11 ms·

FTC Says AT&T Has Misled Millions of Consumers with ‘Unlimited’ Data Promises

489 points by tshtf 12y ago

kolbe 12y ago
I've been on the AT&T unlimited plan for a long while now, and I've been looking forward to the day when I get a $10 settlement check in the mail whilst some law firm pulls in $200mm in legal fees.
- philmcc 12y ago
  $10 or... $850. One person sued them in small claims court and won. (http://www.mactech.com/2012/02/27/how-fight-att-data-throttling-small-claims-action http://www.mactech.com/2012/02/27/how-fight-att-data-throttl...) He outlines the steps on his website. (http://www.taporc.com/ http://www.taporc.com/)
  - evandena 12y ago
    I thought you were forced to go to arbitration?
    - negativeview 12y ago
      Arbitration clauses may not be legal everywhere. Another shitty() reality is that companies love putting clauses in contracts that won't hold up in court because MANY people just assume that it must be legal and the rest of the contract is still binding, just not the illegal parts. () This is really done to protect mom and pop business. If they accidentally put in a clause that's not legal, it'd really suck if the entire contract were nullified. But big companies with bajillion dollar lawyers use this loophole to essentially intimidate their customers.
  - tshaddox 12y ago
    Still, $850 is only a little over a year of my Internet bill.
    - higherpurpose 12y ago
      Only because your Internet is so expensive. I pay $13 for 200 Mbps down.
      - hsod 12y ago
        Are you just bragging or do you have a point?
      - baddox 12y ago
        Yes, the amount of Internet I can buy with a given amount of money depends on the price of Internet in my area.
    - wavefunction 12y ago
      That's a fair amount of money to be giving away for free to lawyers or AT&T.
- karl_gluck 12y ago
  You always have the option of exempting yourself from the claim, citing this case as precedent and suing them yourself.
- Istof 12y ago
  as long as someone else besides ATT enjoys that money and the situation gets resolved (but they need to also go after the other "unlimited" plans at other companies)
jrgifford 12y ago
SURPRISE!
Drakim 12y ago
> began throttling data speeds in 2011 for its unlimited data plan customers after they used as little as 2 gigabytes of data in a billing period This is what really gets me. I expected this sort of situation to come about when some jackass used up 1 petabyte of bandwidth on his unlimited plan, but 2 gigabytes? To me, that's like offering unlimited coffee refills, but stopping customers after the second cup, with some excuse that there has to be some limits to "unlimited".
- adjwilli 12y ago
  Wouldn't it be more like after 2 cups they only get served in half-cup increments? I agree with the sentiment. Unlimited with throttles isn't truly "unlimited", but "unlimited*". That said, the FTC complaint seems to take issue with that AT&T did not "adequately disclose to its customers" this information. And there, I take some issue with this. AT&T did actually explain that. Maybe some consumers didn't understand that because of the lack of an asterisk. I guess this will be interesting to see just how important an asterisk can be.
  - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
    I don't believe they did, especially because for grandfathered users, there is no documentation on unlimited plans and there hasn't been for years.
    - adjwilli 12y ago
      Yeah, you're right that the grandfathered consumers are a special case. It would be like having truly unlimited coffee refills then all of a sudden being told you're getting half-cup intervals.
      - mikeash 12y ago
        Aren't they the only case here? AT&T hasn't offered unlimited data plans for quite a while. They basically only had them for the original iPhone introduction, and got rid of them seemingly as soon as they could.
Someone1234 12y ago
Here's the thing about these unlimited-throttling programs: They are good for both the consumer AND cellular operator, but you have to be upfront and honest about it. AT&T's problem is that they just one day up and decided to start throttling unlimited customers (down to 10-20% of their normal speed) without a warning, and without it being made clear in any of their marketing material or contracts. The reason why I call these programs "good" is that they all but eliminate overage charges from a consumer's bill. With limited data, you often get charged excessive amounts if you go over your cap (disproportionately large amounts at times). So for example, if a consumer got their teenager 2 GB of data, and that teenager ran up a 5 GB usage bill one month, that could be an additional $60 charge ($20/GB) out of the blue. Unlimited-throttled data averts that possibility (and the teenager in this example is the only one negatively impacted by the excess usage). This is how T-Mobile currently operates on all of their Simple Choice plans (both unlimited and limited). They have scrapped overage charges (so there is no bill-shock) and instead just throttle you down. The only major difference between what T-Mobile currently do and what AT&T were doing, is that AT&T lied and hid it, and worse still charged customers ETF if they left as a result. T-mobile is completely upfront about the policy and how it is enforced. PS - T-Mobile also do the same thing for roaming data, no overage charges.
- nnnnni 12y ago
  The worst part is that AT&T was VERY vague about the threshold. They just called it "in the top tier of users". The policy would push the average down over time, which means that "the top tier" threshold would become lower and lower.
  - adjwilli 12y ago
    Yes, the real issue in the complaint is likely the grandfathered consumers who signed up to AT&T understanding one definition of unlimited just to be forced into another. I don't think it's an FTC attack on "unlimited but throttled" data plans.
  - smackfu 12y ago
    And they said they "may see reduced data speeds" which really means "will see drastically reduced data speeds."
adamfeldman 12y ago
I've been on a (now grandfathered) 'unlimited' data plan with AT&T since 2008 (iPhone 3G > 4S > 5S). Can confirm the throttling, lately after 3GB of data usage in a billing period
- philmcc 12y ago
  Ditto (since 2007). I used to be able to stream Spotify at maximum quality. I got a 2g utilization/throttle notice. Now it skips and staggers and I've had to downshift in order to have uninterrupted playback.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  A friend of mine was staying with AT&T because they had the grandfathered in 'unlimited' plan but when they figured out it really was a 2GB plan and a throttle that let them change carriers without feeling like they were "losing" something.
  - famousactress 12y ago
    This is exactly where I'm at now. Been evaluating leaving our unlimited data plan because it seems it's effectively a 3gig plan that doesn't allow tethering. For the same cost I think I can get 6G shared with my wife and tether if I need to.
