FTC Sues AT&T For Throttling 'Unlimited' Data Plan Customers Up To 90%

An anonymous reader writes The U.S. Federal Trade Commission today announced it is suing AT&T. The commission is charging the carrier for allegedly misleading millions of its smartphone customers by changing the terms while customers were still under contract for "unlimited" data plans that were, well, limited. "AT&T promised its customers 'unlimited' data, and in many instances, it has failed to deliver on that promise," FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said in a statement. "The issue here is simple: 'unlimited' means unlimited." How apropos.

Comments

Meet somewhere in the middle

[bhcompy]

If AT&T wants to apply a soft cap, either throttle based on QoS requirements at the time of use or adjust their throttling upward. I rarely hit 5gb a month that causes me to throttle, but it becomes difficult to use modern websites that have no concept of bandwidth control in their design or the ads they allow. Given that I can go from 15mb to 100k at the flip of a switch, I don't see why they couldn't just throttle based on the available bandwidth when it's needed at that point. If I'm abusing my contract and hitting my softcap and bandwidth is tight, sure, throttle me down, but there's no reason to cut me down to ISDN speed when the bandwidth is otherwise underutilized.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Sarten-X]

The problem then is perception. Network utilization isn't obvious to the end user, so when they're throttled, it just appears that their carrier is slow for no reason. An hour later, it could be fine, so the average self-centered user will blame their carrier for having service that just gets really slow all of a sudden.

With predictable limits, especially with a warning message or a way to check how much data the user has used, the user feels that it's their fault for hitting the limit, especially if the limit's low enough that they come close every month. They know it's coming, so when bandwidth is suddenly throttled to the slower speed, they're not surprised. It's business as usual, not their provider's inconsistent service.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Charliemopps]

There's a reason for sure. It's $$$

I used to know a guy that owned a website hosting company. He explained that 95% of his customers used less than 1% of the hardrive space or bandwidth their contracts allowed. That was almost all profit to him. But then less than 1% of his customers were barely inside their space and bandwidth limits. Based on how he advertised and marketed things, they were actually paying less than it cost him to host them. i.e. He lost money on those sites. When some little old lady wanted to setup a site to host her online recipee collection? He was all over that. When someone wanted to setup a music video hosting service that already had a following in the thousands? He wasn't so quick to reply.

AT&T doesn't want to throttle these people just to limit their effect on the network. AT&T wants them to leave and never come back.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[gurps_npc]

They can do that - but not if they say UNLIMITED.

The word unlimited means NO LIMITS. None. Zero. Nada. Without any restraints.

You can't advertise something as 'no peanuts' and then put peanuts in it. Similarly, you can't advertise something, or worse, put sell a contract for unlimited and then put limits on it.

The basic problem is false advertising here. The providers wanted the right to lie.

That is against the law. They deserve to be punished, and punished severely.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[bhcompy]

Eh, technically they're not lying. I have unlimited data, but unlimited to the point of the bandwidth they assign me(as is always the case with any unlimited service). I don't have a guaranteed speed in my 10-15 year old AT&T unlimited contract.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[bhcompy]

AT&T sends you a text when you're close and it's obvious there is a change. It's like driving full speed to being forced to walk. It's not inconsistent service(I don't have inconsistent service in my location) in this case.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[xaotikdesigns]

Sure there is. They want to encourage you to spend more money on a limited data cap.

FTFY

Re: Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot. The data cap is unlimited. There is no higher data cap.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the service being sold (in this case) is advertised as "unlimited". Having your service go from full speed "unlimited" to walking speed "unlimited" because you hit an undefined/invisible cap is fraudulent.

By that logic, police officers should be able to arbitrarily fine you for speeding in an area anywhere you are, no matter what your speed.

"But the sign says '40 mph'!"
"Yeah, but this UNMARKED spot is a 5 mph zone. Oh and for taking a hostile tone with me, I'm going to throw in some extra fines. Pay the fine or I'll have your car impounded."

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[fahrbot-bot]

You can't advertise something as 'no peanuts' and then put peanuts in it.

Sure you can. On the front label, in BIG letters say: "No peanuts! *" and on the back label, in really small letters, say "* Note: Contains peanuts."

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the greatest example. New York has a ticket for exactly that. It's NY VTL 1180A "Speed Not Reasonable and Prudent".

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Bengie]

Unlimited means there are no limits. By definition, throttling after a certain "limit' is a limit. Their usage not only does not agree with colloquial usage, but it also disagrees with logic. "No limits, but if you use too much, we'll punish you."

Unlimited: without any limits or restrictions

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[bhcompy]

Depends on what the contract says. Wireless contracts do not provide any guaranteed level of bandwidth capability

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Holi]

There is a general rule that a court will construe ambiguous contract terms against the drafter of the agreement. But this rule only applies where one contracting party is in a superior bargaining position.

Guess who is in the superior bargaining position.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[DutchUncle]

If they are going out of their way to throttle the bandwidth as a function of the quantity of data, then they're lying. Yes, available bandwidth and throughput vary as a function of system load, so if the whole neighborhood is watching youtube things get slower for everyone; but when they list a "cap" and throttle above it, they're contradicting the original promise of "unlimited".

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Jason Levine]

In this case, the "solution" to the throttling was to get a non-unlimited plan. In the "pulled over for speeding" analogy, this would be like two cars driving down the road at the same speed. One car is pulled over because he didn't pay as much to the Police Benevolent Association.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Dynedain]

I have Grandfathered Unlimited with AT&T. They're screwing us.

Unlimited used to mean Unlimited. Now "Unlimited" means if you use more data than our basic tiered plan, we are going to arbitrarily throttle your speeds to those available when you first bought into the plan (Edge, vs LTE).

It is very clearly a reduction of service for "Unlimited" users to encourage them to drop the plan for the tiered pricing, which has no speed restrictions. Verizon just got slapped around by the FCC for doing this. AT&T is due.

Back in dial-up days, companies tried the same kind of crap and got punished for it. Eventually ISPs shifted to truly unlimited plans. Later, rinse, and repeat.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[DutchUncle]

No, you can't. In fact, this is related to one of the strange places where government crosses religion. If you label something as complying with religious standards - like food being kosher or halal - then *civil* law says that you must have, and display, certification from a *religious* authority that you actually comply. The civil law does not set the standard, nor does it verify that the religious authority is valid; it just says that if you claim something you have to be able to verify it.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Your.Master]

By that definition unlimited is literally impossible, since you are limited by bandwidth multiplied by time.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[jeffmeden]

They can do that - but not if they say UNLIMITED.

The word unlimited means NO LIMITS. None. Zero. Nada. Without any restraints.

You can't advertise something as 'no peanuts' and then put peanuts in it. Similarly, you can't advertise something, or worse, put sell a contract for unlimited and then put limits on it.

The basic problem is false advertising here. The providers wanted the right to lie.

That is against the law. They deserve to be punished, and punished severely.

But could you advertise something as having "unlimited peanuts" and then have peanuts plus something else (really slow peanuts) in it? You are never going to really be able to eat an infinite amount of peanuts so the upper bound is meaningless.

See why that's a bad example? The problem isn't the unlimited part, plenty of services offered unlimited dialup; where are your posts decrying the absurdity of only being able to download at 52kbps despite the unlimited service? The problem is the "4g" (or even "3g") part of it that they are basically taking away at an arbitrary point.

It is mildly interesting to note that at 100kbps (the throttled speed, I believe) is still fast enough to download 31GB over the course of a month, so you are still getting a lot of gigs per dollar for your plan (compared to paying the new price for a 30GB/mo plan), albeit slowly.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[xigxag]

Is AT&T actually offering you an unlimited *contract*? Or did you have a 2 year contract which ended some years ago, but you decided to stay on month-to-month? Normally, after your contract is over, by continuing to pay, you're agreeing to whatever current terms are in effect, which might include throttling.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[DougOtto]

In my case, it is an unlimited contract. You're allowed to keep your existing plan when starting a new contract.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[phorm]

"Eh, technically they're not lying"

And technically they're not telling the truth either. If they want to throttle *ALL* customers down to 1kb/s and then give some "unlimited" data at that speed, fine. But if they're singling out people who have the unlimited package and applying throttling whilst everyone else gets 10MB/s (or whatever), then I'm sorry but that's not going to fly.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[amicusNYCL]

See why that's a bad example?

Yeah, it's a bad example because you threw in the phrase "really slow peanuts". If they advertise unlimited peanuts, and you ask for more peanuts, and they don't give you more peanuts, or they give you fewer peanuts than you can consume, then it is not unlimited peanuts. Where's the confusion? They aren't advertising "infinite" peanuts, they're saying "unlimited". Without a limit. All you can eat, as fast as you can eat them. Now enough with the peanuts.

where are your posts decrying the absurdity of only being able to download at 52kbps despite the unlimited service?

