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AT&T Threatens To Shut Off Service of Customer Who Won Throttling Case
suraj.sun writes in about the recent small claims case against AT&T's throttling of 'unlimited' plans. From the article: "AT&T has about 17 million smartphone customers on 'unlimited' plans, and has started slowing down service for users who hit certain traffic thresholds. Spaccarelli maintained at his February 24 small-claims hearing that AT&T broke its promise to provide 'unlimited' service, and the judge agreed. In a letter dated Friday, a law firm retained by AT&T Inc. is threatening to shut off Matthew Spaccarelli's phone service if he doesn't sit down to talk. Spaccarelli has posted online the documents he used to argue his case and encourages other AT&T customers copy his suit."
I have no love for AT&T and I'm glad the guy won, but if one of my customers sued me, I'd drop them in a heartbeat!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I mean, I'll try anything to improve AT&T signal reception, but I'm skeptical. I tried sitting, standing, and even lying down, and it doesn't really seem to change anything.
He violated his terms of use with AT&T by accessing the internet tethered. That violation alone warrants termination.
In TFA, it is stated that AT&T's threat to discontinue his service is based on his admission of tethering, which is against the TOS he agreed to. Not that their tactics here aren't shady, but they do have a contractual basis (excuse) for the threat.
Game, set, match. I have NO love for AT&T, but if this guy admits to violating their ToS, he doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
What would victory look like? Forcing them to acknowledge that they're genuinely incapable of delivering what they promise is really about as much as can be achieved...
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
AT&T just needs to clearly indicate that you get X gigs of data at 4G or 3G speeds, then anything after that is subject to lower speeds.
You don't have a "right" to unlimited data, sorry. The only issue I see is AT&T hasn't been clear with how it works.
Welcome to SXSW. Hope you enjoy your stay.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
"We don't care what some judge said. You either do it our way, via arbitration, or we ban you forever."
Damn corporations. Sound similar to how Paypal operated in the previous decade, until a class action lawsuit was brought against them by the States. Well at least corporations don't have power to throw me in jail forever, or draft me to serve in some foreign war (like government can).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
For those that don't RTA: "Spaccarelli's victory in small-claims court is similar to that of Heather Peters, a California woman who won $9,867 from Honda last month because her Civic Hybrid did not live up to the promised gas mileage. She, too, is helping others bring similar cases."
I'm surprised she won. Perhaps it was because Honda *reprogrammed* the car after purchase, and that immediately made the MPG drop by ~10. I own a Honda Insight and am happy with the results (90mpg at 50 mph; 70mpg at 60 mph). Nice little car.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Just as he is free to not renew, AT&T is also free to not renew.
I have no problem with a business telling a customer "you cost us too much, we don't want you as a customer anymore." At the end of his current term, drop him like a hot potato.
Let Verizon or Sprint deal with him....
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
This is a cut-and-dry case of corporations pushing around the consumers. Given it is over internet service, this would make a great case of 'cyber-bullying' (as much as I hate that whole concept).
If American customers have any sense, they will file these suits in droves and this guy will never talk to AT&T again.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Since they guy admits he violated the Terms of Service by tethering, is it really a surprise?
I use about 5GB a month. Just lots of Netflix and browsing and ventrilo calls. I called them about my slow speeds and one guy said in slowed because of the cap. I fuss and explain how it's now limited blah blah. So I talk to a supervisor who says I'm not being limited. It's just slow.
There is a minimum bandwidth of 3G they can bring you to. This is what they did. Rather than flagging you as capped and then reducing your speed, they just cite your connection as slow and say it must be the towers. As long as they keep you above that minimum speed without flagging your account and admitting it, they will just blame the equipment. Additionally, you can't ask for a credit since it technically is still giving the 3G speeds.
