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AT&T Fined $100 Million by FCC for Unlimited Data Throttling Practices

I got ripped off, but the govt get's 100 million. That money should go to those individuals affected, not the general fund and benefit everyone.

I payed the ETF to ATT, unlocked my iPhone 5S, signed up with MetroPCS and saved 50%. For $40/mo including taxes and fees, I get unlimited talk, unlimited text, up to 3GB data at LTE speed - then unlimited data at 3G speeds.

At ATT I paid $80/mo with taxes and fees. 450 minutes talk, "unlimited data" that was capped somewhere about 3GB then throttled so bad it was unusable. AND NO TEXT MESSAGES AT ALL. I refused to give them the additional $20/mo for SMS, and just relied on iMessages.

So my plan now costs half, and the services went WAY up. MetroPCS rides on T-Mobile network which has been fine for me.

Oh, and no contract at all.

And, MetroPCS just added FREE TETHERING up to my 3GB LTE speed. FREE.

So, yeah, goodbye ATT forever.
 
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It doesn't apply to me but I hope they lay the hammer down also on the unlimited iPad data that they advertised to get people to buy the original cellular iPad and then like 4 months later cancelled and introduced much worse terms
 
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$ 100 mills is just buying toilet paper...now watch how slowly they will recover all this money from our new fees that att will apply.
I talk 2 weeks ago about my bill with an att manager and I did mentioned about this practice that att slowing down our unlimited internet and he assure me that this is legal and FCC will never fine att for this...hahaha
 
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justperry said:
The fine should be much higher, like 1 billion dollars minimum.
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To put it in context, AT&T's quarterly NET profit was $3.2B. So, $100M is a little less than 3 DAYS' net profit.

They illegally rip us off for 5 years and BILLIONS of dollars, and their "punishment" is $100M??!

And the public cheers this? It's a demonstration of the sham of "watchdog" federal agencies that really only watch over ensuring the status quo - maximum corporate profits and symbolic fines and punishments to make it look like they are doing something.
 
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gotta be your own grandpa to get on a grandfathered plan:

Many, many years ago when I was twenty-three
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be
This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red
My father fell in love with her and soon they too were wed

This made my dad my son-in-law and really changed my life
For now my daughter was my mother, 'cause she was my father's wife
And to complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy

My little baby then became a brother-in-law to dad
And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad
For if he were my uncle, then that also made him brother
Of the widow's grownup daughter, who was of course my step-mother

Father's wife then had a son who kept them on the run
And he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter's son
My wife is now my mother's mother and it makes me blue
Because although she is my wife, she's my grandmother too

Now if my wife is my grandmother, then I'm her grandchild
And every time I think of it, it nearly drives me wild
'Cause now I have become the strangest 'case you ever saw
As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa
 
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justperry said:
The fine should be much higher, like 1 billion dollars minimum.
Click to expand...

Fines are bad because AT&T will raise its rates to cover the money required to give the government. No benefit to the user there.

Instead, a hard rule forbidding such throttling would be much more beneficial, along with a year or two of lowered rates for those who were affected.
 
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AT&T getting fined does nothing for the consumer so who cares. I switched last year to the 30GB mobile share with rollover data each month so I have more data than I will ever need AND I'm spending less. The unlimited plans are great for single users but really don't make sense for people with 2 or more users on their account. This is just basically a money grab by the FCC. Nothing to see here.
 
TheBuffather said:
Fantastic. Best news I've heard all day. AT&T deserved it. That's like a restaurant watering down your soup because you came during all-you-can-eat soup hour.
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Yes, but you can't eat more soup than the restaurant has. So there is always some limit.

'Unlimited' is technically impossible. You can only send a certain number of bits per second. Multiply that by the number of seconds in a month, and you have a monthly cap. It's STILL not 'unlimited'.

This whole thing is ridiculous.
 
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kdarling said:
Fines are bad because AT&T will raise its rates to cover the money required to give the government. No benefit to the user there.

Instead, a hard rule forbidding such throttling would be much more beneficial, along with a year or two of lowered rates for those who where affected.
Click to expand...

They don't need to raise anything. It's just a tiny cost of doing business. It's like the cost of a postage stamp to you and me. They don't even notice it.

They illegally charged consumers for services (unlimited internet) that they weren't providing for 1,825 days and they had to pay a fine of just the PROFIT from 3 of those days. It's less than nothing to them.
 
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Even as a ATT customer this seems appropriate. I got the unlimited plan when I went with the iphone, but then switched to the family plan a year or two ago. They really do everything to get you to switch plans. Unfortunately, I would expect several more years of appeals before they actually pay anything. Does anyone know how many unlimited plan holders still exist?
 
They are still doing it and I've been with them since Cingular was around. Unlimited data? I think not. >;(
Screen Shot 2015-06-17 at 12.12.00 PM.png
 
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i hope this doesn't result in them going the way of Verizon and eliminating the unlimited plan to those wishing to receive a subsidization when upgrading to a new phone.
 
The government keeps the money from fines. They close the barn door after the horse has left and has been returned to users. ATT already solved the throttling issue due to user feedback and time required to provision more network capacity. They have invested $Billions per year on network build outs.

Furthermore the fine amount is arbitrary and not subject to review by anybody. As someone who successfully sued a Federal Regulator and won in the field of rocketry, I can say it is nearly impossible to get standing in court, to even get permission to sue and even more difficult to overcome the standard a regulator enjoys to protect its arbitrary rules.

Never trust a regulator on anything.

The real laws are written and passed in an adversarial process in congress. They may be imperfect but there is recourse if its bad, and bad law is far more difficult to get passed to begin with. It pretty much requires the House, Senate and Presidency to be controlled by the same kabal (party). Hence ACA and Stimulus as examples.

News update to the report. AT&T Mobility has responded by saying they will fight this in court. I wish them luck.

If you want to read more on this topic, Mark Cuban has written extensively about regulatory overreach and the total lack of a feedback and control loop.
 
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There needs to be something done for us who were affected, we are receiving no benefit for this. They will most likely try to rid the unlimited plan all together now forcing high rates upon us.


There has to be a way around to serve them with a class action it only makes sense. I'm sure they cant be protected like that.
 
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I wouldn't say they throttled all of the customers that exceeded 5GB. I have regularly gone into the 45-50GB range per month with no issues.

However, I did get throttled in Skagway, Alaska when the town of 900 people had 9000 people in it, but I think that was more a factor of network capacity than of a conscious effort to peg me, and the others on the 3 cruise ships docked that day.
 
I have some questions here:
1. Where does the ammount of 100 million go, customers or goverment? Who is the winner?
2. I know a lot of people just switch UDPs to mobile share plans due to the throtelling, Att was wrong, can they switch back?
3. What about tethering? It is also against FCC net neutrality. Att pays another fine? (please see #5)
4. What is Att next step? Too cancel all UDP? Too ullow tethering? Change nothing?
5. Don't you think Att heads just waste company's money: t-mo 4B payment, now 0.1B fine? May be it is time to change something or somebody? Instead of paying left and right they can provide better service for us or reduce price a bit.
 
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