AT&T Suffers Another Blow In Court Over Throttling of 'Unlimited' Data (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A federal judge has revived a lawsuit that angry customers filed against AT&T over the company's throttling of unlimited mobile data plans. The decision comes two years after the same judge decided that customers could only have their complaints heard individually in arbitration instead of in a class-action lawsuit. The 2016 ruling in AT&T's favor was affirmed by a federal appeals court. But the customers subsequently filed a motion to reconsider the arbitration decision, saying that an April 2017 decision by the California Supreme Court "constitutes a change in law occurring after the Courts arbitration order," Judge Edward Chen of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said in the new ruling issued last week. The state Supreme Court "held that an arbitration agreement that waives the right to seek the statutory remedy of public injunctive relief in any forum is contrary to California public policy and therefore unenforceable," Chen wrote.

AT&T argued that the court shouldn't consider the new argument, saying that plaintiffs raised it too late. The plaintiffs could have made the same argument before the April 2017 Supreme Court ruling, since the ruling was based on California laws that "were enacted decades ago," according to AT&T. Chen was not persuaded, noting that "there had been no favorable court rulings" the plaintiffs could have cited earlier in the case. "The Court also finds that Plaintiffs acted with reasonable diligence once there was a ruling favorable to them," Chen wrote. As a result, the plaintiffs can now proceed with their case in U.S. District Court against AT&T. However, AT&T will appeal Chen's latest decision, presumably in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Comments

Unlimited amounts of wtf

[rogoshen1]

Stop calling plans with limits 'unlimited'.

Throttling, data-caps, whatever else are still limits.

Re:Unlimited amounts of wtf

[Hognoxious]

But who's going to make them stop?

The government? *froth* *froth* communism *froth* *froth* Venezuela *froth* *froth*.

There you go, cayenne8 & roman_mir. You can take the rest of the day off.

Re:Unlimited amounts of wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet you're a real barrel of monkeys at parties. Of course fucking physics is going to place an upper bound on what people can use. At issue though is AT&T placing artificial limits on a so-called unlimited plan.

Save your pedantry for debates with Spock; for the rest of us just use a little freakin' common sense.

Re:Unlimited amounts of wtf

[RazorSharp]

But the limit should be how much data your phone can process, not how much data AT&T can deliver. That's what "unlimited data" means to the customers they're advertising to. AT&T knows that's what their customers think they're getting when they advertise "unlimited data," so it's incumbent upon them to deliver what they're advertising.

There no difference between pedantry and fraud when the point of the pedantry is to deceive.

Re:Unlimited amounts of wtf

[bobbied]

I'm not arguing about the common understanding of what "unlimited data" means. I agree, "unlimited" should mean that as much data as your device can consume with no artificial limits placed on the data transfer speed for your device...

What I was pointing out is the original posts description of "unlimited" wasn't exactly a good one.

Re: Unlimited amounts of wtf

[SvnLyrBrto]

Well, thereâ(TM)s an easy solution for that. First, stop using âoeunlimitedâ in the ads. Second, sell me a guaranteed and burst nitrate... none of this âoeup to 50Mbpsâ crap when Iâ(TM)m really just barely getting ISDN equivalence. Third, frack off about how, when, where, and why I use it. I neither need nor want another parent; just a dumb pipe to the internet.

Re:Unlimited amounts of wtf

[AHuxley]

Yes thats the only way. Call it 100gb, 500gb, 10tb. So the user will know and its all ok.

You Pathetic Shills

[Anonymous Coward]

If the plan promises !10Mbps unlimited, then the plan needs to provide 10Mbps 24/7 as I FUCKING PAID FOR IT!

That doesn't mean that they can restrict(LIMIT) my service 25% of the way through the month because they don't feel like providing the service that they sold me. They sold the service. I paid them for the service. They must deliver the fucking service!

Re:Another liberal judge making law

[youngone]

This thread seems to be infected with a huge number of AT&T shills trying to defend the indefensible.

Re:Another liberal judge making law

[youngone]

Bandwidth isn't free, pumpkin.

It is if you're AT&T.

Re:Another liberal judge making law

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The exact problem is - you cannot PAY for an unlimited plan which is truly unlimited. ... At best, the carriers offer EVERYONE unlimited and limit it.

The carriers COULD divide the available backhaul bandwidth at the edge routers, moment-by-moment, proportionally among the subscribers currently trying to use it, with those on capped plans stopping at their caps and any remainder distributed among those who haven't reached their caps. Further toward the backbone, any traffic would be divided among flows (ignoring the identity of the users of the flow) by the normal internet protocols' bandwidth-at-bottleneck sharing procedures. If they did this, oversubscription issues would be distributed fairly and I doubt there'd be complaints.

ANY other limit on the "unlimited" users is, IMHO, an obvious violation of the advertised and contracted service level. Doing it to the customers deliberately would be consumer fraud.

I'm no shill you pathetic moran

[DontBeAMoran]

It is IMPOSSIBLE to let everyone download unlimited data at 10Mbps all the time - IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

Also, the plan is probably called "10Mbps, unlimited data" or some shit. In my example the comma is there for a reason.

You can hate the marketing departments all you want, but it won't change hardware limitations of the networks, whatever ISP you're using.

Re:I'm no shill you pathetic moran

[Uberbah]

I'm no shill you pathetic moran

So you're willfully obtuse then, ok. I'll spell out the difference for you. Let's say you're a a concert and you're getting 10% of your normal bandwidth on your smartphone - because the available spectrum is filled with people using Snapchat, Instagram, livesteaming to Facebook, etc. That makes sense.

Now compare that to you getting 10% of your normal bandwidth, not because there are a high number of users stressing the system, but because an AT&T algorithm has decided you've used too much this month and is throttling your connection. See why your grumbling about physics is not relevant to the subject at hand?

Re:I'm no shill you pathetic moran

[DontBeAMoran]

It still goes back to the difference between unlimited data and advertised speeds.

Also, AFAIK data isn't free for ISPs either - although I did read their cost is like 1/100 or 1/1000 of what they charge us.

Binding Arbitration Struck Down in California?

[mentil]

I'd say the bigger news is that binding arbitration clauses were struck down in California. Expect AT&T to take this to SCOTUS rather than let it stand.

Logo tasarim

[logotasarim]

Yes thats the only way. Call it 100gb, 500gb, 10tb. So the user will know and its all ok. Ozgun ve kurumsal logo tasarim www.alkapgo.com

Re:How much you want to bet

[rwise2112]

After its all said and done. AT&T gets hit with a slap on the wrist fine. Fine em $12, that'll teach em not to do it again.

And even if it's 12 Million, AT&T at the end of the year will review its finances and say "We didn't make as much profit this year! Looks like we need to raise our rates to compensate."