These guys just don't get it. They never heard of the Barbara Streisand Effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Streisand_effect
FTFA: his notes read to the judge says : "Most of my usage is at night when data usage is usually at a minimum. They don't want my usage to affect other users. "
Dude... I don't know what you're doing at night that causes soo much bandwidth... but if I were ATT, I'd release what sites you're visiting. Quid pro quo for the court documents you're releasing..
I do applaud your efforts. F*ck ATT.
And it's nuts.
A company should be on their knees begging customers for business. Customers are the lifeblood for a company.
Ahh, but I suppose I'm just too old fashioned for this world...
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
It all depends on how, or where, you are holding your phone. They are just trying to improve the signal.
But if you only buy 3Mbps unlimited, then you get 3Mbps 27/7/365. Else it's limited.
I don't get this. They don't have as a good a network, and where they do have coverage it is spotty and calls drop. They seems to be hostile to their own customers, and people don't seem to get what they pay for.
I run a web service for firefighters that sounds like thousands and thousands of text messages each month -- and does using using the US providers' preferred method of sending them via SMTP. AT&T is the slowest at receiving the messages and getting them out to phones in most places by a long way. Verizon is usually a matter of a second or two, where I've seen AT&T regularly take 5 minutes or more and occasionally much longer.
Why do people put up with this crap?
I'm going to sound like a commercial for Verizon here -- but I swear, I'm not in any way tied to them other than as a customer.
I've been a Verizon customer for years and years. While it is true that recently they changed from an "unlimited" service to some reasonable (IMHO) caps based on price, the plan isn't bad at all and it's spelled out pretty clearly. I pay 50 bucks for up to 5gb in a month, and if I go over that it costs me about $10/gb -- which is in line with my service pricing. Most months, I'm way under. Once or twice in a year if I'm travelling a lot and using slingbox over LTE I may go over -- but it's no big deal. My calling plan has a contract length, but I can reduce the monthly minutes and cost or increase it pretty much at will with no penalty so if I care to I could manage the bill to save a bunch of money. My kids phones use my minutes so they don't cost much to add to my plan, and because I'm a volunteer firefighter, they give me 20% off everything plus free unlimited text messaging.
I'm not 100% happy all the time with them, sure. Their international data plan is unusable these days (where it used to be a good deal) but overall -- I don't have the kinds of problems I see people with AT&T complaining about.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Anyone read the letter of resignation of Greg Smith over at Goldman Sachs? Me thinks AT&T is NO different.
THIS!
All AT&T customers would sue for throttling then AT&T would drop all of its customers and go out of business!
I don't "OMGZ HATE AT&T!!!"
But my contract is up at the end of the month.
To keep the same plan limited to 3gb per month I have with them now, they quoted $120 per month with taxes and only 900 minutes per month.
To get the same thing with Spring is going to run me about $90 but with truly unlimited data, unlimited texts, unlimited minutes cell to cell and 450 minutes to land lines.
I'm not mad, but man it seems like I would have to be stupid to stay with AT&T.
Both Cheaper per month and truly unlimited data. Coverage is the same in the areas I live and work in (we have sprint transmitters in my building).
I pretty ruthlessly switch to which ever cell company or cable company has the best deal.
Now that Dish Network is up to $90 a month for almost nothing (I cut service twice and they just raised rates by $10 shortly afterwards), I'll be leaving them too.
Cable TV should be $50 a month max in my opinion.
And Cell Service should definately be cheaper than AT&T and include truly unlimited data/etc.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I have no love for AT&T and I'm glad the guy won, but if one of my customers sued me, I'd drop them in a heartbeat!
If you're not falsely-advertising your services, then you have nothing to worry about.
Right. Sure. In case you hadn't noticed, many Americans sue at the drop of a hat.
The one and only time we sold a software license in the USA, we were threatened with a lawsuit. Why? Because a woman who used our software was fired, had a free lawyer through her husband's UAW membership, and this lawyer apparently advised her that we might settle rather than defend ourselves. Nothing really to do with us or the software - just playing the court system as a lottery game.