That is not the issue here. If you want to compare against dialup, then consider a service that offers "unlimited" dialup which will give you a 52k connection, and then they sends out data at only 2400 bps. It's not a question of the absolute number of bytes you can receive or transfer, it is a question of whether the carrier is artificially limiting the throughput. The technical limitations of the protocol or transmission are not a part of that equation. It is an artificial limit that is in question.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Dynedain]

Their month-to-moth offer is still Unlimited, and says so in the language. And I have the opportunity to sign a new contract, and lock in the same service (for example, to subsidize a phone).

They are trying to use contract language to redefine Unlimited to mean something other than Unlimited, but still call it Unlimited to avoid.

With current LTE speeds, it is possible to hit the "soft" threshold for a monthly data use in less than 90 seconds.

If they want everyone off the plan, they could change the terms and call it "Throttled" and not be lying. But they want to have their cake and eat it too. They know that if they truly ended the plans, customers would take the opportunity to walk to another carrier.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

"Unlimited" does not give you a guaranteed speed. There may be congestion, your device can only communicate so fast . . .

But it means "They do not throw in any artifical limits whatsoever. You will not be held back even a little for the benefit of other paying customers."

There is no "meeting in the middle". If they want to throttle, they should say so plainly: "no more unlimited plans. You can get various caps, so many MB per month". Plain, simple and honest. If they say unlimited, they better not limit the customer in any way or form. Marketing is not allowed a lie.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[luther349]

at@t got sued and lost for this before and where told to be clear on the caps.all the other cell providers are very clear on how much data you get now. t-mobile is the only one with a true unlimited but its not cheap like 80$ a month.

Re: Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the comparison: you can drive as many miles as you want (unlimited) but sometimes you have to drive 40mph and sometimes 5mph?

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

All that means is that you were not going with the flow of traffic. So if he Traffic flow is 80MPH in a 60MPH zone and you are doing 60MPH you are not reasonable or prudent, and also causing a traffic hazard to all other drivers.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[sjames]

The problem then is perception. Network utilization isn't obvious to the end user, so when they're throttled, it just appears that their carrier is slow for no reason. An hour later, it could be fine, so the average self-centered user will blame their carrier for having service that just gets really slow all of a sudden.

But those perceptions are accurate. They're supposed to limit overselling so that congestion is infrequent. The carrier is to blame for the problem.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

No person shall drive a vehicle at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent under the conditions and having regard to the actual and potential hazards then existing.

Try reading the full reason.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[JasonGoatcher]

What, exactly, does unlimited mean to you, and why is it different from everyone else's definition? I think for most sane people it means the most bandwidth possible for the time period without taking advantage of other people on the network.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

Then its not unlimited is it?

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[JasonGoatcher]

Then why don't they offer a per gigabyte plan for the power users? Same speeds as everyone else, but after the cap you owe a certain amount per gigabyte. I've never heard of this offered anywhere, even though it seems to be an obvious solution to the problem.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[JasonGoatcher]

Eh, technically they're not lying. I have unlimited data, but unlimited to the point of the bandwidth they assign me(as is always the case with any unlimited service). I don't have a guaranteed speed in my 10-15 year old AT&T unlimited contract.

That only counts as honest if you live in the land of salesman morality. Everyone else calls that lying.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[NormalVisual]

If they advertise unlimited peanuts, and you ask for more peanuts, and they don't give you more peanuts, or they give you fewer peanuts than you can consume, then it is not unlimited peanuts.

They could also take an unreasonable amount of time to give you more peanuts, but given that there are a lot of restaurants that use this tactic with their AYCE offerings and none that I know of that have been successfully sued for it, it's still probably not a good example.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[RobertLTux]

Not to mention that you might find a number of Caribbean Lawyers that would LITERALLY eat you RAW for pulling a stunt like that.

I think the food regs require you to state if you processed a product IN THE SAME BUILDING as stuff with %insert list of common food allergens here% much less actually had bits of them in your product.

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

and

http://www.fda.gov/Food/Guidan...

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[bhcompy]

Unlimited means I pay a flat rate for the service and the service doesn't stop at any thresholds other than not paying my bill. For data, they advertised "unlimited data". There are no extra fees for use past a certain point, unlike capped services where you pay per threshold. People hear unlimited data and they take it to mean unlimited bandwidth, and the two are fundamentally different. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but I do believe AT&T is overdoing the throttling when you do hit the softcap.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Bite The Pillow]

Is "unlimited" 4 trillion terabytes per day? Or is it more?

Or, will you accept that "unlimited" is not really unlimited?

If you have come this far without completely losing your shit because you're an idiot, then read this:

The FCC wrote a letter in July criticizing Verizon over a plan to throttle heavy users during periods of peak congestion. Verizon later backed down on that plan. The FCC said Tuesday that it was coordinating with the FTC on investigations into carriers slowing down unlimited data.

âoeWireless customers across the country are complaining that their supposedly âunlimitedâ(TM) data plans are not truly unlimited,

That kinda supports your argument, doesn't it?

...because they are being throttled and they have not received appropriate notice,â said Neil Grace, an FCC spokesman. âoeWe encourage customers to contact the FCC if they are being throttled by AT&T or other cellular providers.â

Oh wait, the FCC is okay with some throttling as long as someone gets "appropriate notice".

Now, what happens if someone on an unlimited plan is streaming terrible music and you, on a 1.5GB plan under your limit, want to post stupid things to slashdot? How does the provider decide who gets priority when the tubes are full? You paid for 1.5GB and you didn't get all 1.5GB. The unlimited person is going to sue for being limited.

In that case, won't it depend on what your contract says? If it doesn't, as you seem to object, then support your statement so that both sides get equal treatment. What's that you say? Neither side gets priority? Then one is not truly limited, and the other is not truly 1.5GB. Now what does the contract say?

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[jtownatpunk.net]

I don't know how AT&T does it but Verizon won't start a new 2 year contract with unlimited customers. They make you pay full price for equipment and you continue the month-to-month arrangement that you were on when your last contract expired in 2013 or earlier. (2 years after they stopped offering subsidized equipment on 2 year contracts to unlimited customers.) If AT&T really is still giving out 2 year renewal contracts on unlimited service, they're pretty dumb. If all their customers are month-to-month, that would kill this lawsuit pretty quick because the argument is that people are locked in and face termination fees if they terminate their contracts. Also, I'd bet up to and including $1.83 that AT&T will say that they're willing to waive ETFs for unlimited customers that are in contracts if there really are such people. That would also kill the lawsuit.

Verizon has other restrictions which prevent them from throttling unlimited LTE service. AT&T doesn't have the same restrictions in place. They're pretty much free to bend you over and have their way while you squeal like a piggy.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[LiENUS]

after the cap you owe a certain amount per gigabyte

You've described AT&T's only data plans new subscribers can get now.
The capped plans are the old grandfathered 'unlimited' plans that no one can subscribe to now. All new subscribers subscribe to say 5 gigs per month and after 5 gigs they charge like $10 per gig

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

which would seem to false advertising.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

Is "unlimited" 4 trillion terabytes per day? Or is it more?

Unlimited is understood your bandwidth level x entire month's time.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

strangely I have had this argument in the UK, with the UK advertising authority, (bunch of advertising twats that have managed to convince government to give them regulatory control, in reality they are like a chocolate teapot, or rather are the wolves in sheep's clothing).

And they are quite happy to allow FUP's (fair use policies) that override the word "unlimited".

Apparently the dictionary definition of unlimited is wrong according to them!!!!!!.

Fucking twats the lot of em!!!

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the real reason is marketing and money. I use to work for Cingular and got a better job shortly them becoming at&t wireless again. Their and Verizon (at least at the time, I haven't checked since I've left.) all have caps in the fine print of the contracts. The reason for marketing "unlimited" speeds is that they want to compete ISP's and Verizon with their "unlimited" plan. But they can't truly offer it because a) their network can't handle true unlimited speeds for their customers. b) they don't want to shell out the money to invest in building out more networks especially with faster technology. c) They still want you money. at&t doesn't want people to leave and never come back. They want you to pay what you can, and hopefully keep paying.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[jbolden]

Eventually ISPs shifted to truly unlimited plans.

They aren't going to switch to unlimited this time. The true cost of providing genuinely unlimited 4G is far far more than what they are collecting. So this resolves by unlimited just disappearing.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Bengie]

There is a difference between artificial limits and best effort. Everything in life is "within reason". There is also a reason I mentioned "colloquial usage".

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Bengie]

"you're agreeing to whatever current terms are in effect"

You are agreeing to whatever terms your agreed to in the first place. If AT&T doesn't like the terms, they can cancel your contract and end your service until you renew a new contract. You can't automagically be in a different contract without your explicit consent.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[LiENUS]

AT&T revised the 'unlimited' contract terms more than two years ago and you agreed to them when you signed a new contract

Re: Meet somewhere in the middle

[PortHaven]

When you can't stream a youtube video. That's no longer unlimited.

