AT&T adds unlimited home internet plan to its U-verse service

AT&T today announced that it's upping the monthly data caps on its U-verse home internet service and introducing a new unlimited option. Now, customers who pay for the first tier of U-verse, the slowest option at .8Mbps to 6Mbps, will have 300GB to use per month instead of 250GB. For those who pay for the next speed tier, the cap goes from 250GB to 600GB, while the data cap for the fastest U-verse option has doubled from 500GB to 1TB. If that still doesn't sound too appealing, you can pay $30 extra per month to have unlimited data. The new plans take effect on May 23rd.

U-verse, which has a small footprint in the US relative to other ISPs, has been an outlier in the broadband market for its use of data caps. The controversial approach to home internet limits how many gigabytes customers can use in the comfort of their home Wi-Fi network, similar to a mobile phone plan. For instance, Comcast has only just begun experimenting with data caps in select US markets. So the introduction of an unlimited U-verse plan sounds as if it would be welcome, if not for the somewhat excessive $30 surcharge.

AT&T is charging an extra $30 per month for unlimited data

AT&T, which charges an extra $10 per 50GB of usage after a customer hits their cap, says about 4 percent of its U-verse customers may still exceed their monthly caps, so it's limiting the amount you can be charged per month to $100. If you're a subscriber to both U-verse internet and DirectTV package — or a U-verse TV customer who has consolidated your AT&T bill — you get the unlimited internet perk free of charge, the company says.

• SourceAT&T Consumer Blog