AT&T won’t always throttle your unlimited LTE data

While AT&T has limited its throttling for unlimited 3G data to clogged-up networks, it hasn’t been so kind to the LTE crowd. Go past 5GB of usage in a month and your high-speed connection would always slow down, no matter how empty the cell towers might be. The carrier is finally taking a softer stance, however. It recently updated its policy statements to say that it now throttles unlimited LTE data past the 5GB mark only if you’re on a congested network. AT&T tells us that it had revealed plans to do this last year — it just flicked the switch on the policy this week.

The kinder, gentler approach is certainly convenient for AT&T. It’s facing an FTC lawsuit for allegedly doing little to warn legacy subscribers before throttling them, and the FCC is critical of throttling policies meant more to steer people toward capped plans than cope with heavy traffic. This less arbitrary LTE philosophy won’t address every concern, but it’ll at least tell regulators that throttling occurs only when it (theoretically) makes sense.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, AT&T

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Via: Droid-Life, SlashGear

Source: AT&T

Lyft’s deal with Verizon gives drivers a break on phone service

Lyft isn’t going to let Uber’s partnership with AT&T go unanswered. The ridesharing outlet has unveiled a team-up with Verizon that not only pre-loads Lyft’s app on some of Verizon’s Android phones, but gives Lyft drivers a discount on their cellphone bills through the Accelerate perks program. Suffice it to say that this last part is a big deal for drivers whose very livelihood depends on a phone with a good data plan. Yes, the agreement means that you’ll have to put up with more carrier bloatware, but the inconvenience might be somewhat justified if it gets more Lyft drivers on the road and gives you more choices in app-based transportation.

Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation, Wireless, Internet, Mobile, Verizon

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Source: Lyft Blog

Earth’s ozone improves while CO2 levels worsen

Good news: the hole in the ozone layer is shrinking. Bad news: worldwide levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide has reached another terrifying milestone. First up, NASA’s Goddard Space Center is promoting a scientific paper from December that claims that Earth’s ozone layer is gently beginning to repair itself. With data from the agency’s AURA satellite, scientists believe that the hole in the ozone, which currently measures 12 million square miles, will drop below that figure by around 2040.

Unfortunately, we’ve lurched from one ecological crisis to another with the news that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air has increased. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced that the global monthly average for airborne CO2 us now 400 parts per million. That’s only eight months after the UN’s World Meteorological Organization calculated that we’d cross that threshold in roughly two years. So, not only is the rate of change getting faster, we’re now 50ppm past the UN’s agreed “safe limit” for atmospheric carbon emissions.

If you’re wondering what can be done, the NOAA has struck something of a pessimistic tone. The outfit believes that the only way to halt the rise of CO2 is for 80 percent of the world’s fossil fuel emissions to stop, ideally this instant. If, however, we wanted to bring that figure down to a safe level, then we’d all have to abandon fossil fuels — which we’re sure few will want to do, even if the UN has said it’s cost-effective.

[Image credit: Getty]

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Via: Wired, USA Today

Source: NOAA, NASA, Wiley / AGU