Frankly, I feel that they should be akin to T-Mobile. Throttle the 4G down to 3G speeds.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[PortHaven]

I've NEVER received the text, though I've been throttled.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[xigxag]

Your contract's already over after the agreed upon time (which is generally a year or two years.) After that yes, you're automatically in a month-to-month agreement, and your explicit consent to the terms of that agreement is indicated by continuing to pay your bill. Those terms may be different from what you originally agreed to. I'll refer you to the terms listed in their Service Agreement:

Term of Service. Your Agreement begins on the day we activate your Service(s) and continues through the Term of Service, typically a 12 month or 24 month period (“Service Commitment”), specified on your Customer Service Summary. At the end of your service commitment, this Agreement will automatically continue on a month-to-month basis. If your Agreement has no Service Commitment, it is a month-to-month Agreement.

- - - -

After your Service Commitment ends and you are on a month-to-month Agreement, AT&T may terminate your Agreement at any time with 30 days notice.

1.3 Can AT&T Change My Terms And Rates?

We may change any terms, conditions, rates, fees, expenses, or charges regarding your Services at any time. We will provide you with notice of material changes (other than changes to governmental fees, proportional charges for governmental mandates, roaming rates or administrative charges) either in your monthly bill or separately. You understand and agree that State and Federal Universal Service Fees and other governmentally imposed fees, whether or not assessed directly upon you, may be increased based upon the government's or our calculations.

IF WE INCREASE THE PRICE OF ANY OF THE SERVICES TO WHICH YOU SUBSCRIBE, BEYOND THE LIMITS SET FORTH IN YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE SUMMARY, OR IF WE MATERIALLY DECREASE THE GEOGRAPHICAL AREA IN WHICH YOUR AIRTIME RATE APPLIES (OTHER THAN A TEMPORARY DECREASE FOR REPAIRS OR MAINTENANCE), WE’LL DISCLOSE THE CHANGE AT LEAST ONE BILLING CYCLE IN ADVANCE (EITHER THROUGH A NOTICE WITH YOUR BILL, A TEXT MESSAGE TO YOUR DEVICE, OR OTHERWISE), AND YOU MAY TERMINATE THIS AGREEMENT WITHOUT PAYING AN EARLY TERMINATION FEE OR RETURNING OR PAYING FOR ANY PROMOTIONAL ITEMS, PROVIDED YOUR NOTICE OF TERMINATION IS DELIVERED TO US WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS AFTER THE FIRST BILL REFLECTING THE CHANGE.

- - - -

Unlimited Data Customers. If you are a grandfathered AT&T unlimited plan data service customer, you agree that “unlimited” means you pay a fixed monthly charge for wireless data service regardless of how much data you use. You further agree that “unlimited” does not mean that you can use AT&T’s wireless data service in any way that you choose or for any prohibited activities, and that if you use your unlimited data plan in any manner that is prohibited, AT&T can limit, restrict, suspend or terminate your data service or switch you to a tiered data plan.

I'm not advocating in favor of AT&T. I agree with gurps_npc. Hopefully, the FCC will snag them for their unorthodox use of the term "unlimited," which is not how a normal person would interpret that word. They should be required to call it something else other than unlimited. But let's not pretend the contract is different from what it is. Basically the contract amounts to, "we the corporation can do whatever we like, whenever we like, and if you don't like it, you may leave."

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

Up to $0.25 per Mb in overage fees or $256 per GB.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

My Ann Rand Bible tells me there is no such thing as a superior bargaining position, just superior people. All these courts and laws are getting in the way of the free market.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[LiENUS]

Up to $0.25 per Mb in overage fees or $256 per GB.

That sounds like you're talking about subscribers with no data plan, the most expensive overage fee for data plans is $59.96 per GB (not GiB as you mistakenly gave the price for).
However for most of the dataplans it is $10 per GB as per
http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/dataplans.html
Elsewhere on their site (burried in http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data-plans.html It looks like they may be going up to $15 per GB. All of these prices, even the highest of $59.96 per gb are far lower than your listed $256 per GB(sic)

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

Is "unlimited" 4 trillion terabytes per day? Or is it more?

In my case, it's ~100Mbps * 30 days (to keep it simple), which corresponds to roughly 30TB per month, if going at full speed, 24/7.

That's unlimited, in terms of what I'm sold, which is , in fact, an unlimited 100Mbps downstream (10Mbps upstream has proven to be well enough in my case) connection.

Or, will you accept that "unlimited" is not really unlimited?

Unlimited is:
- No soft-cap after which conditions suddenly change
- Best-effort delivery of sold service (in terms of bandwidth) with deviations due to overall network health fluctuations not taken into account

Fluctuations due to temporary network health issues are not artificially imposed limitations and do not constitute breaches of "unlimited"-ness.

There are no soft-caps or other clauses related to total amount of data traffic in my contract. I've bought a connection with a given upstream and downstream bandwidth, and that's what I'm getting, regardless of whether I'm running full-throttle all day long for a whole month, or not.

No artificial limitations are imposed on my connection.

That's what unlimited means to me.

Re:Meet somewhere in the middle

[q4Fry]

But could you advertise something as having "unlimited peanuts" and then have peanuts plus something else (really slow peanuts) in it? You are never going to really be able to eat an infinite amount of peanuts so the upper bound is meaningless.

If you try the Denny's "All You Can Eat Pancakes for $4," you experience just this behaviour: It is actually "2 pancakes plus 1 pancake every 30 minutes until your friends make you leave because they're bored."

I'm fine with a fine

[Mr D from 63]

But shouldn't AT&T also have to reimburse the customers for the value of the contract portion they did not deliver?

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[i kan reed]

Depends, is the goal disincentivizing scummy behavior or redeeming the company morally?

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Is moral redemption even possible for a company?

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[roc97007]

Depends, is the goal disincentivizing scummy behavior or redeeming the company morally?

Oh, let's make them do both.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[i kan reed]

Should we, really? That's not, in general, how our justice system is set up to solve problems*. I was raising the question because it's an incredibly important distinction.

*That this sometimes leads it to cause problems is a whole debate in and of itself.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[kobaz]

That's an interesting question... but
      (Unlimited - Throttled down to nothing) = What Exactly?

What dollar value would be reimbursed to the customer?

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[jeffmflanagan]

Yes, but not for AT&T.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[xaotikdesigns]

THere is a line in the contract that states that the terms can change at any time. It probably isn't legal, but it's there, and if you call in to complain about any of these changes that they make, they will usually let you out of the contract as long as you do it as soon as the changes are made.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[roc97007]

Yes, it is an important distinction. What I said was worded to be glib, but by "let's" I meant, let's have the FCC disincentivize their scummy behavior, and then let's us consumers make them redeem themselves morally, by not doing business with them, and telling them why.

I agree, having the government force a company to redeem itself morally usually doesn't end well. You only have to consider the source to see why that might not work out.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[Mr D from 63]

That would require notification of the changes in some reasonable fashion, ahead of time. Evidently that did not happen, or the terms were simply not fulfilled to begin with.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[Mr D from 63]

A court could come up with a reasonable formula. Base it on percent of data throttled vs used, for example.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[SoCalChris]

That would be a horrible formula for the consumer. By design, the throttle will limit the percent of data that's throttled vs what was used.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, base it on [data advertised]/[data provided].

So for a plan advertised as 'unlimited'...

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on the AT&T contracts were a few years ago when I got my "unlimited" contract I'd say: $20/month + $10/(gb of throttled traffic) + (any early termination fees for customers who were under these plans when their contacts were canceled)

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[Mr D from 63]

Just an example, not a recommendation.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[Em Adespoton]

But shouldn't AT&T also have to reimburse the customers for the value of the contract portion they did not deliver?

Since the contract states "unlimited", doesn't that mean that they failed to deliver on an infinite portion of the contract?

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[BronsCon]

Let's see... when I was with AT&T, I used to get 10-40mbps on LTE and 1-6mbps on 3g. Roughly equal distribution across the board, so we can average the two ranges (25 and 3.5, respectively), then average those results, to get an average throughput of 14.25mbps, of which the throttled rate of 100kbps is 10 1425ths, or 0.7% of the average potential throughput.

There are 31,536,000 seconds in a year, which averages out to 2,628,000 per month. AT&T's throttling comes in at 2GB and you can burn through 2GB in 140.35 seconds, or 0.395% of a month, at the average rate. For the unthrottled portion of the service, AT&T has earned 0.395% of the $30 they charge, or 11.85 cents.

For the remaining 99.605% of the month, AT&T is providing 0.7% of the service they sold, entitling them to 0.7% of the remaining 99.605% of the $30 they charge. 99.605% of $30 is $29.8815 (note the fifteen hundredths of a cent) and 0.7% of that is 20.92 cents.

So, for the unthrottled potion of the service, AT&T has earned 11.85 cents and, for the throttled potion, 20.92 cents, for a grand total of 32.77 cents, which we'll round up, as other calculations were rounded down by thousandths of a cent, so, 33 cents.

