AT&T broke the law when it slowed down mobile Internet speeds among customers who've paid for unlimited data, federal regulators said in a complaint unveiled Tuesday.
As many as 3.5 million individual AT&T customers were hit by the throttling more than 25 million times over the course of several years, the Federal Trade Commission alleges in its suit. In some cases, users' speeds were cut by more than 90 percent.
On occasion, AT&T notified some customers by text message or e-mail that they'd used too much data and would be throttled. But not everyone got the notices who was eligible for them, said the FTC â nor did AT&T make clear in its marketing materials that users would be slowed down after a certain point set by the carrier.
For an average of 12 days out of the month, AT&T unlimited data customers who were affected by the throttling program had their speeds trimmed to dial-up levels, according to the complaint. The punitive action didn't appear connected to real-time network conditions, as customers were slowed down regardless whether they were near a cell site with lots of traffic or relatively little.
AT&T allegedly knew that its throttling practice was unfair, because its internal research told them as much, according to the FTC. From the complaint:
When it implemented its throttling program, Defendant possessed internal focus group research indicating that its throttling program was inconsistent with consumer understanding of an 'unlimited' data plan. The researchers concluded that, '[a]s we'd expect, the reaction to [a proposed data throttling program] was negative; consumers felt 'unlimited should mean unlimited[."]' The focus group participants thought the idea was 'clearly unfair.' The researchers highlighted a consumer's comment that 't seems a bit misleading to call it Unlimited.' The researchers observed that '[t]he more consumers talked about it the more they didn't like it.' This led the researchers to advise that 'aying less is more, [so] don't say too much' in marketing communications concerning such a program.
The FTC can take action against company practices that it deems "unfair or deceptive." In this case, the agency said AT&T's public statements misleadingly contradicted its actual policies.....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-for-throttling-its-unlimited-data-customers/
Be with AT&T brehs
at&t ain't the only one doing it either...these companies are a disgrace and the FTC have known about this for years. Not a damn thing we can do about it either...
