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AT&T to pay $60M over U.S. allegations it lied in 'unlimited data' pledge
- RedRose 7y agoThey didn’t lie. They did give the users unlimited data, but just slowed down the loading of apps and web browsers. That is completely understandable because where are they going to store all of this data.
- supercanuck 7y agoShopping in the US, is akin to asking the Genie for 3 wishes. It is deceitful, regardless.
- colejohnson66 7y ago> That is completely understandable because where are they going to store all of this data. AT&T doesn’t store the contents of your data usage; The NSA might, though... But seriously, an unlimited data plan should be exactly that: unlimited. No throttling. If you’re gonna include throttling over a certain limit: say that; Don’t hide it in the fine print that no one but lawyers read. That’s deceptive advertising, and is illegal. The FTC should go after them for that.
- derision 7y agoThere has to be some form of throttling at some point. Otherwise one person can consume all the bandwidth.
- colejohnson66 7y agoNetwork management is allowed under most definitions of “net neutrality.” But if someone is consuming all the bandwidth, maybe you should upgrade your equipment? Maybe don’t sit, whine, and ask for more subsidies that you won’t use for that purpose. Most people aren’t upset about network management throttling, but about the deceptive advertising that says you get unlimited, but in fine print: “limited to EDGE speeds (128Kb/s) after 2 GB”
- diggan 7y agoYeah, don't claim that the data is unlimited then, problem solved. Either you say that you offer unlimited data, and you allow unlimited data, or you don't say or allow it. I seem to recall that something similar as this case happened in Sweden (10+ years ago?), where a operator was forced to not claim "unlimited data" unless it truly is unlimited and without throttling, but I can't find any references to this right now...
- jbarberu 7y agoLooking at ARN's past judgements, there doesn't seem to be any restrictions on marketing "unlimited data" plans with throttling in Sweden, as long as that's in the contract. There was one case in 2011 where the consumer was awarded a victory as the contract only said unlimited data and nothing about throttling.
- Spivak 7y agoCan a service ever offer unlimited data when there is a hard cap on the amount you could download 24/7? Does it really matter if they change their branding to be unmetered rather than unlimited?
- JohnFen 7y ago> Can a service ever offer unlimited data when there is a hard cap on the amount you could download 24/7? No, not honestly. There is a natural "hard cap", though. If you're paying for a certain speed, then the natural limit would be however much data you can pump at that speed over a set period of time. I think it would be fair to call that "unlimited", in the sense that the service provider would not be imposing an artificial lower limit from what physics allows. If a service provider isn't allowing that, then it's hard to see how they can characterize a service as "unlimited" without it being an outright lie.
- alteria 7y agoT-Mobile solves this through de-prioritization, so your service is only degraded when there is congestion AND once you've crossed a certain threshold (53GB right now I think).
- awad 7y agoThat's my understanding of AT&T's current implementation of unlimited at the moment
- pmoriarty 7y agoIs there any way to verify that that's what they're actually doing?
- plorkyeran 7y agoIt'd be hard to prove it, but in practice it gets noticeably slower at peak usage times after exceeding the cap and stays fast at off-peak times, which matches the expected result of deprioritization.
- gsich 7y agoIf you are the only device in the network, yes.
- chooseaname 7y agoYes. But wouldn't it be better to deal with that individual when it's necessary? Give everyone what they pay for and if someone abuses it, deal with that person.
- derision 7y agoisn't that exactly what throttling is...
- Spivak 7y agoHence the policy to throttle users that consume (comparatively) a lot of data. Typical metered data plans are 2GiB and throttling kicks in somewhere between 20 and 50GiB depending on the network. Not good enough?
- JohnFen 7y agoNot if they're advertising "unlimited" service. In my view, the entire problem is that they want so badly to say "unlimited" while at the same time not allowing actual unlimited use. The problem could be easily resolved at no cost -- all the companies have to do is stop using the word "unlimited".
- tombert 7y agoSure, that might be necessary, but I don't see why AT&T couldn't explicitly say "after 20GB, you're bumped down to a lower speed". Surely, AT&T engineers are smart enough to know how much bandwidth they can afford to give out, and if they can't afford to provide the service that they advertise, they should be in trouble, and they should stop advertising it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- LeifCarrotson 7y agoBandwidth is finite. On mobile LTE networks, about 35 Mbps is currently pretty average. The problem is that mobile operators are incredibly underprovisioned. If your plan offers 1 GB of LTE data, at 35 Mbps, you can burn through a monthly allocation in 3.8 minutes. That's an average utilization of 0.0087%, or an underprovisioning by a factor of 11,500. They sell it as if you're buying 35 Mbps access to the network all month long, when really, you can't use that for more than a few hours even on 'unlimited' plans. I don't expect 1:1 access so that everyone can use their full bandwidth full time; I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars a month for that. But I'd pay a tenth of that for 1:10 underprovisioned access, and I'm sure that plenty would pay a few cents for the current 1:10,000 underprovisioned service...