By that math, AT&T should be on the hook for $29.67, plus any taxes or fees taken as a percentage of the $30 price, per month, for each grandfathered unlimited customer that had service during the time that AT&T was throttling. Plus court costs, legal fees, and the administrative costs associated with distributing the payout. According to the FTC, over the course of nearly 3 years of throttling, 3.5 million customers were throttled for over 25 million combined billing cycles, putting AT&T's liability in this matter somewhere in the range of 25,000,000 * 29.67 (that's $10,820,895.52), plus collected taxes and fees (let's round to $11 billion to account for that), court costs, legal fees, and administrative costs, which they should be made to pay as well, for an estimated total of $11,002,500. To be fair.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[BronsCon]

Sorry, that's million, not billion. Which, of course, changes my final figure, in which I had intended to reflect $2.5 million in combined court costs, legal fees, and administrative costs, to $13,500,000.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[BronsCon]

Furthermore, I bungled the math somewhere in there and 25,000,000 * 29.67 is actually 741,750,000, so call it $750,000,000 with an eye for collected taxes and fees, and an estimated total of $752,500,000 when all is said and done. Hell, include some punitive damages and round it up to an even $1 billion.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[NormalVisual]

they will usually let you out of the contract as long as you do it as soon as the changes are made

Of course they do. You can't unilaterally make a material change to an existing contract and force the other party to abide by it. That's why they say "by continuing your service you indicate your agreement with the new terms".

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[wierd_w]

The issue here is weasel wording.

By ATT's definition of "Unlimited", as long as you are still connected, and being served data through your pipe, your connection is not "limited". EG, they are not imposing a hard limit on the total data that can be transferred using the plan.

The problem here, is that by the same methodology, any plan that sells a cap, followed by a throttle without additional charges, is functionally indistinguishable from an "unlimited" plan.

The weasels want to say "There is no such thing as a truly unlimited data plan as pertains to data thruput rates, since there is no infinitely fast medium of exchange." , and then use this as justification for throttling.

Here's my take on it:

Sell THREE different kinds of contract, and be VERY CLEAR about what each one offers:

1) Hard cap, no throttle afterward. Hitting the cap hits a hard cutoff. Don't try to spin this-- don't try to impose throttles on rate of consumption-- Sell it exactly like that.

2) Soft cap, with throttling afterwards. DONT CALL THIS UNLIMITED. This is "SOFT CAPPED" service. Not "Unlimited" service. Don't try to wiggle and redefine it. That's what it is.

3) Unlimited service. If your pipe can transport it, it goes through uninterrupted, untouched, and unmitigated in any fashion by ATT's management system. The only limits on this service are the raw rates that the infrastructure itself imposes. (EG, speed of optical fiber link, et al.)

ATT wants to do the "Fuck net neutrality!" thing, and wants to bill option #2 as "Unlimited", and sell option #3 as a "Fast lane" for "VIP customers".

This is because they dont want grandfathered "unlimited" plan users getting the VIP treatment without paying the VIP pricetag.

The FCC is right to bitch slap their asses for this. They sold "Unlimited service"-- not "Soft capped service" to those customers. They are legally obligated to provide that level of service. That's the law.

Some other enterprising ISPs have tried to play the "No,'Unlimited' meant unlimited online time! Not unlimited total transfers!" As far as I know, this has not been well recieved by the FCC either, and has been pretty much bitch-slapped as well. Time based billing made sense for modem bank distribution based utilization metrics, where a user connected at 28.8k gobbled up just as many modems as a user connecting at 56k--- Precisely one modem each. The oversubscription model at the time was to oversubscribe modem availability, based on statistical average on "Time connected.", and to "boot" users that had been hogging a connection for hours doing nothing, and to charge them for hogging service. Such nomenclature has no real bearing on modern network connection technologies, which do not use modem banks like this, and instead use bandwidth and/or timeslice (as in, milliseconds of time that the medium is guaranteed to respond in, not total use time or total connection time) based billing. Being connected 24/7 is "implied", because the connection is based (roughly) on the "ethernet" way of doing things. Not a point to point connection through a modem bank.

The modern corporate world has grown fat on using lawyers to carefully redefine words in their service contracts, and the use of lobbyists to draft laws for those lawyers to exploit for doing same--- The major impetus is to remove all culpability and legal obligation, while still appearing like they are offering such obligation in exchange for the currency and contractual commitments of their subscribers; To the point: They want to not have to be bound by their own contracts, but want their subscribers in leg irons, and want this to be legally enforceable.

The real solution to this, is to create legislation holding lawyers culpable for their actions, regardless of the demands placed upon them by their clients, in much the same way that medical doctors have to contend with malpractice. The reasons are basically the same--- A doctor is entrusted with the health and welfare of the patient, and

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[marka63]

$monthly * (throttled time / time in month) * 10.

The 10 times multiplier is a penalty. This is applied to all months for which the customer held a unlimited plan.

If AT&T don't have the data for when the plan was throttled the assumption should be that the plan was being throttled all the time.

It should also be a cheque not a credit.

Re:I'm fine with a fine

[PortHaven]

I'd be happy with a just getting unlimited 3G performance, and having the tethering ban lifted.

Inevitable outcome

[swb]

AT&T issues press release defending action as within the definition of "unlimited" they found in the dictionary in that one empty cubicle the temp was using last week.

Settlement agreed upon with the FTC to include your choice of $2.99 worth of AT&T credit on your account or a check for $1.19 if you send 3 years of back statements, including the envelope, to Dewey, Cheatam & Howe who will be overseeing the settlement process.

Re:Inevitable outcome

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T issues press release defending action as within the definition of "unlimited" they found in the dictionary in that one empty cubicle the temp was using last week.

Settlement agreed upon with the FTC to include your choice of $2.99 worth of AT&T credit on your account or a check for $1.19 if you send 3 years of back statements, including the envelope, to Dewey, Cheatam & Howe who will be overseeing the settlement process.

This will remain the "inevitable" outcome for as long as you, the consumer, continues to sit on your fucking ass and do nothing but bitch, piss, moan, and complain on an online forum...

Re:Inevitable outcome

[jon3k]

Absolutely agree, but it will stop the behavior and stop anyone else who might be doing something similar. Their legal, accounting and processing costs alone will be in the millions.

Re:Inevitable outcome

[Rich0]

Settlement agreed upon with the FTC to include your choice of $2.99 worth of AT&T credit on your account

NO way that they'd just give you straight account credit.

They'd give you $2.99 off of the purchase of something new that you don't already have that costs about $300. Maybe you'd get $2.99 off of the purchase of a new iPad, or off of your first month of T1 service.

Unlimited means Unlimited means Verizon Definition

[Danathar]

Until it's not.

Verizon defines "Unlimited" differently in their terms of service than you do.

No meeting in the middle...

[Anonymous Coward]

If AT&T sells so many contracts, then AT&T needs to make sure their infrastructure can handle that load, at maximum data rate, period.

No traffic shaping allowed, no speed reductions allowed.

If they sell it, they provide it, if they cannot, then reduce the cost of the service by a factor of 2x over the reduction so that they have incentive to "fix" the shortfall.

The same should be applied to all Wireless and Internet providers.

Re:No meeting in the middle...

[Xenx]

You do realize the load has drastically changed since they offered Unlimited data, right? I don't agree with AT&T's choice to throttle down to only 10% of available bandwidth, but realistically they sold those unlimited plans at a time when it was more feasible than now. I think AT&T is being more restrictive than needed with their data plans, but unlimited data caps doesn't equal unlimited speed on the connection.

Re:No meeting in the middle...

[mrbester]

So it's the customer's fault that there isn't enough bandwidth because they're using too much, rather than AT&T's fault for not expanding the network to cope with all the millions they salt away in tax havens?

Re:No meeting in the middle...

[Jaime2]

Unlimited means that I get fair access to available bandwidth and I never get charged extra no matter how much I use.

AT&T's implementation of unlimited means that if I use more total data in a billing period than they think a typical customer should use, then my service is degraded more than other customers service is degraded. In many cases, they are throttling unlimited users at times when there is surplus bandwidth - that's just vindictive.

Re:No meeting in the middle...

[Xenx]

Umm.. all I said was that AT&T was offering unlimited plans when they could manage unlimited plans. Mobile data usage has skyrocketed in a rather short period of time. On top of all this, because it's cellular data there are other limits on their ability to provide more bandwidth per user per tower.

Re:No meeting in the middle...

[fibonacci8]

Limits that could probably be solved using the money they were paid for such services?

Re:No meeting in the middle...

[jbolden]

So it's the customer's fault that there isn't enough bandwidth because they're using too much, rather than AT&T's fault for not expanding the network to cope

I don't remember the exact figures but AT&T did something like a 7000% expansion 2007-2011 and it has continued expanding since then. AT&T most certainly has put a fortune into expanding the network. The big thing holding back cellular data in the United States at this point is the stupid way other bandwidth is being used, most obviously broadcast television.

Misleading? IT'S CALLED FRAUD!

[schwit1]

Bait and switch is illegal. Where are the criminal indictments against the decision makers?