- joshstrange 12y ago
  I had unlimited up until my 5S when we went to a family data plan because it made financial sense. I can't help but feel they were throttling my internet PRIOR to the 3GB mark as well but this may be due to more phones coming online that lowered speeds across the board. I am VERY pissed with AT&T right now as my house (which used to get 3-4 bars no problem) now only gets 1 bar and regularly cuts in and out. Also mobile data is crapshoot even if I am in an area that you would expect good speeds from. I've gone full circle from all local -> all cloud -> all local because I can't trust my connection to work. Finding out that AT&T was injecting a tracking ID into my web requests is just the icing on the cake today..... I hate AT&T.
- geuis 12y ago
morganvachon 12y ago
So, I wonder if this is the first salvo in a war on all the major carriers who use the same "unlimited but throttled" marketing scheme? If AT&T loses this one, will the FTC go after T-Mobile and Sprint, who also do this? (Verizon doesn't offer unlimited data to new customers, but had kept it going for grandfathered customers, and backed off from plans to throttle them[1]). [1] http://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-backs-off-on-plans-to-throttle-unlimited-data-users/ http://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-backs-off-on-plans-to-throt...
- adjwilli 12y ago
  The issue doesn't seem to be the "unlimited by throttled" business model, but the adequate disclosure of that information to the consumer. Other carriers may have worded it differently. More importantly though, AT&T had a grandfathered contract with consumers for unlimited without throttling (or "true unlimited"). Those changes along with their vagueness make AT&T a special case. In any case though, I'm sure the other carriers will watch this case closely.
- maxsilver 12y ago
  I am not a lawyer, but from reading the link, it sounds like the problem isn't that they throttled the data, but that they hid/lied about it. Neither T-Mobile or Sprint hide the fact that they throttle / rate limit their subscribers for various reasons. So presumably, they are less at risk here.
  - morganvachon 12y ago
    As a former Sprint customer, I'll disagree about that particular carrier. Sprint has offered "unlimited" data for a long time, but after they finally got the iPhone a few years ago, they saw a surge in data usage and started implementing undisclosed and seemingly random soft caps on all their unlimited data customers, all while claiming they offered "truly unlimited data" that wasn't throttled. They have only very recently admitted[1] to throttling some of their customers, but it's actually been going on for a long time according to customer complaints in their support site. As for T-Mobile, it's my understanding that they changed their policy to include the possibility of throttling and initially didn't disclose it until it was leaked[2]. Of course, neither of these situations are as customer-hostile as AT&T has been, so maybe the FTC won't go after them. But I wouldn't be surprised if Sprint and T-Mobile make changes to their policies if AT&T loses. [1] http://bgr.com/2014/05/08/sprint-throttling-unlimited-data-death/ http://bgr.com/2014/05/08/sprint-throttling-unlimited-data-d... [2]http://bgr.com/2014/08/13/t-mobile-unlimited-data-throttling-memo/ http://bgr.com/2014/08/13/t-mobile-unlimited-data-throttling...
swartkrans 12y ago
For those of us who are Americans, isn't it amazing how the companies that provide us with access to the internet are pretty much among the most hated companies in our country? I feel like I'd rank them almost up there with Halliburton, Sodexo and Blackwater. First of all they are incredibly expensive. They try to actively create worse experiences for their customers. Forced inclusions of apps on android phones on mobile carriers. A comcast rep wanted to install a browser toolbar on my computer. Vague billing that leads to sticker shock. $0.25 per tiny little text message, really? I paid next to nothing to post this comment on HN, but had I posted such large amounts of text via a text message, it would have cost a lot of money. Talk to them on the phone and they try to sell you things you don't need. Like one time I wanted to get HBO, HBO costs $15 a month, period, but when you talk to them on the phone they wont tell you that unless you ask a specific question, they'll tell you about their bundles which will cost you hundreds of dollars extra. This is a really scummy thing to do. They know the person who contacted them only wants HBO, but then they sell them something way worse they didn't want. Collusion with illegal federal programs that involved lying to congress, lying to our public representatives. These companies are filled with scum from top to bottom. The people that you deal with in the stores, the people that decide which phones you can buy at their store and what they have on them, the people you talk to on the phone, the executives. It must be like working for a tobacco company, once you're willing to work at such a place the culture just destroys your integrity or something. I have no idea. I even still considerably distrust tmobile, even though they seem to be trying to change things.
- EGreg 12y ago
  I think minimal infrastructure should be free. We already have this with open source programs, public education, etc. but I think it should extend to the internet and other things. What is "minimal" should be determined by some kind of system, and above that, there should be a free market. I believe the role of government is to ensure people's "minimal expectations" are met, and beyond that people can do whatever they want. And hopefully I will be living by my own principles ... the platform that we've spent years building has been open sourced and put on Github. I think small businesses / apps can be built on top of it, but minimal infrastructure eventually becomes free.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
post_break 12y ago
I left AT&T because of this. My iPhone went dead data wise after 3GB of usage, on unlimited data plan. We went to arbitration and they let me out of my contract, and unlocked my phone. They clearly know they are ripping people off trying to force them to nickel and dime the tiered plans.
barce 12y ago
Sprint does the same thing but at 5GB. Just a data point from a former Sprint customer.
mrbill 12y ago
I'm on the $60-70/month T-Mobile plan that gives me truly unlimited 4G data; no throttling. I might not use more than 2G a month most of the time, but if I need to use more, I don't have to worry (such as when I had to go out of state when a family member had emergency surgery a couple of months ago). I wouldn't switch back to AT&T as a wireless carrier even if someone paid me every month.
wpaprocki 12y ago
I work for a telco reseller. We make our money by selling the same services as the big guys without being assholes about it. We make a lot of money.
RankingMember 12y ago
