AT&T Turbo will increase its service by $7 per month

AT&T has a new optional feature for some of its plans. That’s it called turbo, and for $7 per month, provides “better speed and stability” for a line of service by upgrading your data plan to “performance data.” AT&T touts it as an add-on to help with demanding apps like gaming. Okay, but what exactly is it “performance data?” It is not clear. But we can put the pieces together based on what it is not.

If you were hoping Turbo could help boost service on a basic prepaid or postpaid plan, I have bad news. That’s it available only on select AT&T postpaid plans: Unlimited Premium PL, Unlimited Extra EL and Unlimited Elite. They’re already some of AT&T’s most sophisticated and expensive plans, with lots of hotspot data and “premium data” that isn’t subject to slowdowns when the network is busy. Additionally, Turbo only applies to the data allotment included in your plan – if you run out of hotspot or premium data, you’ll still be subject to slower speeds.

Turbo is also not using cutting-edge technology like L4S to make connections more stable. According to Erin Scarborough, senior vice president of consumer products at AT&T, “L4S technology is not used today, but we plan to continue to advance and evolve the AT&T Turbo in the future.”

AT&T, unsurprisingly, states that this is not the case. Scarborough explains: “Although AT&T Turbo is currently assigned to a QCI to which some of our consumer traffic was previously assigned, we have materially modified it and increased the network capabilities and relative weight to AT&T Turbo traffic, thereby creating a higher level of performance than we have ever offered consumers.” Fine.

That still doesn’t fully explain what performance data is, but at the very least, the whole thing is a reminder that there’s always more to your wireless carrier’s terms than meets the eye. Don’t understand me started in “unlimited”.