SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
AT&T loses key ruling in class action over unlimited-data throttling:
AT&T's mandatory-arbitration clause is unenforceable in a class-action case over AT&T's throttling of unlimited data, a panel of US appeals court judges ruled this week.
The nearly five-year-old case has gone through twists and turns, with AT&T's forced-arbitration clause initially being upheld in March 2016. If that decision had stood, the customers would have been forced to have any complaints heard individually in arbitration.
But an April 2017 decision by the California Supreme Court in a different case effectively changed the state's arbitration law, causing a US District Court judge to revive the class action in March 2018.
AT&T appealed that ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, but a three-judge panel at that court rejected AT&T's appeal in a ruling issued Tuesday. Judges said they must follow the California Supreme Court decision—known as the McGill rule—"which held that an agreement, like AT&T's, that waives public injunctive relief in any forum is contrary to California public policy and unenforceable."
[...] The class-action suit alleged that AT&T "used deceptive and unfair trade practices by marketing its mobile service data plans as 'unlimited' when AT&T allegedly limited those plans in several ways, including 'throttling'—slowing down mobile data speeds after the consumer uses an undisclosed, predetermined amount of mobile data," appeals court judges noted in this week's decision.
AT&T changed its policy in 2015 so that customers are throttled only when the network is congested. Previously, the carrier throttled unlimited data plans after customers used either 3GB or 5GB each month, depending on which plan they had, severely limiting speeds for the rest of the monthly billing period regardless of whether or not the network was congested.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday February 22 2020, @06:41PM (6 children)
I'm shocked, shocked, I say! Everything they touch seems to turn into brown swirlies circling the bowl. Look at their partnershop with Radio Shack as just one example. I'm sure people can find other examples.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 22 2020, @07:33PM (4 children)
If that were true then AT&T wouldn't exist.
Radio Shack was a shame, but it wasn't AT&T that killed them off. In fact that partnership probably kept them limping along a few more years. The real problem was online shopping, hobbyists got more selection and often better prices online. Due to this the selection of electronics components at RS continued to dwindle and they were hocking remote control toys, TVs, and stereos like a small version of Circuit City. Not much future in that, and CC is gone too.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 22 2020, @08:34PM (3 children)
Maybe. I think the real problem goes back further. To grow their business they distanced themselves from their core market. It's true they would probably have shrunk anyway, but they might well have survived. When Radio Shack merged with Tandy, both forsake their core businesses.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Booga1 on Sunday February 23 2020, @01:55AM (2 children)
Here's what I saw while living with a guy that did radio repair and built his own lasers...
Both you and AC are pretty much on target.
They diversified to both grow their customer base and hedge their bets. This worked for a while, but eventually the diversification turned into their new core business as they abandoned their roots. That was also sustainable for a while.
As consumer electronics became more disposable and less repairable, their original purpose of providing all the components you needed fell. Big box competitors sprung up or spread with huge stores full of electronics, like Best Buy and Circuit City.
RadioShack stores were all rather small. Even Wal-Mart and Target had more room for the same kinds electronics and toys RadioShack was selling. This was the beginning of what would eventually kill them, and it started long before online shopping.
RadioShack cut back drastically on the shelf space for components in an attempt to be able to sell to the average customer. This pissed off their original core customers such as that radio repair roommate I mentioned. It became harder to get things immediately so he had to resort to mail order catalogs more often.
Online ordering starts becoming available for . Cellphones become somewhat affordable. RadioShack starts losing money in earnest. They start cutting back on employee pay which was never all that great to begin with, but they had managed to keep electronics enthusiasts to some degree up until then.
RadioShack starts an ad campaign "You've got questions, we've got answers" in an attempt to capitalize on that association with knowledgeable and enthusiastic employee base. At the same time, they are losing those same employees and replacing them with people with no experience with the electronics components or their usage. Not that it mattered much since they shrank the component section even further.
Online ordering becomes widely available. Cellphones become affordable. RadioShack moves into the cellphone business in an attempt to find a new direction that's a growing market. Every other electronics business already moved into selling cellphones at least two or more years earlier. In reality, it's already game over.
RadioShack's late move into cellphones means they have no market share and can't get the same volume of sales as the big box stores. They can't get good deals from the carriers on phone prices. Customers continue to avoid RadioShack, even for cellphones. Bankruptcy hits. Sprint buys some stores.
RadioShack gives up on most regular electronics and tries to redesign itself again. They go all out on cellphones, accessories, toys, gadgets, and schlock novelties ala Sharper Image. It doesn't work. Nothing really would have at that point. Bankruptcy hits again. The zombie stores live on to this day.
I predict they'll bankrupt out again eventually. The stores are just too small. They don't have the volume to compete on price. Nobody thinks of them first for online ordering. It's just taking a really long time for them to finish dying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 23 2020, @06:08AM (1 child)
You have questions?
We have phones!
Or
We have blank stares!
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Sunday February 23 2020, @06:52AM
More of the blank stares really.
It was during that ad campaign I went to RadioShack with my roommate so he could pick up a couple of components for a laser he damaged when he dropped a screwdriver in it.
They didn't have what he needed, so he asked the lone guy working the counter if he could order it. Blank stare... dude didn't even know how to order anything. My roommate asked if the manager would know if it was available to order. We were told there was no manager available until tomorrow...
As we walk out the door, my roommate turns to me and says, "RadioShack: You've got questions, we've got questions."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Saturday February 22 2020, @10:36PM
AT&T is a lot like The Blob: If you slice it into pieces, it just reconstitutes itself into something that's at least as much a horrible monstrosity as what it was before.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.