#1 AT&T's contract only says they can throttle you if you are adversely affecting the network (or using the network in prohibited ways, but that isn't my concern in this post). That means they can only throttle you during peak hours or congested periods, not throttle you automatically when you reach a certain amount of usage. That is the natural reading of those contract clauses and the only one that would be upheld in court. So there is still significant problems with AT&T's throttling practices/policies, and their unlimited data contracts.
#2 Also, as someone else posted earlier in the thread, there can be two reasons for network congestion. (a) the user is consuming too much heavy data and is therefore blocking the abilities of others to use the networks as well, or (b) AT&T can be adding too many users on each cell tower, making normal data usage impossible even for regular users. If the congestion is AT&T's fault, they can't throttle you willy-nilly. Imagine if AT&T wanted to throttle everyone. Do you think they could just double or triple the amount of people on individual towers, claim there is congestion, and thereby throttle everyone? I doubt that would fly in court.
So the thing to keep in mind regarding the individuals on unlimited plans is this: if they decided to sue, they could demand to know how many people were on the network when they first purchased their data plans. They could demand to know what kind of network congestion there was at that period in time. If their usage at that point made minimal to no impact on the network, the result of future congestion isn't their fault but the fault of AT&T adding too many additional subscribers to the network. Consequently, it is those new users that should be targeted by the throttling, not the old users who weren't responsible for the congestion. Again, though the contract gives AT&T the ability to throttle people, that isn't a blanket, carte blanche, privilege. There are reasonable conditions under which they can do this. In a court of law AT&T has to prove they have justifiable grounds to target any single individual user as being worthy of being throttled. At least, that's how I read the contract. The contract doesn't say they can discriminate and selectively, and arbitrarily, target individual users (i.e. unlimited data plans).
All this to say, if someone sued AT&T, I think AT&T would find they have to answer for a lot of their suspicious activities.
Imagine if your electricity provider decided to add so many people on the power grid that they now informed you, you couldn't heat your home 24/7. You couldn't power your lights and fridge 24/7. You'd sue them promptly and tell them to stop adding people, and to even remove people from the power grid, or upgrade the grid to accommodate your needs. You wouldn't decry individuals and complain about electricity hogs. Those dam people who want to keep their homes warm and have their lights on!
