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

How is AT&T going to compensate the affected users?
Three weeks ago I was in the hospital for 4 days, and my connection was terribly slow, even with three bars of LTE service. I had a really hard time getting things done those days.
And at other locations where I really needed the service, I couldn't even download a 50MB video clip I needed (yes, it happened more than once)
 
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So I am still rocking my '07 launch day unlimited plan.
What does this news mean to me, if anything?

And is it true (or rumor or nightmare) that beginning with the next gen iPhone, I will no longer be able to buy the phone outright at Apple retail stores? That my only option there will be switching from my unlimited plan to their Next plan where I rent the phone for the same price (over time) as buying the phone outright? That if I want to buy an iPhone outright and maintain my unlimited plan, I will have to buy the device at an AT&T store?

Cheers.
 
Lol the government just takes that money and the customers they are pretending to protect don’t see a single cent. I would advise everyone to beat the washington machine.
 
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I have my iPhone 6 Plus with a "Bring Your Own Device" plan from MetroPCS for $60 a month, unlimited 4G LTE.
 
Received this message this morning and then this article came out...oh the irony...

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Ah, they'll never have to pay that. They'll appeal, as lawsuits with significant awards always do, until it gets significantly reduced or dies on the vine. Just look at what happened to Apple and Samsung.
 
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I can probably count the number of times I got the warning text on one hand since the policy was instituted. It was a ludicrous practice and made my phone, especially back in the iPhone 4 days, totally unusable. Speeds went to below dial-up and AT&T didn't seem to think that the modern internet needed something faster than that for people to access it. Pictures would load line by line and then stop. YouTube wouldn't load anything. Streaming anything was impossible. There have been a lot of AT&T apologists saying that data was unlimited but not speed but when it's slow enough to be unusable then that argument is null. The congested towers argument was also an excuse they tried to tell me. I mean, I live in Southern California. When will the towers ever be uncongested? I'm just glad this is somewhat over and I hope AT&T stops throttling for good.
 
I'm grandfathered in. I think I experienced throtteling once -maybe twice. Regardless - the whining and entitlement is a bit much. ATT could have long ago forced people off the unlimited plan - they haven't (as of yet). I don't think that entitles them to throttle customers - but if people are abusing bandwidth, then there's a bigger picture at stake.

Also - I'm not up on the newer plans admittedly - but for awhile there - people were on metered plans AND couldn't tether unless they paid an additional fee. To me that's arguably more of a lawsuit. If you buy 5 gigs, you should be able to use them however you want.
 
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That's pocket change for AT&T. How does that fine compensate people who were throttled or do anything about them still throttling them today? Companies are constantly using deceptive words in advertising (e.g. "Free to download" <> "Free to play" as consumers quickly find out with the multitude of puzzle games advertised on TV every day. It really means you are free to pay us per play and per extra and per puzzle). The word "free" should not be allowed to be used lightly or for obvious deceptive practices. "Free credit check" (small print reads with subscription--how is that free?)
 
Crap. Now my bill is going to go up to cover this expense for an issue that didn't affect me. Well played, FCC. Well played.

What did they think, all the employees at AT&T would just skip lunch for a few days to pay for this? The only ones that lose on these 'fines' is the end consumer. Me.
 
LucasEVille said:
Just thinking the same thing, wonder if Three will lose any sleep over this? Their "all you can eat data" is a sham. Hit my cap watching the NHL game center after just 3 games.
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There's no cap whatsoever in place on 3.

If you have "All you can eat" data, then there's no cap in place.

There was talk of a theoretical 1000Gb cap mentioned a few times, but I never saw anything official.
 
This is great and all but what about tethering my data? I still have my unlimited plan and have had to jailbreak my phone just to be able to tether my data. Can the FTC do something about that?
 
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Azzin said:
There's no cap whatsoever in place on 3.

If you have "All you can eat" data, then there's no cap in place.

There was talk of a theoretical 1000Gb cap mentioned a few times, but I never saw anything official.
Click to expand...
Once I hit 8gb I got dramatically slower Internet as their "traffic sense" network management kicked in, so yes there's a cap on it as you get slower and slower Internet.
 
Two things.

The government stated it was a record fine so it was not small.

The ATT Free Msg states, “Your data has reached 75% of the 5GB network management threshold. If you exceed 5GB this month, you may experience reduced data speeds at times and in areas that are experiencing network congestion. Wi-Fi helps you avoid reduced speeds.”

IF that is actually true, it's quite reasonable.
 
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