Re:Misleading? IT'S CALLED FRAUD!

[MobyDisk]

FYI: Bait-and-switch is not a criminal offense in the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

It seems that FTC didn't think the cause was strong enough for a fraud charge.

Re:Misleading? IT'S CALLED FRAUD!

[Holi]

What, you mean you thought the FTC would actually bring charges against a major corporation? Exactly who do you think they work for?

Re:Misleading? IT'S CALLED FRAUD!

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI: Bait-and-switch is not a criminal offense in the United States.

No, but it does open you up to civil litigation, and those cases -- at least those involving actual bait-and-switch -- are pretty much slam-dunks for any half-competent attorney.

Re:Misleading? IT'S CALLED FRAUD!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. From the very little bit of law opinion I've read online, it may be that they know the current charges can stick and complete as guilty whereas a fraud charge might be dodged and then they can't press again.

Re:Misleading? IT'S CALLED FRAUD!

[MobyDisk]

Umm... the entire article is about how they are bringing charges against a major corporation...

Re:Unlimited means Unlimited means Verizon Definit

[Mr D from 63]

Seems like AT&T changed their definition of unlimited at some point.

Only Took Fifteen Years

[Anonymous Coward]

To get a ruling of "unlimited means unlimited".

This could be fun to watch

[roc97007]

I feel like popping some popcorn. And I don't even like popcorn.

I bet the FTC forces settlement for millions and..

[Anonymous Coward]

not one of the effected people is compensated.

if they are compensated, it will be a trivial sum...
the bulk of the insufficient settlement moneys will be
kept by the FTC and likely transferred on the sly
to either general coffers, or directly to the republican party somehow.

the lawsuits against goldman/BankofA etc that were settled for
trivial sums, did not get used to repair the damages....

uncle sam kept the bulk of the damages awarded
to the american public. land of the free.

More of this, please.

[Fire_Wraith]

Now if we could only get the FTC to deal with more of the underhanded stuff that AT&T etc are doing. If anything, they have as much of a mandate to crack down on the deceptive trade practices ("Unlimited! - Except really not.") as the FCC does, if not more. Words and advertisements have meaning, and it shouldn't matter one bit if you bury some obscure definition on page 3923 of the terms of service that alters it to be something completely different from what the average person would think it means.

All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[rbrander]

The *expenses* that any utility has providing services fall into three broad categories:

1) One time costs of putting in infrastructure - or at least they appear one-time for any human lifetime, as lots of pipes (and even copper phone wires from the 30s) outlast people. But everything needs replaced eventually on some "lifecyle" of 20-120 years. These costs are handled by large banks loaning money over long periods so that it becomes a yearly cost that can be broken down per subscriber, or reasonably apportioned to subscribers by usage category (you vs Netflix, they pay thousands of times more).

2) Yearly fixed costs. They have to employ X guys to keep the lines strung through snowstorms, whether your line falls or not. Again, this breaks down to a monthly bill per subscriber and regulators can routinely agree how much you vs netflix pays, based on whether your "category" is 1-500 GB/month or 500-5000 or >5000.

3) Costs that are exactly proportional to usage. The actual cost of water per gallon, once all the pipes and plants are paid for; the actual cost of electricity per kWh, after all wires are bought and maintained. And there can be complexities here with utilities that have "rush hours" where using power when they're maxed reequires buying more expensive power - these can be addressed with "peak time surcharges" if needed.

With power especially, these are routinely broken out so that you don't pay $0.11 per kWh - you pay $20/month plus $0.07 per kWh. That's only fair. Any kind of pro-rating means some subscribers subsidize others.

With internet, every single ISP tries to blend all their costs into one monthly charge, and so you have $50/month and $80/month and $120/month "plans" with caps. It's all hogwash. THere should be ONE formula. And from the Netflix corporate filings, we know the Big Secret: data in bulk is now transmitted for barely 2 cents per GB.

So, your $50 plan should be a $48 plan, plus a nickel per GB - that's still giving them a vast profit per GB transmitted, but nobody will care as few use more than 100GB per month.

If they were regulated into breaking out fixed costs vs per-GB costs, all this crap with "data caps" and throttling would go away. No caps, because you pay per GB and they want you to buy more. No throttling for the same reason.

Even DISCUSSING the notion of a "cap" or a "throttling" is buying into their model of pricing, which is good for them and not for you. Don't do it.

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you in general terms but you are neglecting that charging in this way may require the utility to spend significant fixed costs NOW in order to upgrade to handle the new usage levels that would be caused by the change. In other words, they are making the marginal GB cheaper so a lot more people will purchase the marginal GB, vastly increasing usage which would likely require significant upgrades.

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[Xenx]

The only issue in all this is with cellular data, there are practical limits to the amount of data to be flowing at any time to all the customers on a particular tower. You have to try to curb usage as well as charge for fair usage.

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you realize (or don't in this case) that to implement such a method a detailed record of all transactions is mandatory for such a scheme.
Every website you visit, and how many bytes you transfer all become part of the business records metadata as it becomes necessary for your billing.
From this it will be possible to discern things like the length of your passwords and probably a whole host of things that would be impractical today.

In fact, the whole reason we have a Smith vs Maryland decision that legalized warrant-less wiretapping for the NSA is because the information was necessary to give to an operator (or a machine taking the place of an operator).

Furthermore, by charging per use, you incentivize the internet to revert to how it was in the bad old days with alt tags and browsers giving the option to disable loading of images. The future direction of the internet would be then focused on compression rather than encryption.

Since the cost per Gb is so minuscule, it should not be itemize din the bill. Afterall, the receipt from the grocery store does not itemize the fuel or transportation costs to restock. This should be the same way - we pay the ISPs more than enough to deal with outliers.

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[Anonymous Coward]

So they raise the fixed-monthly-rate portion of the cost. Instead of a $48 + per-GB price, you have to pay $75 + per-GB.

That's what that fixed-monthly-rate portion is for.

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[xaotikdesigns]

Used to work for a CellCo. We were all told that 4G had greatly improved bandwidth and that we could handle a crapload of data for a fraction of the cost.

4G data plans were then capped, with unlimited plans being discontinued, and rates made to match the hugely inefficient 3G plans.

Maybe if there were some transparency; in just exactly how much a tower can handle and how much they are actually being used, but they won't do that, because then we would all see how much they are overcharging.

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[Anonymous Coward]

The *expenses* that any utility has providing services fall into three broad categories:

1) One time costs of putting in infrastructure - or at least they appear one-time for any human lifetime, as lots of pipes (and even copper phone wires from the 30s) outlast people. But everything needs replaced eventually on some "lifecyle" of 20-120 years. These costs are handled by large banks loaning money over long periods so that it becomes a yearly cost that can be broken down per subscriber, or reasonably apportioned to subscribers by usage category (you vs Netflix, they pay thousands of times more).

2) Yearly fixed costs. They have to employ X guys to keep the lines strung through snowstorms, whether your line falls or not. Again, this breaks down to a monthly bill per subscriber and regulators can routinely agree how much you vs netflix pays, based on whether your "category" is 1-500 GB/month or 500-5000 or >5000.

3) Costs that are exactly proportional to usage. The actual cost of water per gallon, once all the pipes and plants are paid for; the actual cost of electricity per kWh, after all wires are bought and maintained. And there can be complexities here with utilities that have "rush hours" where using power when they're maxed reequires buying more expensive power - these can be addressed with "peak time surcharges" if needed.

With power especially, these are routinely broken out so that you don't pay $0.11 per kWh - you pay $20/month plus $0.07 per kWh. That's only fair. Any kind of pro-rating means some subscribers subsidize others.

With internet, every single ISP tries to blend all their costs into one monthly charge, and so you have $50/month and $80/month and $120/month "plans" with caps. It's all hogwash. THere should be ONE formula. And from the Netflix corporate filings, we know the Big Secret: data in bulk is now transmitted for barely 2 cents per GB.

You idiot, this is exact how ISPs do work. Wired and wireless. Every ISP offers a variety of plans, increasing in cost as consumption increases. For AT&T the current model is roughly $40 per line base plus $10 per Gigabyte usage. Exactly the scheme you describe above. And the cost isn't 2 cents per GB for wireless; you pay for the usage of very expensive spectrum.

 

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[Bite The Pillow]

You are basing your plan on the idea that production cost should determine consumer cost.

Welcome to capitalism, where what people will pay determines the cost. Your $50 plan is what people value at $50. Your $120 plan is what people value at $120.

Some things sell at barely over cost, some at multiples of cost.

Do you hate capitalism? I'm sure you do, but you should have just posted "I hate capitalism" instead of a screed that sounds like you're not aware that ATT and Netflix are headquartered in a capitalist nation.

