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T-Mobile Fined $48 Million By FCC For Mischaracterizing 'Unlimited' Plan and Throttling Users' Data (bloomberg.com)
T-Mobile will have to pay $48 million in fines after reaching a settlement with the FCC over the way it promoted its unlimited data plans. T-Mobile's unlimited data plans don't charge you for going over a certain data limit, but the carrier can slow down connection speeds after you reach a certain threshold. From a Bloomberg report: The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday announced the settlement, including a $7.5 million fine and $35.5 million worth of discounted gear or data for customers of third-largest U.S. wireless carrier T-Mobile and its MetroPCS unit. An investigation found that company policy allows T-Mobile to decrease data speeds when customers on plans sold as unlimited exceed a monthly data threshold, the FCC said in a news release. The agency heard from hundreds of "unhappy" customers who complained of slow speeds and said they weren't receiving what they were sold, according to the news release.
is infact a limit, so the FCC is correct - the plan is not unlimited.
AT&T does this, too. Are they gonna get slapped down for this, too?
Do something real, like making them refile for a new corporate charter.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
All they will do is pass it along to the customer.. Nothing to see here.
This kind of makes no sense. You'd have to be living in a cave to not know that they throttle your service after a certain amount. I'd much prefer that than being cut off or forced to pay extra like Comcast is/will be doing for "unlimited service". *That is as long as the throttle was sufficient to use the Internet*. Some ISPs (not all) think a couple mbps is still good enough for an entire family. Fining Comcast for 2.3 million while they were actually stealing money from customers for services they did not ask for.. what the hell? This will just go towards eliminating unlimited tiers.
To someone who makes minimum wage $48 million is devastating. To a multi billion dollar company, $48 million is barely an itch. That's the equivalent of a $100 speeding ticket to them; annoying, but it won't stop you from speeding again.
I feel like there's something more to this story.
T-Mobile's "unlimited" plans are what I use, and they've always been pretty straightforward about what that means... They don't hit you with a hard-stop limit, but after a particular chunk of full-speed data, they cut you back to "3G speed". All of their marketing material that's I've paid attention to has stated that plainly (to an engineer), in print that wasn't particularly small.
I can't say I've ever found the advertisements to be particularly misleading (or the policy to be particularly limiting), but I'm not as touchy as some consumers are, I guess.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I've been a T-mobile customer for several years, and I thought it was pretty obvious that they'd throttle the data when you reached your plan's threshold. Did they, at some point, market the plans as "unlimited data at 4G speeds"? Or are certain customers being deliberately obtuse?
Beats the heck out of getting cut off completely, or worse - getting charged a zillion bucks for data overages.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Telekom has been trying to throttle in its home country germany back in 2013. It failed.
Their data policy is right there in their name: T-Mobile, ie Throttling-Mobile.
Being paranoid, I'd venture that AT&T and/or Verizon pulled some weight to have them nag T-Mobile. Now that LTE is prolific/mature on all four networks, their real advantage over T-Mobile and Sprint is dying away.
Time to cut the hand off.
Good.JPG
T-Mobile made it pretty clear, this is what they did when signing up. I think it's a better solution than exorbitant fees, when you're unaware you crossed a threshold.
Over the last year or two, T-Mobile has redefined and even re-labeled what their unlimited plan means. Regardless, they have always been absolutely forthcoming about detail changes. Although I can see where that might get confusing, especially for customers who renew into a new plan without realizing it. So I guess it must be a slow day at the FCC.
On a personal anecdote, I very recently ditched my business plan for AT&T after a T-Mobile business rep tried to sell off my unused lines for a full year cash up front. Same rep then managed to deactivate my primary phone. I filed a complaint and he still works there.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
That's barely a slap on the wrist for Big Magenta. More of a gentle tickle, really.
Using free data sources like Yahoo Finance, you can easily see that TMUS collected $33.9 billion in revenue over the last four quarters. $1.1 billion trickled down to become bottom-line profit. This $48 million fine is a rounding error compared to the company's sales and just 4.4% of its trailing profits.
Put another way, the company has 67 million total subscribers. If T-Mobile paid back the entire fine directly to its customers, it'd be a grand total of 72 cents each. Please sir, may I have another?
#o#
O Moo.
Unless you hit this limit.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It's odd that the most honest (least dishonest) of the carriers is getting slapped with a fine, when my wife, who's technical competency is right on track for a 3rd grade teacher, figured it out very quickly from reading the marketing material. However, AT&T deliberately defrauds their customers and continues to get away with it. I guess T-Mobile needs to buy better lobbyists.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you, do these sound like the actions of a man who has had all he can eat?
It's sad, we have a whole generation who've never known that the Simpsons used to be funny.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Let's get some truth in advertising please? Anything less than full bandwidth 24x7 should not be called "unlimited".
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
PAYG Plan User here - buy 1G data for 7 days only to find that t-mobile coverage maps are worthless. I seem to always be roaming-data and they don't allow that with PAYG plans.
Did 3 weeks in Alaska - paid for data, got ZERO. ... and ZERO phone coverage too.
Did a week in rural NC mtns - paid for data, had ZERO
They refused to refund money because I had used 20kbs (CSR had me test it). Talk about a sham.
At this point, t-mobile has burned me twice. I won't be fooled again and will only use the $3/month stuff.
Guess t-mobile really is the un-carrier.
I keep reading comments where people say that it's unlimited but throttled. Throttling and limiting are synonyms... why are people using the two words like they're not? If you have unlimited anything it means it's not throttled. If you have unthrottled anything it means it's not limited. Using these terms in a way to suggest they are not synonyms I believe is the reason for the underlying deception.
I thought that only we in Russia so)))
At $48 million they're not being slapped down. that's not even a slap on the wrist. It's more like shaking your head from across the room, then following up with a quick wink and tiny nod.
It seems to me that T-Mobile US, unlike its competitors, was actually completely transparent about their plans and policies. Am I missing something? They specifically offered different data amounts labeled as "high speed data", with the unlimited data always being at a lower speed. I don't see the problem here, or why they should be fined. Now, if they had a secret cap that they didn't tell their customers about up-front, or only in the fine print, like other carriers, that would be serious. This just makes no sense to me.
I really think T-Mobile has the right idea with their offering, I just wish they offered a way to toggle whether high-speed was on or off. High-speed data is of little use to me on a phone. I know it is to other people, and that's great, they can pay for that. All I want is the ability to get directions, send/receive IMs and email, and ideally enough to do VoIP or low-quality video chat. T-Mobile already offers high-speed streaming of music and video from most major sites that don't count against your high speed data limit.
I know I sound like a total corporate shill here, and that's not my intention. I just hope that the FCC is targeting the worst offences, and this doesn't seem to be one of them.
48 million is similar to what they are paying as bonuses to a few top execs. A paltry fee to pay.
T-Mobile: "48 million? Pretty sure I've got that much on me right now. Once sec... Yep. Hundreds good?" (counts bundles of bills) "I was worried there for a minute 'cause I don't have my checkbook with me and I was expecting, you know, a real fine."
Neat, when do I get my money back for getting ripped off? Oh, that's right, never. This is just a cost of doing business, what a joke.