AT&T tries to teach developers how to use data more efficiently

AT&T is smart enough to know that mobile applications are becoming increasingly bandwidth-hungry and that means more of its subscribers may be at risk of going over their monthly data limits. With this in mind, AT&T is taking the proactive step of encouraging app developers to make their applications use less data. 

Mobile apps that gobble up data are a big problem, causing customers to blow through bandwidth and quickly use up precious battery life. One of the challenges, though, is that while customers often pay the price, they have little way to know what the apps they install are doing. The key is to get those writing the programs to do a better job from the outset. AT&T is trying an interesting bit of reverse psychology to get developers to pay a bit more attention to the issue.