Why you should enable Stream Saver to save data on your AT&T Wireless plan

A few months ago AT&T Wireless notified me that it had automatically enrolled me into its latest program called Stream Saver. I didn’t ask for it, nor did I want to be automatically enrolled. Quite frankly, I was miffed that AT&T enrolled me into this new plan because I pay for 30GB of monthly data and want to use it however I see fit. As a tech writer I purposely pay for extra data, because I want to be able to use it for research in order to contribute to deTeched.com. I might be doing a review on a video or music service and need to see how it performs over cellular data vs. WiFi.

After cooling my jets, I realized Stream Saver could end up saving me $20-50 per month by allowing me to reduce my data plan. Plus, AT&T gives me the option to turn off Data Saver anyways. Thinking beyond my own world, which I don’t do enough of, many people on mobile plans share their data with children. We all know children are notorious for consuming data leaving very little for their parents. It’s not uncommon for children into their late 20s to be on their parents smartphone plan these days(at least with the people I know). Even Luke Nam at 25 is on his parent’s Verizon plan and is a data hog. If I were his father I’d put him on Stream Saver without hesitation.

What is Stream Saver?

Stream Saver is a setting on your AT&T Wireless account that caps the video quality on your smartphone at 480p when you’re on the cellular network. The video quality is uncapped as soon as you get onto any WiFi network. If you’re the type of person who actually does stream video on a cellular network from a smartphone, you’ll notice a difference in video quality. 480p is known as being “DVD standard” quality, but don’t confuse that with HD quality. HD is reserved for 720p and 1080p which is at least double the resolution. To be clear, Stream Saver is only a limitation on streaming video and nothing more. That means if you listen to high-quality music from TIDAL or Spotify, you can still stream music at the highest bitrate which can consume as much data as HD video.

AT&T created Stream Saver with two intentions in mind.

The first is truly to help customers save data and that’s a good thing. Data consumption is always on the minds of consumers – they don’t want to go over their allotted data since they will get charged extra fees or have their data slowed to a snail’s pace.

The second reason AT&T created Stream Saver is due to its changed data phone plans that eliminate data overages on limited packages. I have a 30GB limited data plan, but as of a few months ago, no longer will be charged if I go over that amount. AT&T also gives me monthly rollover data, so if I happen to use only 22GB of data one month, I’ll have 38GB to use the following one.

AT&T brought back unlimited data plans in response to T-Mobile’s efforts to steal its customers. The last thing AT&T needs is a congested network of unlimited data users streaming video at HD quality. T-Mobile actually forces its customers to limit their resolution to 480p if they want to take advantage of its Binge On program. If you disable it, you run the risk of being slowed if you consume more data than you’re allotted. That’s not hard to do considering most of T-Mobile’s data plans are 5GB or less.

Limiting data consumption, especially on video is good for everyone.

Networks have limits – cell phone towers, satellites and data centers only have so much bandwidth. Sure AT&T could invest billions more dollars to beef up its network (which it already does) to support video, but that would only result in higher fees for everyone. As a limited data plan subscriber (I like the Mobile Share plans because they offer tethering) the last thing I want is to pay more or have overall slower speeds because people are consuming video content.

When people are on cellular data, chances are they are on their smartphones. No one really needs HD quality video as that can only be appreciated on larger TV screens. I have a Galaxy S8+ that has the ability to display videos up to 1440p, but when I’m out I can’t appreciate the most miniscule details on it’s relatively (compared to TVs) 6.2″ display. Plus videos are mostly about the content to keep you entertained when you’re away from home rather than the high quality video details.

You might be an AT&T customer with an unlimited data plan and might be miffed about the limitations of Stream Saver. However unlimited is not truly unlimited. If you’re considering a data hog, 22GB of data consumed in less than a month, AT&T has reserved the right to slow down your entire data speeds to 128Kpbs or less. That’s slow. Like 2008 slow. AT&T doesn’t slow data hog speeds often, it only does it when the network is congested and it needs to deliver quality data to others who are using navigation, searching the internet and the like.

You should also enable Stream Saver to be a good data citizen. The more data you consume the more pressure you put on the network. I love that in my area of San Diego I consistently see download speeds of 50Mbps. My mobile data speed is faster than my home network speed provided by Spectrum and I love that. If everyone consumed video at HD quality like they do at home, it would bring the network to a grinding halt and that would be bad for everyone.

How to enable Stream Saver

Chances are AT&T already enabled it for you. But if you were like me and turned it off in the first month, you can turn it back on by following these steps.

1. Log into your AT&T Wireless account
2. Navigate to the page that shows a summary of your plan 
3. At the bottom where it says Usage options click on Manage data
4. Toggle the Stream Saver switch On or Off depending on your preferences
5. If you turn Stream Saver back on, follow the instructions. Wait five minutes and then restart your device.

 

I was wrong to be miffed at AT&T for auto enrolling me into the Stream Saver program. Even if I don’t use my allocated data each month, there are far more customers who do, especially those with families. Stream Saver enables AT&T to deliver data faster to all consumers while still offering great resolution on smartphones and tablets when they want to watch videos. I highly recommend you turn Stream Saver on if you’re not using it now.