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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.
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.
A speed limit is infact a limit, so the FCC is correct - the plan is not unlimited.
So you're demanding unlimited speed? Good luck with that.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.