For people in the U.S./Canada looking for a provider who gives a shit and who live in an area with decent Sprint coverage, check out Ting. I've been using them for about 2 years now and they've been rock solid (I am in no way affiliated with them, I'm just that happy with them). The closest reasonable thing to sending photocopies of your middle finger in their (Verizon/AT&T) "business reply" spam postal mailings is giving someone else who kicks ass your business (don't do the photocopy thing, the people who have to open and transcribe those things don't like Verizon/AT&T either).
- __david__ 12y ago
  I want to like Ting—my sister uses it and loves it, but they don't let you run the latest iPhones and that's a deal breaker for me. :-(
  - RankingMember 12y ago
    Yeah, the blackout period Sprint holds them to has shrunk over time, but if you're riding the bleeding edge you won't be happy with the delay.
lukasb 12y ago
Apart from a $10 settlement check, what's likely to happen to grandfathered unlimited / unthrottled plans?
- ProAm 12y ago
  You'll be eligible for an upgrade in two year.
- smackfu 12y ago
  Here is what the FTC says would have been valid options: "Defendant has numerous alternative ways to reduce data usage on its network that do not involve violating its promise to customers. One alternative would involve Defendant requiring existing unlimited data customers to switch to a tiered data plan at renewal. ... Another alternative would involve Defendant introducing its throttling program at renewal, with disclosures at point of sale. ... Yet other alternatives might include limited, narrowly tailored throttling programs that are consistent with Defendant’s contracts, advertising, and other public disclosures. " So essentially, you'd end up in the same place, but you would have to be informed about it. And might be able to leave without ETF.
  - shostack 12y ago
    Which is really the way it should work. Let AT&T have all the crappy customer-hostile policies they want as long as they fully disclose it in a sufficient manner to their customers. Then, their customers can vote with their money and go to a competitor that offers more for their money. That's the way it SHOULD work, but probably won't :(
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
oamoruwa 12y ago
AT&T can't be the only operator guilty of such throttling. A previous article was published about Verizon also considering implementing throttling data consumption.
hernan6042 12y ago
This 'unlimited' term is very misleading. Every connection that has a bandwidth cap will be tied and limited by that cap. ie. 10mb/s is limited to 10mb/s period. There is no such thing as 'unlimited' unless of course the connection has no virtual cap, then that would be considered unlimited. So every connection plan as we know is limited and never unlimited. Thoughts?
- gtk40 12y ago
  It's pretty high though. For example, unlimited 10mb/s in a month is over 26TB.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
denzil_correa 12y ago
I hope this is the beginning of the end of Fair Usage Policies (FUP) masked as "unlimited Internet". The best part of the release was the note > The Commission files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The case will be decided by the court.
fady 12y ago
I have an unlimited data plan as well and I am 100 percent positive that AT&T throttles at 5 gigabytes and when they do its really bad, like .6 megabits per second down :(
sswaner 12y ago
I made the mistake of downloading over 20GB of music and files on my new iPhone 6. The phone has been almost useless since hitting that limit. So much for "Unlimited Data". But, I am waiting for a check for over $1300 as part of a class action settlement with AT&T after being overfilled for service.
nerdtalker 12y ago
AT&T silently killed what formerly was an unlimited plan out of the blue one day, and not many people noticed. I would constantly run into the 3 GB limit a week or two into the month and then suffer through the slow throttled 0.5 Mbps rates for the rest of the billing cycle in agony. At that point I realized I was essentially paying for a 3 GB data plan (remember, no tethering provisioning was included or even could be added) under the auspices of an 'unlimited' tier. I switched to mobile shared but that turned out to be a huge mistake for other reasons (among which was that corporate discount codes didn't apply to the $30 phone fee on top of the bucket charge), and then shortly after that left for T-Mobile where I now have a real unlimited plan for less money. Not the full speed tiers + throttled data after that plan mind you, the actual unlimited plan. What's really disappointing is that it took the FTC until now to build a case or whatever legal burden is required to go after AT&T for their elaborate bait-and-switch. This is years after the fact, and I wonder how much extra money AT&T made as a result.
- sleazebreeze 12y ago
  What did you think was a mistake about the mobile shared plan? I just switched to that for my single device and I was enjoying the money saved. Am I missing a "gotcha"?
  - smackfu 12y ago
    Some people don't realize that the real cheap rates are because you are giving up a subsidy, and that your next new phone will raise the rates again. OTOH I personally think that's a benefit since I can choose to get the subsidy or Next or just buy the phone outright.
  - nerdtalker 12y ago
    My problems were really two fold: * I previously had a 23% discount (FAN code) on my account which applied to the unlimited data lines in a favorable way. In essence, it applied to both the $30/month data fee for Unlimited, and the couple hundred minutes of call and unlimited text family plan which were sort of an umbrella for all the lines. With mobile shared, one of the gotchas I didn't discover until well after the first bill (since the perpetual excuse with a FAN code discount is – it takes a while to apply) was that the discount applies only to the mobile shared data bucket charge, not to the $30/phone, $x/tablet, $x/modem device access charge line items which quickly add up if you have more than a single line. This really threw off the math I had done for affordability and made it more expensive for me. * The tiers previously were structured a bit differently, and with the two lines I had plus another person, I would always hit the 10 GB I had signed up for, then pay the $15/GB overage. Going to the next tier up to avoid paying overage for a GB or two would've still been more expensive, so like clockwork I would always end up paying some overages. Since then they've doubled some of the larger tiers as a reactionary measure. Affordability wise quite honestly AT&T is close to parity with T-Mobile if you manage to get the mobile shared value plans which have cheaper monthly rates if you bring your own device or buy without a contract.
cevaris 12y ago
Soooo, no throttling by ISP's is next?
peterwwillis 12y ago
