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

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: Meet somewhere in the middle

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.