AT&T fined about 3 days of profit ($100m) for limiting 'unlimited' plans

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has fined AT&T $100m (£63m) after accusing it of unfairly limiting "unlimited" mobile data plans. The telco insists it has done nothing wrong. The regulator said AT&T broke its Open Internet rules by deliberately slowing subscribers' download speeds when they went over their 3GB …

[Anonymous Coward]

what is The Reg

Can I get a job at The Reg?

[Tom Maddox]

Re: what is The Reg

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess "No."

[Jimmy2Cows]

Re: what is The Reg

@AC: Dude... really!?!

[O RLY]

Didn't they get fined before?

I'm commenting before checking, but it feels like I've read this article before. And yet, AT&T continue to defy the FCC and the dictionary with their "unlimited" data plan.

EDITED AFTER CHECKING: The FTC ruled AT&T's throttling was a bad trade practice; AT&T argued the FTC didn't have jurisdiction and the FCC should rule instead. I wonder what next agency AT&T hopes will save them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Didn't they get fined before?

This is why I dropped AT&T.

[Michael Wojcik]

Re: Didn't they get fined before?

I wonder what next agency AT&T hopes will save them.

The NSA, of course.

[Tromos]

Limited unlimited

Halving someone's speed at after 5Gb and again at 7.5Gb, etc. is a sneaky way of setting a 10Gb cap whilst claiming it to be 'unlimited' because it is never actually completely halted.

[Charles 9]

This is why I keep looking to push for an Act that demands that ALL ads of any nature tell nothing but the complete, unvarnished truth, with all claims required to be conservatives and all testimonials to be of typical results. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you $DEITY.

[Mark 85]

If they (or any company actually) did that, the marketing types would soon be jobless. Then again, the definition of truth in marketing seems to have a lot wider latitude than the definition of truth for the rest of us.

[krakead]

And how exactly this is a bad thing?

[ecofeco]

If they (or any company actually) did that, the marketing types would soon be jobless.

Don't tease me like this. The world would be a far better place if this was so.

[John Tserkezis]

"push for an Act that demands that ALL ads of any nature tell nothing but the complete, unvarnished truth"

As the saying goes, Good Luck With That.

[David Webb]

Really?

"Unlimited means unlimited,”

Bollocks tbh, there is no such thing as "unlimited", the limit is "how much you can physically download in a 1 month cycle if you capped your connection 24/7 for that month" just doesn't sound very snazzy on the adverts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Really?

That's a NATURAL limit, though, not one imposed by the carrier. Natural limits are intuitive and can be forgiven.

[Neoc]

Hey, AT&T. Here's a quick fix: stop calling your offers "unlimited".

[Charles 9]

Thing is, other carriers like Sprint and T-Mobile then steal customers by using the word themselves. The only solution is to level the playing field and declare that any "unlimited" plan is automatically False Advertising since there is no way to achieve this within the confines of physics.

[Richard Jones 1]

Try The ATT Tightly Managed Step Limited Service

Put the honest way it does not sound quite the same. All so called service providers re-define unlimited to mean;

"as much limitation as we can get away"

If throttling is applied to ALL traffic at times of stress that is one thing, to selectively apply it to some customers on the basis of a limited use threshold has NO relationship at all to 'unlimited'

[Martin Summers]

Some sense from a regulator for once. Are you listening Ofcom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmph...

With us cellular, our '10gb data plan'. If out of our local area (very small) than we get 200mb of data per month at 3 or 4g. Then down to 1x. Some serious throttling.

Can't switch because they are the only provider.

[ecofeco]

Something changed

I don't if the fine had a direct impact, but something sure has changed at my house this week. I'm actually getting the speeds I signed up after several previous days of severely crippled service.