- cannonedhamster 7y agoAmazingly you can get cheaper cell plans including more data than these unlimited plans in the socialist bastion of Europe. I don't think the bandwidth is the problem it's the company and the regulatory capture. It's only this bad in the US and Canada.
- t0mbstone 7y ago"unlimited" means that there are no limits. Period. Unlimited means no limits to speed, and no limits to quantity. If there is any type of artificial limit, then the thing ceases to be "unlimited". That is just straight up common sense, based on dictionary definitions.
- tpmoney 7y agoI’ve long thought this is an issue of changing definitions. To anyone who was buying cell phone data plans when it was charged by the byte (and later in tiers of bytes with insane overage charges), “unlimited data” was easily understood to mean no overage charges, no per byte fees. But somewhere along the way (or perhaps as an unfortunate consequence of not seeing far enough ahead to always throttle unlimited plans) the definition in consumer minds also seemed to include no speed limits either.
- wyre 7y agoCell phone plans are purchased with the speed of service. Unlimited data at 50 mbps, for example, stops being unlimited when the speed is no longer 50 mbps.
- scarface74 7y agoCell phones are never sold with a speed of service. How could they be? Your speed is determined by congestion, the proximity of the tower, etc.
- kstrauser 7y agoThose are natural limits, though. If I go to an all-you-can-eat buffet but just had my wisdom teeth removed, it's not their fault that I'll cry in a corner while delicately nibbling a small bowl of pudding. They were willing to let me eat more, even if I wasn't capable of it. If the same buffet made you wait 2 hours between plates, then it's no longer realistically an all-you-can-eat buffet.
- gsich 7y ago>That is completely understandable because where are they going to store all of this data. Who is "they"? If it's the users, simple. Either on your harddisk or RAM (temporary).
- nullandvoid 7y agoNot sure if you're trolling or have no clue how ISPs work. They provide a pipe for data to travel through ( which can get congested ) however there is no requirement to store any of that data.
- acd 7y agoWhy can big corps pay and get free? Its often happens, company x made crime y, pays government z and gets free.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y agoI wish I knew. FWIW, the film Law Abiding Citizen examines a similar topic: plea bargains in criminal cases against individuals. For me, it was a great thought-experiment about how one's anger about plea-bargaining could play out. But just a warning, it has some pretty horrific scenes that you might regret watching.
- post_break 7y agoThe end result in the real world is killdozer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer
- koolba 7y agoThat’s an incredible read!
- really3452 7y agoJust another form of bribing.
- JohnFen 7y agoBecause (at least in the US), money is power.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoIt is a great quality of the Law that it allows both rich and poor alike to pay a lot of money to avoid jail time when caught committing a crime.
- ngold 7y agoEveryone has the freedom to pay.
- Trias11 7y agoPocket change. Cost of doing business. They made way more money by misleading customers and will continue to do so with penalties that small.
- diminoten 7y agoYeah but like, is it really also not "pocket change" to just actually give "unlimited" service? Or what about the effectiveness of the "unlimited" lie, was that worth spending an extra $60MM on the marketing?
- nathankunicki 7y agoOf course it is, the wholesale cost of data is peanuts comparatively. However there is _more_ money to be made by marking it up and charging $X per GB above an arbitrary cap.
- SN76477 7y agoPocket change is right. How about some real fines?
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoHow much do you think they should be fined?
- pmoriarty 7y agoThey should just double the fine after every violation.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y agoA punitive amount.
- 7y ago
- epmaybe 7y agoI'm surprised that the FTC didn't push harder for an admission or some statement by AT&T to make this look like a win for the gov't. AT&T's statement: > “None of these allegations were ever proved in court. We were fully prepared to defend ourselves, but decided settling was in the best interests of consumers,” said Jim Greer, a spokesman for AT&T.
- chooseaname 7y agoWhat would surprise me is if Randall Stephenson did something that wasn't some form of stealing from his customers.
- r00fus 7y agoAre you really surprised with this administration? I'd guess if I were a business with a pending investigation/lawsuit, I'd push really hard to "do business" with this environment, as opposed to what may come in 2021.
