normal Plan Doesn’t Deliver

Mark this date on your calendars – May 2 is the day wireless carriers in the US decided it was time for you to pay even more to get the high performance data connection that you thought your plan would just deliver. For those times where you want to game on the go or are in a high-traffic situation where you still want access to be able to stream your social life, the carriers are here as long as you want to pay extra.

AT&T is the first to try this move with a service called AT&T Turbo.

What is AT&T Turbo? This is a data plan add-on that costs $7/mo and will attempt to deliver “performance data” to your phone with improved “real-time responsiveness and smoother gameplay.” By paying extra per month on top of your already-expensive data plan, Turbo gives you better reliability and stability. That’s wild.

AT&T is explaining the need for this as a solution to problems their network apparently isn’t capable of handling. You see, traffic as grown on their network “exponentially,” with “technical requirements” increasing for data-heavy apps (like games, video sharing, etc.), so they want folks to be able to pay to get better experiences in those services.

AT&T Turbo is a $7/mo fee that is promising you a truly better connection when you want it. I know you thought that your $86/mo Unlimited Premium plan, with 60GB hotspot and “high-speed data that can’t slow down based on how much you use” would be enough. AT&T is here to tell you that you should actually pay more if you really want the high-speed goods.

What exactly do you get with AT&T Turbo, though? We don’t really know any specifics. AT&T isn’t promising a certain speed, they are essentially saying that when the network is busy, you can pay to get a higher priority on the network. That’s it.

Here’s the fineprint from the Turbo page that explains it:

AT&T Turbo: Provides customers the ability to optimize their rate plan’s premium and mobile hotspot data allotments to performance data by enabling customers to prioritize their data traffic for these allotments to help the performance of their data connection, even during busy times on the network.

…

Upgraded Data: Enables customers to optimize to performance data their eligible plan’s premium and mobile hotspot allotments only. Does not provide additional data allotments or coverage. Upgrades data only. Will not upgrade your voice or messaging.

Not good, guys. I can’t wait for you to head to an NBA Playoff game or concert in the near future, your AT&T connection quickly turns to trash with all the people around, and AT&T’s network understands this only to fire off a text to let you know that you can immediately improve that bad connection by paying them $7 extra. That’ll go over well.

If AT&T has figured out that rather than simply delivering a great network at all times they could instead charge you extra for one, don’t expect them to be the last. Who do you think will be next, Verizon or T-Mobile?

Sign-up for AT&T Turbo