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[jbolden]

Your point about the utility is right, but that's mainly how they do it. Your point about bandwidth is way off. Transporting the data from the website to a central carrier hotel near your phone is cheap, almost free. Getting it to the tower often costs more than the rest of the trip. Getting from the tower to your phone costs a lot. Moreover you as a subscriber aren't the one paying the $.02 / gb that's the data provider (like Netflix) they are happy to charge you $.00 nothing for that part of the trip they only want to charge you for the last mile usage (plus a tiny fraction of traffic which is consumer to consumer traffic).

The real fully loaded cost of bandwidth to deliver via. cellular is somewhere in the neighborhood of $4-7 / gb depending on how you count. The cost of the subsidy is about $20 / mo. The cost of the service: minutes, SMS, billing... is under $10 / mo.

And guess what that's pretty much how they charge you. You pay a base fee which includes the phone subsidy and a cost per gb which works out to $5-10 / gb.

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[allquixotic]

But Verizon is perfectly happy billing customers at $10 per GB. They will only change if they are forced to by law. And I guarantee you that they will sue the FCC, the courts, and even their own mothers again and again until the Supreme Court has to make a decision, in case the FCC does actually strike against them and declare Internet service (including mobile) a public utility.

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[mgcarley]

Are you sure? If that really was the case, how come wireless ISPs are able to deliver so much more data for about the same price?

If the spectrum costs say $1b for a nationwide 20 year lease and there are say 10 million subs, that's only $100/sub, or $5/sub/year.

And while WISP equipment is much cheaper (few hundred per base-station, but they have a lifespan of about half that of a cell tower), cell equipment is no longer as absurdly priced as it used to be (it used to be $20k+ for a 3G base station, 4G stuff is much cheaper).

Given a base station probably serves 1,000 subs in an urban area and 100 subs in a less dense area, you're probably looking at an average CAPEX of about $10/sub/year and OPEX of about $5 to $7/mbit/month (based on bandwidth prices as delivered in Southern Illinois at the 100/200mb levels).

Adding the cost of towers and land leases you're probably looking at an average of say $60/sub/year. Extrapolating the costs to include rural areas we can probably average that out to be a lifetime costs about $1,000 per sub, considering a towers range is likely a radius of at least 10mi.

Anticipating a lifespan of 5 years on equipment and 10 years on leases etc that brings us to monthly costs of $5 spectrum + $5 bandwidth + $1 equipment + $5 towers etc = $16/subscriber/month cost. Which fits pretty closely with $45/month pricing if we follow "typical" accounting rules-of-thumb BUT we're sharing say 200mb tower bandwidth between a median of about 500 subscribers which gives us an effedtive bit rate of about 512k/sub -- or a practical limit of 160GB/month or so.

So your suggestion of $4-7/GB seems ludicrous - how is it that expensive in the US but so comparatively cheap even in tiny island nations like mine where bandwidth is still quite expensive per mbit, or, say, any country in Europe? - but I share the sentiments of my fellow ./ers even if my numbers are way off (in this post, they're mostly educated guesses).

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[jbolden]

If that really was the case, how come wireless ISPs are able to deliver so much more data for about the same price?

WISP is a totally different technology with a different cost structure. Apples to baseballs type comparison.

If the spectrum costs say $1b for a nationwide 20 year lease and there are say 10 million subs, that's only $100/sub, or $5/sub/year.

It is more than that. For example the AWS-3 auction (which wasn't much bandwidth) has a $10.5b reserve (i.e. below that price the government wasn't selling) and sold for $19.6b.

In addition to the bandwidth there is the cost of the many towers in terms of maintenance. That is a big expense. Finally I gotta tell you the towers I've seen no way are they under $20k. I don't know what they are paying but I'd expect hundreds of thousands. OTOH they serve way way more than 1000 subs.

- how is it that expensive in the US but so comparatively cheap even in tiny island nations like mine where bandwidth is still quite expensive per mbit, or, say, any country in Europe?

  In Europe you have a lot of people in very dense regions and then very dispersed regions. In the USA because of the car culture you have a much more uniform population density than Europe. That is lots of areas with too many people to ignore but not enough people to make it profitable at low prices. The result is that coverage requires many times as many towers with each serving less people. That's why the USA lagged Europe by so many years for cell phones. Same issue you have in Africa, BTW which is a far better comparison. I don't know where you live, but a tiny island nation likely has a higher density.

Re:All based on a false-to-fact payment model

[mgcarley]

If that really was the case, how come wireless ISPs are able to deliver so much more data for about the same price?

WISP is a totally different technology with a different cost structure. Apples to baseballs type comparison.

I think I mentioned that part... they still need towers and connectivity, but the base stations are cheaper and range may or may not be the same (granted, a WISP has the advantage of being able to put a strong receiver at the customer premises which probably doesn't move). Other than a couple of details, the cost structure isn't so vastly different.

If the spectrum costs say $1b for a nationwide 20 year lease and there are say 10 million subs, that's only $100/sub, or $5/sub/year.

It is more than that. For example the AWS-3 auction (which wasn't much bandwidth) has a $10.5b reserve (i.e. below that price the government wasn't selling) and sold for $19.6b.

Right, but I also indicated a customer base of 10m subs. AT&T has about 115m subs which almost brings my guess to within a margin of error ($1b to $11b, 10m subs to 115m subs). Even at the price it was sold, it affects the cost per subscriber per month only by about $4 per month if we still assume a 20-year term on a typical spectrum auction (yes, I saw something about the 12-year term but it can be extended by another 10 so that still brings it pretty close to my guess).

In addition to the bandwidth there is the cost of the many towers in terms of maintenance. That is a big expense. Finally I gotta tell you the towers I've seen no way are they under $20k. I don't know what they are paying but I'd expect hundreds of thousands. OTOH they serve way way more than 1000 subs.

Base station equipment != tower. A medium-sized base station cost (as of a few years ago) roughly $20k on average. My understanding is that a similar device is now closer to $10k - I don't recall whether that included the cost of the sectoral antennas or not but you could probably add some money for those, which on a cost/subscriber/month basis probably wouldn't be that much. Yes, there are $100k base stations as well but not as many: if I buy 10x $2,000 devices, 5x $10,000 devices and 1x $100,000 device to service my network, my average cost is... whaddya know, under $11k.

I did make allowances for the average tower to be about $100-150k each (towers and leases at about $60k/year each - since a tower should last about 20-25 years easy, $5-8k a year should about do it easily, with leases and other such expenses making up the other $50k or so per year; and that's a real top-end assumption - many towers don't cost nearly that much).

Plus, many towers are shared by multiple carriers, so even if AT&T builds a tower for $150k, some other carrier is going to end up contributing about half that cost over the lifetime of the tower by leasing space on it.

All in all, my numbers, while crude, still probably exceed the actual cost to the carrier by some unknown percentage. The rule of thumb of accounting I used basically splits the cost to the end user in to 3: cost to buy/run, taxes and overheads (such as staffing & fixed costs). Yes, it's rough, I'll admit, but it's quick, and very approximately fits the pricing model, the only thing being that considering the amount they *could* allocate to each customer versus how much they do allocate... well, the customers could be seen to be getting a raw deal. I'd be interested to see what the load averages are on the devices.

- how is it that expensive in the US but so comparatively cheap even in tiny island nations like mine where bandwidth is still quite expensive per mbit, or, say, any country in Europe?

In Europe you have a lot of people in very dense regions and then very dispersed regions. In the USA because of the car culture you

Make it right...

[SenatorPerry]

I am not sure how you can fix the impact AT&T has had on their prior customers. I simply had to leave their service after my throttled connection wouldn't allow for me to use GPS while traveling.

How do you put right what they did wrong? A fine won't do it, since innocent shareholders will suffer. Forcing them to adopt unmetered accounts won't fix the fact I am now on Verizon's network unable to use the service as it is sold. Tossing a few dollars to me won't make up for what I have had to deal with regarding Verizon's war on their customers.

This should be the turning point for AT&T, which is that the only way to make this right is to have them deal with the same issues we all dealt with. That is, they should enact regulation and then split the company apart and force them to compete with themselves.

Re:Make it right...

[TheCarp]

> A fine won't do it, since innocent shareholders will suffer.

How and why are shareholders innocent? They bought part of the company, the company behaved badly and got fined, they, as part owners, are partly responsible. Them taking a hit on share price is absolutely just, and I see no reason to make any special exceptions for them just to avoid that.

Now if the shareholders then wish to claim they were wronged by bad decisions the company made which were against the best interests of the shareholders, I wouldn't say they are wrong, but it really is a separate issue.

Now seeing the company first fined, then have its stock slide, and then be sued by its shareholders....THAT seems like it would send the right message, don't you think?

Re:Make it right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad the courts have completely defanged the laws that were drafted to hold management accountable. The shareholders would not win such a suit and even if they did the damage would exceed the individuals' ability to pay restitution and be uncollectable. They can't even claw back golden parachutes. At best the shareholders can revolt and elect new board members who will fire managers and pick new ones, but even that is impossible because institutional investors never exercise their rights as shareholders in a meaningful way and instead vote with their feet by selling, which means the shareholders will simply accept their losses and move on. In this case I don't expect the penalty to meaningfully affect the share price and at best will force ATT to change the working of some marketing material.