- Domenic_S 7y agoSome people will make anything an opportunity to say "orange man bad". Here's some other history: * (2014) Verizon settles an overbilling case for $64MM, of which only $36MM went to payouts. [0] * (2015) Verizon settles a robocalling class action for only $4MM. [1] * (2009) Sprint settles an ETF class action for only $17.5MM [2] * (2015) Sprint pays only $131MM to settle a lawsuit about their bungled $36 BILLION merger with Nextel [3] This has far less to do with "this administration" and far more to do with how business is run in America. I'm not saying it's right, not at all, but I do want to point out that buying into this partisan nonsense distracts us (voters) from actually changing the system meaningfully (where "meaningful" is creating an environment where this doesn't happen). [0] https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/closed-settlements/47886-verizon-wireless-family-shareplan-class-action-settlement/ https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/closed-settl... [1] And more... https://moneyinc.com/10-verizon-lawsuits-you-should-know-about/ https://moneyinc.com/10-verizon-lawsuits-you-should-know-abo... [2] https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sprint-settling-class-action-etf-lawsuit-for-17-5m https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sprint-settling-clas... [3] https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sprint-pays-131m-to-settle-class-action-lawsuit-over-nextel-merger-claims https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sprint-pays-131m-to-...
- bdcravens 7y agoThey have about 150M customers, so about $0.38 each.
- debt 7y agoIf you wanna have a good laugh: Go to an AT&T store and purchase a plan with a phone using installments. Then, wait a day, and try to return it at a different AT&T store. You will go through the absolutely worst customer experience imaginable; so bad, in fact, it'll make you laugh out loud. Their printers won't work, they'll be too slow, the systems will go down, the batteries will die in their payment devices. At least that's what I experienced on every one of the three times they asked me to come back to the store to return the phone(because each time their systems simply were unable to do it). So it's no surprise to me that they got caught lying to their customers.
- pcurve 7y agoNone of these allegations were ever proved in court. We were fully prepared to defend ourselves, but decided settling was in the best interests of consumers,” said Jim Greer, a spokesman for AT&T. Stay classy Jim.
- rolltiide 7y agoAnd shareholders The international ones are the most concerned about a company’s domestic relationship with its government because the power imbalance is hard to comprehend and trust
- HashThis 7y agoPlease go after T-Mobile next. They throttle their "unlimited" to unusable.
- dorkwood 7y agoJust out of curiosity, where does the money from a fine like this go?
- jessaustin 7y agoInteresting that "allegations" is in the link and the HN title, but not in the title at the link. I guess if they're paying $60M then something must have happened....
- rubyfan 7y agoIf you are one of these customers (I am) this seems a little unfair. We overpaid way more than we’ll ever see back. What kind of refund does this translate to $6?
- cannonedhamster 7y agoIt translates to nothing for the party who was damaged. Literally they will get nothing. And if they don't like that deal the government can make it hurt more. Your life here ruined over an ounce of weed, but rob multiple people access you get a bonus and the company gets a small tax that mostly goes to lawyers.
- subsaharancoder 7y agoI'm always weary of any telco pushing an "unlimited data" product, the terms and conditions attached to the product definitely makes one think twice and basically end up being "Unlimited data but [a lot of terms and conditions hidden at the very bottom that they know most people won't read and by the time they do it is too late]
- Johnny555 7y ago$60M? So basically no punishment to deter them or competitors from doing it again? What is that, like less than 50 cents/customer?
- wiseleo 7y agoBetter source: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/11/att-pay-60-million-resolve-ftc-allegations-it-misled-consumers https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2019/11/att-p... direct from FTC links to the court documents regulating disclosure requirements.
- wiseleo 7y agoThere needs to be a minimum acceptable speed threshold. “2G" is meaningless. They do not downgrade the protocol to 2G, hence that term only serves to confuse customers. 2G refers to EDGE that was available at 144kbps, which is faster than a bonded ISDN, which is fast enough to stream a 128kbit mp3. I would actually be happy with true unlimited 144kbps. It’s usable. I can run RDP over that with reasonable refresh rate. It is also not possible as a customer to voluntarily turn off high speed when you don’t need it. From experience, once my connection gets limited to 2G, my speed is closer to 9600bps, which is absolutely unusable for interactive Internet use. I have two phones. One has Visible from Verizon with allegedly unlimited but relatively slow data at 2-10mbit with unlimited tethering. The second is my T-mobile phone with an allegedly unlimited but in reality limited to 50GB much faster data with a 7GB hotspot. I use my Tmobile data when I have to and the rest of the time that phone is tethered to my Visible phone. Visible is $40/mo, T-mobile is $80 and I may downgrade it to a limited plan with zero-rated video.