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Court Refuses To Dismiss AT&T Throttling Case
Taco Cowboy sends news that a federal judge has shot down AT&T's attempt to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the company deceived customers by throttling their mobile data speeds. The suit was filed by the Federal Trade Commission after it found AT&T was charging customers for "unlimited" data plans, but then throttling their bandwidth once certain thresholds were reached. AT&T tried to have the suit thrown out by saying the FTC was exceeding its authority. Judge Edward Chen disagrees (PDF), saying jurisdiction for their conduct had not yet passed to the Federal Communications Commission when it occurred. The throttling affected "at least 3.5 million customers."
I find it interesting that these telecommunication companies want to be known as a Common Carrier only when it benefits them. They want it both ways.
I would love to see a class action lawsuit against all the companies that treat salaried workers as hourly when it benefits them, and salaried when i benefits them.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
More likely every AT&T cellular customer will receive a $.50 credit, and the lawyers will receive millions.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Ahhh AT&T, doesn't want to be classified as Common Carrier unless it helps them get out of a lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds.
Pure socialism (which is not in itself a bad thing) when combined with players of the same moral fiber as those in the telecom industry creates exactly the problem that you are trying to avoid, except now you have to sue the government for change.
Responsiveness to consumer needs comes along a curve drawn by the number of competitors. Monopolies are the worst, duopolies, almost as bad, I will argue quad-opolies as the inflection point and I'm surrounded by restaurants that will cook me anything they have ingredients for any time I want, so somewhere in the hundreds businesses become very accommodating.
The four big telco's in the US are competitive more than they are cooperative. T-Mo (the Walmart of carriers) does disruptive shit to the others all the time and they have to at least pretend to have a matching game. No-Contracts was their latest. Previously, the cost of your phone was spread into your bill, but your bill didn't drop when your phone was paid for. So you were either under contract, or you were paying a $20 a month premium for using your old phone, win/win for the carrier. That sucked for the consumer, but it's how every one did it until, in the spirit of competition, one company decided to muck with the rules. The consumers won.
I have my issues with all the carriers, but nation wide networks are a non-trivial investment and spectrum isn't infinite. I think 5 or 6 is all you could squeeze in, and I don't think you'd see much more benefit.
We need law suits like this to succeed, so lying to the public has a serious cost. We can give all the damages to some nice charity, I don't need a $3 a month refund for 11 months of service, I need AT&T's marketing department to think next time, "this lie will be expensive."
OT, but related to your comment: I have been fighting battles with companies in the bay area who want to hire people but only if they can sleaze by via 'contract to hire' (really, its a misspelling: the correct spelling is 'contract to FIRE'). this saves them 3 or 6months of benefits, all the while treating you like an employee (long hours, occasional unpaid weekends, take your work laptop home (yes, contractors are being told this).
companies know its all about denying benefits to americans. mostly its us older guys (ie, the ones who need health insurance the most). and they try to convince you its about 'try before you buy' but that's just a stupid lie. I've known contractors stuck on that role for way more than 6mos. look employers, if it takes you even 3 months to know if the guy you have working for you is good or not, I'd be surprised. 6mos? that's just a cost savings for YOU. lets push the benefits cost down on the employee for as long as we can.
its because none of us in tech have unions anymore. there's no one to fight for our rights. sure, as a kid, you think you don't need them. come back in 20 or 30 yrs when you find that to be untrue for you. its not what you need NOW, its what all of us eventually need. WE NEED UNIONS. and yes, they can be evil, but companies are already the definition of modern evil. it takes a monster to fight a monster and lets have the 2 monsters fight each other rather than one of them fighting ME.
and so, I spend the last 10 years doing contracts, unwillingly, since that is ALL that is offered to me. 30 yrs of software and hardware, doing lots of things, but I have 'dont give this guy a fulltime job with benfits' written all over my forehead. apparently.
the overall name of the american game: become rich, screw everyone you can, deny you are doing anything ethically wrong. seems to be working for the elite. for the rest of us, life was better 20 or 30 yrs ago before all this 'deny you benefits ... becase we can!' shit started happening.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Light, Lite, Fat Free, Low Cal, Reduced Fat, etc) These are all regulated terms in the food industry. No reason not to regulate similar terms in the information services industry. If "unlimited" is not truly unlimited then it should be defined as such by some sort of industry authority. Obviously "unlimited" would be truly unlimited, but then they would need new terms like "unlimited data" (no speed limit), "no restrictions" (will have restrictions), "unlimited speed" (data limit), "dynamic connection" (BS for actual limits), etc.
But defined regulated terms that we know what they mean instead of a random definition in the small print of a contract (TOS) no one ever reads.