Re:Make it right...

[TubeSteak]

Now seeing the company first fined, then have its stock slide, and then be sued by its shareholders....THAT seems like it would send the right message, don't you think?

The alternative is to pierce the corporate veil and directly go after the executives (and lawyers) who signed off on this.

While it's a fun idea, it would create all kinds of chaos until the loopholes are figured out and everyone goes back to business as normal. So instead we'll be stuck with punishing those poor innocent shareholders whose demands for better profits and larger dividends are a major driver of shitty corporate behavior.

More realistically, at the corporate level, salary/bonus/benefit clawback provisions in executive contracts would go a ways towards disincentivizing criminal behavior. But the odds of that happening are slim to none, and Slim is actually a billionaire businessman, so he's already against it.

Re:Make it right...

[Bite The Pillow]

You ignorant dickhead, they didn't buy part of the company.

They purchased, on the secondary market, a voting share. What do they vote on? Mostly who makes up the Board. And the Board decides who is CEO.

Shareholders are not owners of the company. Not part owners. They vote.

And frequently, shareholders file a lawsuit against the CxO and/or Board of Directors for doing something like making materially false statements which overvalued the future of the stock, leading to major losses. How did it happen if shareholders are the ones in charge? And how is it a separate issue?

Also, do you have a 401(k)? You probably never voted, and don't have voting rights because your holdings are proxied to the fund manager, but you are a stockholder of ATT, almost guaranteed. Even if you don't care about retirement, are such people innocent or guilty?

The latest ATT dividend was $.46 per share. A small fine won't matter, but a big fine eats into profit, which eats into dividends. A one-time charge looks bad for people who buy stock, and people wanting to sell will have to either eat the loss or hold on to stock.

http://www.att.com/gen/investo...

I think you are going to have to say how the shareholders are not innocent. Very specifically.

Re:Make it right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Innocent shareholders? You mean those people who make money from nothing for doing nothing? The people who profit from regular people having to go to work and actually do something?

Yeah my heart goes out to them, poor things.

Re:Make it right...

[jbolden]

since innocent shareholders will suffer

How are they innocent? They elected the board of directors who implemented the policies being objected to. They as owners are absolutely responsible for AT&T's conduct.

Re:Make it right...

[jbolden]

And frequently, shareholders file a lawsuit against the CxO and/or Board of Directors for doing something like making materially false statements which overvalued the future of the stock, leading to major losses. How did it happen if shareholders are the ones in charge? And how is it a separate issue?

You are conflating 3 different things here.

1) A corporation acting in the interest of shareholders via. breaking the law.
2) A board elected by the shareholders acting in the interests of the board and not the people they represent.
3) Corporate management acting in their own interests and not the interests of the board/shareholders.

With AT&T the accusation is (1) is taking place. That's wholly different than (2) and (3) which you are talking about.

Meanwhile, AT&T is getting the Vaseline out

[Anonymous Coward]

They are going to screw us majorly if this is allowed to persist. Oh well, At least it is with Lube..This time..

FCC: Unlimited does NOT mean unlimited

[Anonymous Coward]

So, "unlimited means unlimited" for cellular data but not for land-based data?

Thanks for being consistent, you FCC assholes.

Re:FCC: Unlimited does NOT mean unlimited

[Holi]

FTC is not the FCC. Now granted it would be nice if they were on the same page, but that rarely happens.

Frauds

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Thank you! I am full bore libertarian, but this is fraud. Go get 'em!

Next up: Compabies selling me Internet servislce at certain speeds, then throttling Netflix and YouTube unless they pay a kickback. I didn't consent to it in my contract with the cable company. You provide X speed (within your network you control) for all things. If it's clogged, it all slows down. Throttling for extortion is extortion and fraud on that.

Go get those frauds, too.

Re:Frauds

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh they have a way around it.

For example, Comcast no longer " throttles " based on content ( that would be discriminatory ) instead, they throttle ALL traffic one you trigger the mechanism. One of them being usage of your connection at 70% of your maximum throughput ( either up or downstream ) for more than fifteen minutes. So, in my case, using a sustained 35mbps down or 3.5mbps up will trigger the condition.

The other criteria for throttling a user down is where the Cable Modem Termination Point becomes congested and they determine you're partially responsible. In both cases expect the throttle condition to last at least fifteen minutes.

However, what they claim they do and what they actually do are usually two different things completely. I supposedly have a 50mbps download speed. They will " boost " my initial download to ~60mbps for about ten to fifteen seconds, then my throughput will drop right through the floor. It never quite makes it back up to 50mbps, but seems to hug the 25-30mbps mark.

So, I laugh anytime Comcast sends out the letters and commercials about how they are boosting your download speeds for free, but then leave off the all important part of only doing so for the first few seconds of your download.

We really need to break up the companies who serve as both ISP and Content Delivery. This will simply be business as usual until it happens.

Re:Frauds

[jbolden]

We really need to break up the companies who serve as both ISP and Content Delivery

They are mostly. The emerging players in content delivery Level3, Zayo, Century Link... don't act as ISPs for individuals.

Re:Frauds

[Anonymous Coward]

CenturyLink does in fact operate as an ISP as well.

Bill "Reach out and Touch Someone" Clinton said...

[davidwr]

""It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is^H^Hunlimited' is."

Fuck you

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to bend over and get your asshole fucked by another big corporation.

Any other company would be absolutely required to deliver what is advertised as a service, but for some reason you think the consumer should cave and meet at&t somewhere in the middle based on your personal bandwidth requirements? Hey asshole, unlimited means there's no such thing as abuse. How can you abuse unlimited? Are you trying to rewrite the definition of a word in the English language?

Fuck you, and fuck At&t

Re:Fuck you

[bhcompy]

Tell me where I agreed to anything in my contract that has to do with guaranteed bandwidth? My contract states unlimited data, which is tempered by the bandwidth assigned to me. Just like any normal home internet connection, where you are assigned bandwidth and you have unlimited within those constraints.

Re:Fuck you

[Jaime2]

Tell me how unlimited has any meaning at all if it's interpreted that way and the company fiddles with your assigned bandwidth based on your cumulative monthly usage. That's the misleading part.

I used to have AT&T unlimited, but changed to a limited plan when I realized that my unlimited plan didn't behave in a way consistent with any definition of "unlimited" and behaved nearly identical to a hypothetical "3GB per month" plan.

Re:Fuck you

[bhcompy]

Indeed, nothing is ever unlimited is it? My lifetime supply of Doritos that I won in a contest is actually a fixed number for month, my unlimited supply of sunlight I receive is actually up until the sun goes nova, my unlimited dialup AOL actually is limited by my 56k baud modem, etc.

Re:Fuck you

[Jaime2]

Nothing is unlimited from every angle, but that doesn't make unlimited a meaningless word. If AOL cut my 56k unlimited access back to 5k after 10 hours, I would ask for credit for anything I paid above a 10 hour plan. The lifetime supply of Doritos was likely advertised as a fixed number of bags per month, so that isn't similar. And if someone puts a tent over my property, they've taken away my unlimited access to sunlight.

Re:Fuck you

[mattack2]

Nothing is unlimited from every angle

Which is EXACTLY what others are trying to say, yet you're arguing with them at every turn.

Re:Fuck you

[Jaime2]

I'm arguing because the statement that we both agree on is completely meaningless from a practical perspective. I stated it up front to show that I wasn't insane enough to disagree with the fact that unlimited is a very strong word and no plan could ever be "purely unlimited". Then I went on to show that AT&T's plan not only doesn't meet the academic definition of unlimited, but doesn't meet any practical definition of "unlimited cellular data plan".

You chose to point out that I agree with the academic statement while completely ignoring the fact that I said that it doesn't matter whether it does or not. If the only way you can think of the word "unlimited" is from an unrestricted academic sense, then you are speaking a different version of English than the rest of us. That's why this FTC position, or almost everyone else's view, doesn't make sense to you.

Re:I bet the FTC forces settlement for millions an

[bhcompy]

directly to the republican party somehow.

Err? The current FTC Chair(wo)man is a Democrat appointed by Obama, and the FTC Commissioners are majority Democrat.

Re:Unlimited means Unlimited means Verizon Definit

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon doesn't control the english language, therefor does not get to "redefine" words like Unlimited.

It's false advertisement... PERIOD

Definition of Unlimited

[PPH]

Use as much as you want. For a fixed price. For the rest of your life.

Capiche? <soundtrack>Godfather</soundtrack>

Decades ago - unlimited local calling

[davidwr]

Back in the 70s, most urban areas and many rural areas had "unlimited local calling" and "unlimited incoming calls." This was fine until the rise of home-based BBSs which tended to use more of the limited telephone-switch resources 24x7 than the telephone company's planners envisioned. The "Baby Bells" (the descendants of the breakup of the original AT&T/"Ma Bell") tried to get these systems billed at business rates. Eventually, I think there was a compromise either nationally or in the state I lived in at the time: If you ran less than X number of phone lines you could publicly advertise your non-business BBS and still be billed at residential rates. Anything more than X number of phone lines and you would be charged at business rates.