Do people actually think that wireless carriers have the bandwidth to handle everyone streaming HD at once? They throttle so there's headroom for spikes in overly-saturated network segments. It's not like they just don't like it when you use their service.
- devb 12y ago
  That's a great theory, but what are the actual limits? Why not introduce throttling to everyone at once only at times of actual spikes instead of forcing me to sit through a week of having an essentially useless phone until the billing cycle goes through? More importantly, why the hell are millions of people paying for something that they were promised but aren't getting?
dumbfounder 12y ago
I had the unlimited plan for several years and was shocked and outraged to find that they were throttling after I reached a certain limit. So I switched to Sprint's unlimited plan and now I can rest at ease that I have a consistent experience. My bandwidth is now throttled 100% of the time by the crappiness of their network.
us0r 12y ago
While this appears good, this is nothing more then a show. AT&T will end up paying virtually nothing[1]. If you get angry when companies like Microsoft can go and seize domains, property and anything else in civil matters - this lovely agency has helped pave most of the way for them. The bulk of their cases come with Ex Parte Temporary Restraining Order's and Asset Freezes[1]. What will likely be the most egregious offender with the highest amount of "consumer damage" (AT&T) they don't even use the word "scam" or "fraud" in the complaint or press release. AT&T has already won. I doubt anyone there is losing any sleep over this. [1] - http://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings http://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
eyeareque 12y ago
I love seeing AT&T getting this kind of attention from the FTC for their terrible, terrible, monopolistic and greedy tactics. Their goal is to squeeze every penny they possibly can out of their customers. Their service has always been subpar. I really hope that this lawsuit costs AT&T a lot of money; It needs to hurt in order to teach them a lesson. One can only hope that we can someday have a competitive wireless market with 5+ options for consumers to choose from. That is when customer service will become real.
mpg33 12y ago
At least you Americans have some choice. Here in Canada there are only 3 (nation-wide) carriers with virtually the same plans/prices.
lewis_b_real 12y ago
And there is absolutely no meaningful way to hold them accountable.
twoodfin 12y ago
I don't see how anybody wins from this complaint. AT&T already no longer offers any unlimited plans to new customers, and the most likely outcome will be to no longer offer renewals of the existing grandfathered plans. It's not as if anyone on those plans using 5GB+ a month isn't already aware of the throttling: AT&T is pretty good about notifying you when you are close to or over the limit. I guess a settlement might let some folks in the middle of their contact get out easier. But personally, even considered as just a 5GB/line plan, my grandfathered plan is cheaper than anything currently offered (almost even before you account for the $450/line device subsidy!). Probably won't be the case in two years when I'm up again, but for now I'm glad the FTC didn't file this complaint a few months ago.
- lnanek2 12y ago
  > AT&T is pretty good about notifying you when you are close to or over the limit. I am currently and have been for years on an unlimited data plan with AT&T, easily use over 5GB a month, and have never been notified of any limit ever. My wife is on a standard plan and gets notified when she goes over. AT&T does not notify unlimited users.
  - twoodfin 12y ago
    Weird. I got a text today that I'm getting close. Regardless, it's not as if you were unaware of the limit before this suit.
greyfox 12y ago
arent these cell companies really misleading every customer by charging them for Minutes, SMS, AND Data, when really all that needs to be given to the customer is an ip address that one can call/text/email etc.? i've never understood why our phone numbers arent ip's they seem to be a converging set of numbers at this rate anyways.
davidholmesnyc 12y ago
I dream one day we will all have 1 Gig per second up and down on our mobile phones and it will cost less than a gallon of milk. A man can dream can't he lol .
ozarius 12y ago
Can't wait to send in the threatening email that i received from AT&T stating explicitly that my "unlimited" bandwidth will be throttled because i happened to be in a high usage area. Seriously there should be a place where everyone who received such emails can post them en masse...
jqm 12y ago
There is debate on the thread about whether or not low level AT&T employees are scum... I don't claim to know, but a funny thing happened a few weeks ago. My girlfriends android phone was acting up and shutting off randomly. So she took it to the AT&T store to have it reinstalled (I don't know much about smartphones and didn't want to play with it). So, in the middle of the day, I get an angry call from her accusing me of installing Linux on her smartphone (and why not? I install Linux on everything else...It must have been me!). The guy at the AT&T store told her since I had installed Linux there was nothing he could do for the phone and couldn't reinstall it nor repair it. I protested my innocence but she said the guy in the store had given her proof and she would show me that night. (I was actually a little curious as this was the first I had heard of Linux proper running on a stock android phone). So when the moment of proof came, she pulled up an android screen with the kernel version and there it was... at the bottom of the screen in bold white letters... "SELinux status". Proof! I mean, it said Linux! So maybe they aren't evil, but that guy at least left me wondering about their general competency. I laughed for half an hour solid imagining all the Linux infected phones he must be seeing coming in.... Or more likely, he was just trying to sell her a new phone.
userbinator 12y ago
I wonder if anyone would like clearly-advertised "unlimited data, harmonic throttling": First X amount of data at full speed Second X amount of data at 1/2 of full speed Third X amount of data at 1/3 of full speed Fourth X amount of data at 1/4 of full speed etc... (With perhaps prices based on what that X is, or the decrease in speed could be more gradual.) This is clearly "unlimited" since you can transfer as much data as you want, it just takes a little longer for each additional amount (until the next billing period). :-)
- StevenXC 12y ago
  Let's say you get your nth X GB at XGB/(1000n)s. Then in a month=2628000seconds, you'd get at most about (70X)-ish GB per month. Meanwhile, if you get a flat X GB at XGB/(1000)s, then you get up to (2628X) GB per month. That sure doesn't feel unlimited in comparison.... but I suppose when I put it that way, all data plans are limited by finite time. :-)
robert_nsu 12y ago
Here I thought I was being capped around 5gb. I didn't ditch the "unlimited" data plan until late 2013.

