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The FTC is Suing AT&T for Throttling its Unlimited Data Customers

posted by martyb on Wednesday October 29 2014, @02:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the as-much-as-YOU-want-but-as-slow-as-WE-want dept.

AnonTechie writes:

Federal officials on Tuesday sued AT&T, the nation’s second-largest cellular carrier, for allegedly deceiving millions of customers by selling them supposedly “unlimited” data plans that the company later “throttled” by slowing Internet speeds when customers surfed the Web too much.

The Federal Trade Commission said the practice, used by AT&T since 2011, resulted in slower speeds for customers on at least 25 million occasions – in some cases cutting user Internet speeds by 90 percent, to the point where they resembled dial-up services of old. The 3.5 million affected customers experienced these slowdowns an average of 12 days each month, said the FTC, which received thousands of complaints about the practice.

See also Ars Technica's coverage: US sues AT&T, alleges severe throttling of unlimited data customers which notes that customers were throttled by as much as 90% once they reached 3GB or 5GB of data.

The FTC has made available both a press release and the AT&T lawsuit (pdf).

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Entropy on Wednesday October 29 2014, @03:36PM

    by Entropy (4228) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @03:36PM (#111199)

    In the US wireless providers are under the delusion that we'll play per GB of data forever. This is text messaging all over again, where they thought they'd get 0.10$/text message but no one ever really used it until there was a $10 for unlimited option.

  • (Score: 2) by datapharmer on Wednesday October 29 2014, @04:17PM

    by datapharmer (2702) on Wednesday October 29 2014, @04:17PM (#111220)

    It is worse than that as it went backwards. It was originally unlimited until some bean counter thought "we should charge for this by usage!" and away we went back to the 90s... you know just like all the "cloud" keep renting forever nonsense.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @04:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @04:52PM (#111245)

    In the US wireless providers are under the delusion that we'll play per GB of data forever. This is text messaging all over again, where they thought they'd get 0.10$/text message but no one ever really used it until there was a $10 for unlimited option.

    Speaking of text messaging, I happened to find out just today that I have been getting text messages from 900 numbers which somehow prompts my phone to auto-respond with my phone number. I am not even sure how they are doing this. Has anyone else seen this? I am gobsmacked that Verizon would even allow this egregious and outrageous sort of thing to happen. This has to be a new low for them.