We have never done business in the USA again, and now that I teach, I advise my students of this as well. It just ain't worth the risk. Not incidentally, all small-company insurance policies available here specifically exclude liability coverage in the USA.
Another reason for me to continue boycotting AT&T. If more people did the same, this abuse would be rarer.
... that your phone isn't your internet provider (even though it connects you to the internet).
I know that people will say that you shouldn't watch TV and videos on your phone (even though t-mobile and ATT both have apps on their front page to do this, and run ads constantly like the ones that show the guy watching the game in the restaurant with his girlfriend).
I know that people will say that it isn't fair to the other users if one user hogs up all the bandwidth.
To which I say, fine. In that case, don't fscking call the plan unlimited, and don't advertise the use of streaming aps as a major feature. Lying isn't cool, ethical or moral, and that's exactly what the snake oil telecoms do.
And if the networks can't support the usage, then stop selling the usage. Invest in the networks, instead of attempted mergers for the sake of acquiring someone else's spectrum (instead of investing in infrastructure to increase your own bandwidth capabilities).
And just because others are absolutely guilty of the same thing (I'm looking at you, t-mobile) - it doesn't mean this sort of fraud is right.
Check your premises.
I thought bullying was illegal at this point?!?
They are lucky if they can sustain 100% of their theoretically viable signal at every possible location in their network. Oh wait, they can' t.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
First, there is, by definition, a theoretical limit to how much data you can get through your phone, assuming highest possible throughputs and 720 hours in a 30-day month. Unlimited data would require unlimited bandwidth; therefore, unlimited data is impossible. Since unlimited data is impossible, and there will always be limits on how much data you can consume, it's up to the provider to make those decisions. If you don't like AT&T, go somewhere else.
Second, the guy was tethering his phone, in violation of his contract. He should be dropped for that alone. Period.
Third, as soon as the judge found out the guy was tethering, in violation of his contract, he/she should have thrown the case out of court. The judge rewarded someone who violated their contract because he wasn't allowed to violate his contract as much as he wanted to. Ridiculous.
The problem is the AT&T and other carriers have oversold network capacity. They should build up to make sure the bandwidth is there. And until that happens I'd be OK with them throttling only on towers that are in danger of being swamped. Maybe even send out a notice to users saying, "Yes we suck at providing you with bandwidth, but there are a lot of users on this tower and we have to throttle the data speeds so others can use it. Consider laying off sucking up bandwidth for the next 15 minutes or so."
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
http://lasvegasblog.harrahs.com/las-vegas-casinos/caesars-palace/this-is-huge-all-day-citywide-buffet-deal/
Unlimited has always meant, in the best of times, "as much as we can give you within reason". AT&T just has a lower breaking point than most companies that do this so it's more noticeable.
I still don't understand why data coming from the phone itself and data from a tethered device is treated differently. I can suck down 2 GB over the air using any number of pre-installed apps I'm not allowed to remove, but the second I want to tether my laptop to my phone to use a MB or two to check my email on a screen bigger than 3", I have to pay $20-$60 more a month with no pro-rated cost, or risk having my service cancelled. I just need to use it for a day or a week when I'm on vacation or off site. How is the data different because it's coming through the phone from another device than if it was coming from the phone itself?
It's no surprise with policies like this designed to deliberately make it difficult, annoying, and expensive to their customers that many would look to bypass their carriers mandatory second (or third) data plan required for tethering.
Do they even realize how much money they are loosing to pay-for-access 802.11 providers if they would just offer what customers want for a reasonable price and not feeling like we're being raped?
This à la carte sale of minutes, texts, and data is the biggest racket in history. How about this: $10/month per phone to cover your record keeping and base data prices to cover things like the phones tying up the network to ping pong the towers and servers all the time, then a reasonable per minute/MB/txt charge (i.e. 2-3 cents a minute/MB/txt regardless of it being sent or received) and everyone pays what they use. I'm ok with having a $20 bill one month and a $160 bill the next if that's what I used. I would much rather see that then the same $120 every month if I used 5 of everything vs 5000. This would also hopefully lead to more responsible use of phones in the first place. If base costs were reasonable to where a kid could pay for it with their allowance as long as they didn't go over board, then we probably wouldn't end up with quite so many people glued to the screen while "driving"/loosely aiming their vehicles down the roads.