489 points by tshtf 12y ago

kolbe 12y ago

I've been on the AT&T unlimited plan for a long while now, and I've been looking forward to the day when I get a $10 settlement check in the mail whilst some law firm pulls in $200mm in legal fees.

philmcc 12y ago
$10 or... $850. One person sued them in small claims court and won. (http://www.mactech.com/2012/02/27/how-fight-att-data-throttling-small-claims-action http://www.mactech.com/2012/02/27/how-fight-att-data-throttl...) He outlines the steps on his website. (http://www.taporc.com/ http://www.taporc.com/)
- evandena 12y ago
  I thought you were forced to go to arbitration?
  - negativeview 12y ago
    Arbitration clauses may not be legal everywhere. Another shitty() reality is that companies love putting clauses in contracts that won't hold up in court because MANY people just assume that it must be legal and the rest of the contract is still binding, just not the illegal parts. () This is really done to protect mom and pop business. If they accidentally put in a clause that's not legal, it'd really suck if the entire contract were nullified. But big companies with bajillion dollar lawyers use this loophole to essentially intimidate their customers.
- tshaddox 12y ago
  Still, $850 is only a little over a year of my Internet bill.
  - higherpurpose 12y ago
    Only because your Internet is so expensive. I pay $13 for 200 Mbps down.
    - hsod 12y ago
      Are you just bragging or do you have a point?
    - baddox 12y ago
      Yes, the amount of Internet I can buy with a given amount of money depends on the price of Internet in my area.
  - wavefunction 12y ago
    That's a fair amount of money to be giving away for free to lawyers or AT&T.
karl_gluck 12y ago
You always have the option of exempting yourself from the claim, citing this case as precedent and suing them yourself.
Istof 12y ago
as long as someone else besides ATT enjoys that money and the situation gets resolved (but they need to also go after the other "unlimited" plans at other companies)

jrgifford 12y ago

SURPRISE!

Drakim 12y ago

> began throttling data speeds in 2011 for its unlimited data plan customers after they used as little as 2 gigabytes of data in a billing period This is what really gets me. I expected this sort of situation to come about when some jackass used up 1 petabyte of bandwidth on his unlimited plan, but 2 gigabytes? To me, that's like offering unlimited coffee refills, but stopping customers after the second cup, with some excuse that there has to be some limits to "unlimited".

adjwilli 12y ago
Wouldn't it be more like after 2 cups they only get served in half-cup increments? I agree with the sentiment. Unlimited with throttles isn't truly "unlimited", but "unlimited*". That said, the FTC complaint seems to take issue with that AT&T did not "adequately disclose to its customers" this information. And there, I take some issue with this. AT&T did actually explain that. Maybe some consumers didn't understand that because of the lack of an asterisk. I guess this will be interesting to see just how important an asterisk can be.
- lawnchair_larry 12y ago
  I don't believe they did, especially because for grandfathered users, there is no documentation on unlimited plans and there hasn't been for years.
  - adjwilli 12y ago
    Yeah, you're right that the grandfathered consumers are a special case. It would be like having truly unlimited coffee refills then all of a sudden being told you're getting half-cup intervals.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      Aren't they the only case here? AT&T hasn't offered unlimited data plans for quite a while. They basically only had them for the original iPhone introduction, and got rid of them seemingly as soon as they could.

Someone1234 12y ago

Here's the thing about these unlimited-throttling programs: They are good for both the consumer AND cellular operator, but you have to be upfront and honest about it. AT&T's problem is that they just one day up and decided to start throttling unlimited customers (down to 10-20% of their normal speed) without a warning, and without it being made clear in any of their marketing material or contracts. The reason why I call these programs "good" is that they all but eliminate overage charges from a consumer's bill. With limited data, you often get charged excessive amounts if you go over your cap (disproportionately large amounts at times). So for example, if a consumer got their teenager 2 GB of data, and that teenager ran up a 5 GB usage bill one month, that could be an additional $60 charge ($20/GB) out of the blue. Unlimited-throttled data averts that possibility (and the teenager in this example is the only one negatively impacted by the excess usage). This is how T-Mobile currently operates on all of their Simple Choice plans (both unlimited and limited). They have scrapped overage charges (so there is no bill-shock) and instead just throttle you down. The only major difference between what T-Mobile currently do and what AT&T were doing, is that AT&T lied and hid it, and worse still charged customers ETF if they left as a result. T-mobile is completely upfront about the policy and how it is enforced. PS - T-Mobile also do the same thing for roaming data, no overage charges.

nnnnni 12y ago
The worst part is that AT&T was VERY vague about the threshold. They just called it "in the top tier of users". The policy would push the average down over time, which means that "the top tier" threshold would become lower and lower.
- adjwilli 12y ago
  Yes, the real issue in the complaint is likely the grandfathered consumers who signed up to AT&T understanding one definition of unlimited just to be forced into another. I don't think it's an FTC attack on "unlimited but throttled" data plans.
- smackfu 12y ago
  And they said they "may see reduced data speeds" which really means "will see drastically reduced data speeds."