Re:Decades ago - unlimited local calling

[jbolden]

Very good analogy. In today's world the BBS would just be business phone lines and billed at business rates. There is less of a regulatory framework which means we get better prices but less protections.

Story time, and threats by AT&T. Here ya go..

[Anonymous Coward]

My brother is on AT&T in a large urban area with great coverage across the big 3 providers. He's been with AT&T for over a decade. Has Unlimited data grand-fathered in, and the latest iPhone 5s. Over the summer, starts watching World Cup games on his phone. After a few days of doing this, gets a call FROM AT&T inquiring about his recent usage.The line they gave him was, and he quotes, knock it off.

Now please tell me. How is that acceptable for a service you are 1, paying for, 2, legally ok to threaten a customer like that. And yes, I view THEM calling you about the service you've bought from them, and verbally stating such a thing, as a threat!

His reaction, IMO, was less than what I expected, as he is still with them for said 'Unlimited' plan.

Punishment to Fit the Crime

[Tokolosh]

My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!

The advertising quack who wearies
With tales of countless cures,
His teeth, I've enacted,
Shall all be extracted
By terrified amateurs.

We broke up AT&T for a reason.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

And it looks like AT&T hasn't learned their lesson. Break 'em up again. Do the same to Comcast and Verizon. Hell, break up Microsoft and Google as well, just for shits and giggles. America is long overdue for some trust-busting.

Re:We broke up AT&T for a reason.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you would allow some banks on that list too?

Re:We broke up AT&T for a reason.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you would allow some banks on that list too?

Here's some change, kid, go buy yourself a regional bank.

Re:We broke up AT&T for a reason.

[Ryanrule]

Yes.
too big to fail = too big to exist.

Re:We broke up AT&T for a reason.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the government!

And they will get away with it....

[Anonymous Coward]

After filling the pockets of more congress members to pressure the FTC.

Re:I bet the FTC forces settlement for millions an

[Holi]

heh, partisan politics has very little place in the actual function of government, When it gets down to things like this both sides gladly work together, usually to screw us.

Re:Unlimited means Unlimited means Verizon Definit

[Dorianny]

Seems like AT&T changed their definition of unlimited at some point.

Technically it is still unlimited the same way a slumloard could close the main water valve to allow barely a trickle and claim that he hasn't shut off your water.

By that measure

[aepervius]

They could limit you to 1 byte per second at cap, and still not be lying. Do you really believe that ? Furthermore unlimited data use the assumption is that no speed throttling will happen (beside the announced sped). if you DO throttle speed, then essentially you are simply throttling the max data. Remmember speed*time=max amount transferable. 100K.s-1 is max 361 Mb.h is 8G.day. It is a limitation they impose which is LOWER than what you can expect had they not limited your speed. This is de facto 15 time lower than the max transfert you could expect if you were left at 1.5 Mb.s-1. You announce an unlimited data plan, only to limit the maximum data which you allow to transfert (again , remember max data=speed*time, so by imposing a lower speed, you limit the max transfert, and cannot pretend to have an unlimited data plan).

Re:By that measure

[Bengie]

What's this per second stuff? They could limit you to 1 byte per sub-infinite time frame, and still technically not be an issue for many of these people.

Remove uncertainty

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this issue is "public" they are having the FTC remove uncertainty and "cap" their damages at a known amount.

Hurts more for stockholders/investors to think they may be out 100 million in the future vs being out 10 million now.

BS "fees"

[whoever57]

I am just waiting for the day where every service is priced at $.01 ("plus fees and taxes"). Price comparisons are meaningless when a large chunk of the price is mandatory fees.

I don't mean baggage fees on flights, since one may choose not to take baggage, but such things as the "resort fee" which hotels add to bills in certain locations, etc.. These "fees" are a cost of business and should be included in the base price.

Other examples are rental car companies charging a fee to cover their agent's salary (yes, really!) or the property taxes for the vehicle (which the rental company must pay irrespective of whether someone rents the vehicle or it sits in the garage).

Re:BS "fees"

[neminem]

My favorite is Ticketbastard, which finally started displaying their 10+ buck "fees" alongside ticket prices when you hover over a ticket you're thinking of (which, since you have no choice in the matter, there's really zero reason not to just call that price the price of the ticket, except then they'd have to stop advertising that their supposed prices are so cheap)... which, good for them, right? At least they're displaying the price of the ticket before you go to purchase them, right? Not right. There's that fee, but then when you go to actually pay, there are two *more* fees that were *not* displayed earlier. Because of course there are.

Re:BS "fees"

[dkf]

The "Oh, you want to pay for that via a mechanism usable by mortals?" fee seems to the current favourite. There are a few companies that I simply will not trade with, ever, because of that sort of thing.

ads

[BradMajors]

I am OK with AT&T throttling my ads.

Fuck you

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like George Carlin

marketing

[johncandale]

The real problem is Marketing creep. "1000 gigs of data over here". Yeah well, "2000 over here". "Oh yeah??? We sell unlimited".

shaka, when the walls fell

[Thud457]

Homer at the Frying Dutchman,
dreams shattered.
R.i.P. Lionel Hutz, hero of the everyman.

So its time for a Walking Dead reference

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T, fucking with our data? I should scribble "You'll burn for this" into the back of your building.

I was one of the unfortunate

[linuxrunner]

I had the unlimited plan. I was keeping it just to keep it. At the time I had two phones and ran a Blackberry through AT&T.

I never used more than 2 gigs of data but I loved the idea of having an unlimited plan. After the caps were put in place I held out hope it would change. While it never truly affected me I ended up canceling and leaving AT&T all together out of principle about a year later.

Unlimited data

[Anonymous Coward]

I had it and since they first offered it and then the started cutting things off like my face time and slowing me down then I finally switched like they wanted me to ... This was wrong they never regulated me when I first got it and they shouldn't have decided to later unlimited mean just that I want in on the class action law suit please let me know how to do It

Not true

[StevenMaurer]

No matter how "unlimited" a data cap supposedly is, if the bandwidth is limited, then there is only a limited amount of data you will ever be able to pull through it over a monthly period. So therefore it's limited, QED.

To posit an absurd example to prove the point, if AT&T advertised an "unlimited bandwidth" connection that could only download one byte per minute, your effectively monthly data cap would be: 60 (seconds) * 60 (minutes) * 24 (hours) * 31 (days) = 2.67 Mb per month.

Artificially throttling bandwidth is imposing a lower data cap, period.

Why AT&T and not T-Mobile?

[tburt11]

I have been a happy t-mobile customer for a decade. Not a problem mind you, but the t-mobile unlimited data plan has a soft cap. They DO inform you of the cap, and I do not know what the penalty feels like because I have never consumed enough of my plan to reach it. And what about my hard wired ISP? Selling me 15 MB/s and giving me never more than 8? Now I would like to see the FTC step in there and right that wrong...

Re:Why AT&T and not T-Mobile?

[PortHaven]

T-Mobile specifically advertises unlimited 3G, capped 4G.

Not exactly...

[PortHaven]

When many of us signed up for unlimited. We signed up for UNLIMITED 3G speeds. Anything below that due to throttle is in fact a breach of contract. They can throttle the 4G, but the 3G should NOT be throttled.

I should always get my approx. 1mbps service in an uncongested area. I should NOT be reduced to 60K.

Re:Not exactly...

[aslagle]

Actually, I signed up for unlimited 3G, but when I got my iPhone 5, AT&T changed it to an unlimited LTE contract. They still use the 'unlimited' term, even today: when I go into my AT&T application, my plan is listed as 'unlimited'...and then they give a 5.3GB/5GB designation. And if they throttled my data due to network congestion, that'd be one thing, but my data stays throttled to 0.5MBit/sec from the time I go over 5GB until my next billing cycle starts, no matter what time of day or night I try to use it. Congestion my ass.

Correction

[PortHaven]

When these contracts were signed. They were signed for Unlimited 3G service. And that is what I expect. If there is a good signal in an uncongested area, I should receive 3G quality service. I should NOT be throttled down to 60K.

And just what are we supposed to do?

[PortHaven]

Seriously, would you rather we wage economic sabotage against AT&T cell towers. It's like Cable TV. I have Comcast, and no other available options. They're not going to change unless enough people wine and complain. And guess what...

MOST OF US WHINERS ON THIS FORUM

Have probably complained to our congressmen, the FTC, the FCC, etc.

This is pervasive among all providers

[sansprivacy]

These allegations are of no surprise to those of us who have been customers of these companies for years now. They all do this. To think that a company like verizon or at&t doesn't participate in this is silly. They don't even have the physical infrastructure required to give all the customers they've signed up today all their money's worth. They stay behind the curve of customer demand to go fast on upgrades to infrastructure .. it's part of their business model.