If you're a corporation and you want to count on the bill being the same every month, than sure you can opt in to the current system we're using now so you have the same number of dollars every time it comes to pay the bill, but I really don't think many corporations would go for that kind of thing if it wasn't such a rip off to do it any other way.
I use to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.
AT&T is no more obligated to do business with this guy than this guy is obligated to do business with AT&T. And in most areas, there are several other companies he can choose from.
(Now, I'd like to see even more competition, but for that, we need to free up more spectrum.)
It's clear enough on their website, and they don't even seem to be offering the "unlimited" plans anymore (except for non-smartphones).
http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/data-plans.jsp
http://www.att.com/esupport/datausage.jsp
But in any case, at best, you should be able to cancel your contract prematurely, after paying for the balance of your phone. You shouldn't be able to get arbitrary amounts of data for free in perpetuity, which is what you seem to want.
>>>
unlimited data at the advertised speed, the only limitation being time itself. If you offer a 100kbps plan that doesn't let you download 259gb per month, and call it unlimited,
>>>
I've posted this many times before and it gets ignored, I agree with your point wholesale. There are inherent limits as you have rightly highlighted. There is a natural limit in all this stuff. We are human, all our stuff and our selves have limits: Of time (consciousness/consumption) + Of bandwidth (throughput/time as you've noted) + Of routing speeds + Of cabling speeds + Of peering agreements? So WTF am I saying.
IOW, I could argue that X Telecom is prevaricating in its -unlimit- when I request say a download/ refresh of the entire Internet! Fuck, youz crazy you say! Maybe, but that's what "unlimited" ultimately means---ZERO limits.
To wit, I should be able to ask with -certainty- for God to download the entire Multiverse to my God-device, and it shall be so. He's perfect, yes. Inhuman, thus perfect.
This is a non brief way of saying, what telecoms/anyone-else should advertise is UnMetered service. For, unless you are Vishnu or some omnipotent deity you can not provided anything in Un-Limited quantities. It's not semantics, man.
I know they swear up and down "No caps no limits" but how do you actually know that. And how does anyone distinguish that from what carriers claim is just a coverage problem or a local congestion? Because I swear that in Raleigh NC Sprint caps me. I know they do. Either that or '4G' is really 0.001G because speed test on 4G yields maybe 400Kbps the best ever but usually half that and 3G is barely 90Kbps. When I talk to Sprint all I get is 'who knows? we don't show any technical problems in your area."
Customer throttle YOU!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
I was lucky enough to speak to Matthew Spaccarelli. He is very nice person, who made a very good argument in court using simple logic and fact. Many of the comments about Mr. Spaccarelli are not based on facts. Google his name, and look at the videos of what he has to say -- you will not be disappointed ... well, you might be disappointed by AT&T.
I have my own issues with AT&T refusing to fix my business landlines, and lying about it in court documents. I photographed documents which proved AT&T knowingly used a defective phone line to my residential phone line. AT&T actually claimed a phone number in a document I photographed, was not my phone number.
Fortunately, the FBI has recently admitted it can prove that AT&T committed perjury. Google "AT&T fictional phone number"
I really wonder if we'd be better off if the whole idea of "Settle out of Court" were banned/abolished. The ONLY purpose it ultimately serves is to remove any chance of a precedent being made for future law/rulings. It's ridiculous that so many cases which could ultimately make a difference for people get pushed to Settle.
My AT&T contract on my 3G expired last December. I am now a Sprint customer with the 4S. Most of the iPhone users I know are leaving AT&T and droves for Verizon or Sprint.sticker printing services
with AT&T the data is unlimited is sucessful. How The speeds ?? :).
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