adamfeldman 12y ago

I've been on a (now grandfathered) 'unlimited' data plan with AT&T since 2008 (iPhone 3G > 4S > 5S). Can confirm the throttling, lately after 3GB of data usage in a billing period

philmcc 12y ago
Ditto (since 2007). I used to be able to stream Spotify at maximum quality. I got a 2g utilization/throttle notice. Now it skips and staggers and I've had to downshift in order to have uninterrupted playback.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
A friend of mine was staying with AT&T because they had the grandfathered in 'unlimited' plan but when they figured out it really was a 2GB plan and a throttle that let them change carriers without feeling like they were "losing" something.
- famousactress 12y ago
  This is exactly where I'm at now. Been evaluating leaving our unlimited data plan because it seems it's effectively a 3gig plan that doesn't allow tethering. For the same cost I think I can get 6G shared with my wife and tether if I need to.
joshstrange 12y ago
I had unlimited up until my 5S when we went to a family data plan because it made financial sense. I can't help but feel they were throttling my internet PRIOR to the 3GB mark as well but this may be due to more phones coming online that lowered speeds across the board. I am VERY pissed with AT&T right now as my house (which used to get 3-4 bars no problem) now only gets 1 bar and regularly cuts in and out. Also mobile data is crapshoot even if I am in an area that you would expect good speeds from. I've gone full circle from all local -> all cloud -> all local because I can't trust my connection to work. Finding out that AT&T was injecting a tracking ID into my web requests is just the icing on the cake today..... I hate AT&T.
geuis 12y ago

morganvachon 12y ago

So, I wonder if this is the first salvo in a war on all the major carriers who use the same "unlimited but throttled" marketing scheme? If AT&T loses this one, will the FTC go after T-Mobile and Sprint, who also do this? (Verizon doesn't offer unlimited data to new customers, but had kept it going for grandfathered customers, and backed off from plans to throttle them[1]). [1] http://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-backs-off-on-plans-to-throttle-unlimited-data-users/ http://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-backs-off-on-plans-to-throt...

adjwilli 12y ago
The issue doesn't seem to be the "unlimited by throttled" business model, but the adequate disclosure of that information to the consumer. Other carriers may have worded it differently. More importantly though, AT&T had a grandfathered contract with consumers for unlimited without throttling (or "true unlimited"). Those changes along with their vagueness make AT&T a special case. In any case though, I'm sure the other carriers will watch this case closely.
maxsilver 12y ago
I am not a lawyer, but from reading the link, it sounds like the problem isn't that they throttled the data, but that they hid/lied about it. Neither T-Mobile or Sprint hide the fact that they throttle / rate limit their subscribers for various reasons. So presumably, they are less at risk here.
- morganvachon 12y ago
  As a former Sprint customer, I'll disagree about that particular carrier. Sprint has offered "unlimited" data for a long time, but after they finally got the iPhone a few years ago, they saw a surge in data usage and started implementing undisclosed and seemingly random soft caps on all their unlimited data customers, all while claiming they offered "truly unlimited data" that wasn't throttled. They have only very recently admitted[1] to throttling some of their customers, but it's actually been going on for a long time according to customer complaints in their support site. As for T-Mobile, it's my understanding that they changed their policy to include the possibility of throttling and initially didn't disclose it until it was leaked[2]. Of course, neither of these situations are as customer-hostile as AT&T has been, so maybe the FTC won't go after them. But I wouldn't be surprised if Sprint and T-Mobile make changes to their policies if AT&T loses. [1] http://bgr.com/2014/05/08/sprint-throttling-unlimited-data-death/ http://bgr.com/2014/05/08/sprint-throttling-unlimited-data-d... [2]http://bgr.com/2014/08/13/t-mobile-unlimited-data-throttling-memo/ http://bgr.com/2014/08/13/t-mobile-unlimited-data-throttling...

swartkrans 12y ago

For those of us who are Americans, isn't it amazing how the companies that provide us with access to the internet are pretty much among the most hated companies in our country? I feel like I'd rank them almost up there with Halliburton, Sodexo and Blackwater. First of all they are incredibly expensive. They try to actively create worse experiences for their customers. Forced inclusions of apps on android phones on mobile carriers. A comcast rep wanted to install a browser toolbar on my computer. Vague billing that leads to sticker shock. $0.25 per tiny little text message, really? I paid next to nothing to post this comment on HN, but had I posted such large amounts of text via a text message, it would have cost a lot of money. Talk to them on the phone and they try to sell you things you don't need. Like one time I wanted to get HBO, HBO costs $15 a month, period, but when you talk to them on the phone they wont tell you that unless you ask a specific question, they'll tell you about their bundles which will cost you hundreds of dollars extra. This is a really scummy thing to do. They know the person who contacted them only wants HBO, but then they sell them something way worse they didn't want. Collusion with illegal federal programs that involved lying to congress, lying to our public representatives. These companies are filled with scum from top to bottom. The people that you deal with in the stores, the people that decide which phones you can buy at their store and what they have on them, the people you talk to on the phone, the executives. It must be like working for a tobacco company, once you're willing to work at such a place the culture just destroys your integrity or something. I have no idea. I even still considerably distrust tmobile, even though they seem to be trying to change things.

EGreg 12y ago
I think minimal infrastructure should be free. We already have this with open source programs, public education, etc. but I think it should extend to the internet and other things. What is "minimal" should be determined by some kind of system, and above that, there should be a free market. I believe the role of government is to ensure people's "minimal expectations" are met, and beyond that people can do whatever they want. And hopefully I will be living by my own principles ... the platform that we've spent years building has been open sourced and put on Github. I think small businesses / apps can be built on top of it, but minimal infrastructure eventually becomes free.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

post_break 12y ago

I left AT&T because of this. My iPhone went dead data wise after 3GB of usage, on unlimited data plan. We went to arbitration and they let me out of my contract, and unlocked my phone. They clearly know they are ripping people off trying to force them to nickel and dime the tiered plans.

barce 12y ago

Sprint does the same thing but at 5GB. Just a data point from a former Sprint customer.

mrbill 12y ago

I'm on the $60-70/month T-Mobile plan that gives me truly unlimited 4G data; no throttling. I might not use more than 2G a month most of the time, but if I need to use more, I don't have to worry (such as when I had to go out of state when a family member had emergency surgery a couple of months ago). I wouldn't switch back to AT&T as a wireless carrier even if someone paid me every month.

wpaprocki 12y ago

I work for a telco reseller. We make our money by selling the same services as the big guys without being assholes about it. We make a lot of money.

RankingMember 12y ago

For people in the U.S./Canada looking for a provider who gives a shit and who live in an area with decent Sprint coverage, check out Ting. I've been using them for about 2 years now and they've been rock solid (I am in no way affiliated with them, I'm just that happy with them). The closest reasonable thing to sending photocopies of your middle finger in their (Verizon/AT&T) "business reply" spam postal mailings is giving someone else who kicks ass your business (don't do the photocopy thing, the people who have to open and transcribe those things don't like Verizon/AT&T either).

__david__ 12y ago
I want to like Ting—my sister uses it and loves it, but they don't let you run the latest iPhones and that's a deal breaker for me. :-(
- RankingMember 12y ago
  Yeah, the blackout period Sprint holds them to has shrunk over time, but if you're riding the bleeding edge you won't be happy with the delay.

lukasb 12y ago

Apart from a $10 settlement check, what's likely to happen to grandfathered unlimited / unthrottled plans?

ProAm 12y ago
You'll be eligible for an upgrade in two year.
smackfu 12y ago
Here is what the FTC says would have been valid options: "Defendant has numerous alternative ways to reduce data usage on its network that do not involve violating its promise to customers. One alternative would involve Defendant requiring existing unlimited data customers to switch to a tiered data plan at renewal. ... Another alternative would involve Defendant introducing its throttling program at renewal, with disclosures at point of sale. ... Yet other alternatives might include limited, narrowly tailored throttling programs that are consistent with Defendant’s contracts, advertising, and other public disclosures. " So essentially, you'd end up in the same place, but you would have to be informed about it. And might be able to leave without ETF.
- shostack 12y ago
  Which is really the way it should work. Let AT&T have all the crappy customer-hostile policies they want as long as they fully disclose it in a sufficient manner to their customers. Then, their customers can vote with their money and go to a competitor that offers more for their money. That's the way it SHOULD work, but probably won't :(

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

oamoruwa 12y ago

AT&T can't be the only operator guilty of such throttling. A previous article was published about Verizon also considering implementing throttling data consumption.

hernan6042 12y ago

This 'unlimited' term is very misleading. Every connection that has a bandwidth cap will be tied and limited by that cap. ie. 10mb/s is limited to 10mb/s period. There is no such thing as 'unlimited' unless of course the connection has no virtual cap, then that would be considered unlimited. So every connection plan as we know is limited and never unlimited. Thoughts?

gtk40 12y ago
It's pretty high though. For example, unlimited 10mb/s in a month is over 26TB.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

denzil_correa 12y ago

I hope this is the beginning of the end of Fair Usage Policies (FUP) masked as "unlimited Internet". The best part of the release was the note > The Commission files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The case will be decided by the court.

fady 12y ago

I have an unlimited data plan as well and I am 100 percent positive that AT&T throttles at 5 gigabytes and when they do its really bad, like .6 megabits per second down :(

sswaner 12y ago

I made the mistake of downloading over 20GB of music and files on my new iPhone 6. The phone has been almost useless since hitting that limit. So much for "Unlimited Data". But, I am waiting for a check for over $1300 as part of a class action settlement with AT&T after being overfilled for service.

nerdtalker 12y ago

AT&T silently killed what formerly was an unlimited plan out of the blue one day, and not many people noticed. I would constantly run into the 3 GB limit a week or two into the month and then suffer through the slow throttled 0.5 Mbps rates for the rest of the billing cycle in agony. At that point I realized I was essentially paying for a 3 GB data plan (remember, no tethering provisioning was included or even could be added) under the auspices of an 'unlimited' tier. I switched to mobile shared but that turned out to be a huge mistake for other reasons (among which was that corporate discount codes didn't apply to the $30 phone fee on top of the bucket charge), and then shortly after that left for T-Mobile where I now have a real unlimited plan for less money. Not the full speed tiers + throttled data after that plan mind you, the actual unlimited plan. What's really disappointing is that it took the FTC until now to build a case or whatever legal burden is required to go after AT&T for their elaborate bait-and-switch. This is years after the fact, and I wonder how much extra money AT&T made as a result.

sleazebreeze 12y ago
What did you think was a mistake about the mobile shared plan? I just switched to that for my single device and I was enjoying the money saved. Am I missing a "gotcha"?
- smackfu 12y ago
  Some people don't realize that the real cheap rates are because you are giving up a subsidy, and that your next new phone will raise the rates again. OTOH I personally think that's a benefit since I can choose to get the subsidy or Next or just buy the phone outright.
- nerdtalker 12y ago
  My problems were really two fold: * I previously had a 23% discount (FAN code) on my account which applied to the unlimited data lines in a favorable way. In essence, it applied to both the $30/month data fee for Unlimited, and the couple hundred minutes of call and unlimited text family plan which were sort of an umbrella for all the lines. With mobile shared, one of the gotchas I didn't discover until well after the first bill (since the perpetual excuse with a FAN code discount is – it takes a while to apply) was that the discount applies only to the mobile shared data bucket charge, not to the $30/phone, $x/tablet, $x/modem device access charge line items which quickly add up if you have more than a single line. This really threw off the math I had done for affordability and made it more expensive for me. * The tiers previously were structured a bit differently, and with the two lines I had plus another person, I would always hit the 10 GB I had signed up for, then pay the $15/GB overage. Going to the next tier up to avoid paying overage for a GB or two would've still been more expensive, so like clockwork I would always end up paying some overages. Since then they've doubled some of the larger tiers as a reactionary measure. Affordability wise quite honestly AT&T is close to parity with T-Mobile if you manage to get the mobile shared value plans which have cheaper monthly rates if you bring your own device or buy without a contract.

cevaris 12y ago

Soooo, no throttling by ISP's is next?

peterwwillis 12y ago

Do people actually think that wireless carriers have the bandwidth to handle everyone streaming HD at once? They throttle so there's headroom for spikes in overly-saturated network segments. It's not like they just don't like it when you use their service.

devb 12y ago
That's a great theory, but what are the actual limits? Why not introduce throttling to everyone at once only at times of actual spikes instead of forcing me to sit through a week of having an essentially useless phone until the billing cycle goes through? More importantly, why the hell are millions of people paying for something that they were promised but aren't getting?

dumbfounder 12y ago

I had the unlimited plan for several years and was shocked and outraged to find that they were throttling after I reached a certain limit. So I switched to Sprint's unlimited plan and now I can rest at ease that I have a consistent experience. My bandwidth is now throttled 100% of the time by the crappiness of their network.

us0r 12y ago

While this appears good, this is nothing more then a show. AT&T will end up paying virtually nothing[1]. If you get angry when companies like Microsoft can go and seize domains, property and anything else in civil matters - this lovely agency has helped pave most of the way for them. The bulk of their cases come with Ex Parte Temporary Restraining Order's and Asset Freezes[1]. What will likely be the most egregious offender with the highest amount of "consumer damage" (AT&T) they don't even use the word "scam" or "fraud" in the complaint or press release. AT&T has already won. I doubt anyone there is losing any sleep over this. [1] - http://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings http://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

eyeareque 12y ago

I love seeing AT&T getting this kind of attention from the FTC for their terrible, terrible, monopolistic and greedy tactics. Their goal is to squeeze every penny they possibly can out of their customers. Their service has always been subpar. I really hope that this lawsuit costs AT&T a lot of money; It needs to hurt in order to teach them a lesson. One can only hope that we can someday have a competitive wireless market with 5+ options for consumers to choose from. That is when customer service will become real.

mpg33 12y ago

At least you Americans have some choice. Here in Canada there are only 3 (nation-wide) carriers with virtually the same plans/prices.

lewis_b_real 12y ago

And there is absolutely no meaningful way to hold them accountable.

twoodfin 12y ago

I don't see how anybody wins from this complaint. AT&T already no longer offers any unlimited plans to new customers, and the most likely outcome will be to no longer offer renewals of the existing grandfathered plans. It's not as if anyone on those plans using 5GB+ a month isn't already aware of the throttling: AT&T is pretty good about notifying you when you are close to or over the limit. I guess a settlement might let some folks in the middle of their contact get out easier. But personally, even considered as just a 5GB/line plan, my grandfathered plan is cheaper than anything currently offered (almost even before you account for the $450/line device subsidy!). Probably won't be the case in two years when I'm up again, but for now I'm glad the FTC didn't file this complaint a few months ago.

lnanek2 12y ago
> AT&T is pretty good about notifying you when you are close to or over the limit. I am currently and have been for years on an unlimited data plan with AT&T, easily use over 5GB a month, and have never been notified of any limit ever. My wife is on a standard plan and gets notified when she goes over. AT&T does not notify unlimited users.
- twoodfin 12y ago
  Weird. I got a text today that I'm getting close. Regardless, it's not as if you were unaware of the limit before this suit.

greyfox 12y ago

arent these cell companies really misleading every customer by charging them for Minutes, SMS, AND Data, when really all that needs to be given to the customer is an ip address that one can call/text/email etc.? i've never understood why our phone numbers arent ip's they seem to be a converging set of numbers at this rate anyways.

davidholmesnyc 12y ago

I dream one day we will all have 1 Gig per second up and down on our mobile phones and it will cost less than a gallon of milk. A man can dream can't he lol .

ozarius 12y ago

Can't wait to send in the threatening email that i received from AT&T stating explicitly that my "unlimited" bandwidth will be throttled because i happened to be in a high usage area. Seriously there should be a place where everyone who received such emails can post them en masse...

jqm 12y ago

There is debate on the thread about whether or not low level AT&T employees are scum... I don't claim to know, but a funny thing happened a few weeks ago. My girlfriends android phone was acting up and shutting off randomly. So she took it to the AT&T store to have it reinstalled (I don't know much about smartphones and didn't want to play with it). So, in the middle of the day, I get an angry call from her accusing me of installing Linux on her smartphone (and why not? I install Linux on everything else...It must have been me!). The guy at the AT&T store told her since I had installed Linux there was nothing he could do for the phone and couldn't reinstall it nor repair it. I protested my innocence but she said the guy in the store had given her proof and she would show me that night. (I was actually a little curious as this was the first I had heard of Linux proper running on a stock android phone). So when the moment of proof came, she pulled up an android screen with the kernel version and there it was... at the bottom of the screen in bold white letters... "SELinux status". Proof! I mean, it said Linux! So maybe they aren't evil, but that guy at least left me wondering about their general competency. I laughed for half an hour solid imagining all the Linux infected phones he must be seeing coming in.... Or more likely, he was just trying to sell her a new phone.

userbinator 12y ago

I wonder if anyone would like clearly-advertised "unlimited data, harmonic throttling": First X amount of data at full speed Second X amount of data at 1/2 of full speed Third X amount of data at 1/3 of full speed Fourth X amount of data at 1/4 of full speed etc... (With perhaps prices based on what that X is, or the decrease in speed could be more gradual.) This is clearly "unlimited" since you can transfer as much data as you want, it just takes a little longer for each additional amount (until the next billing period). :-)

StevenXC 12y ago
Let's say you get your nth X GB at XGB/(1000n)s. Then in a month=2628000seconds, you'd get at most about (70X)-ish GB per month. Meanwhile, if you get a flat X GB at XGB/(1000)s, then you get up to (2628X) GB per month. That sure doesn't feel unlimited in comparison.... but I suppose when I put it that way, all data plans are limited by finite time. :-)

robert_nsu 12y ago

Here I thought I was being capped around 5gb. I didn't ditch the "unlimited" data plan until late 2013.