User Successfully Sues AT&T For Throttling iPhone Data 166
An anonymous reader writes "Matt Spaccarelli has won a judgement of $850 from AT&T for data throttling. From the article: 'Nadel's ruling could pave the way for others to follow suit. AT&T has some 17 million customers with "unlimited data" plans that can be subject to throttling, representing just under half of the company's smartphone users.
AT&T stopped signing up new customers for those plans in 2010, and warned last year that it would start slowing speeds for people who consume the most data. In the last few months, subscribers have been surprised by how little data use it takes for throttling to kick in —often less than AT&T provides to those on limited or "tiered" plans. Spaccarelli said his phone is being throttled after he's used 1.5 gigabytes to 2 gigabytes of data within a new billing cycle. Meanwhile, AT&T provides 3 gigabytes of data to subscribers on a tiered plan that costs the same — $30 per month.'"
"We can change this anytime" EULA didn't work? (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be nice to think that rulings like this might have some effect on the traditional corporate practice of making new users sign "contracts" that basically give one party the right to change the terms any damn time they want and in any damn way they want, while giving the other party the right to pay their money and shut up. It would also be nice to think we may live in a country some day where consumer protection laws will actually be geared towards protecting *consumers* and not just the corporations who write all our the laws in the U.S., making these kind of rulings unnecessary in the first place.
Of course, while I'm dreaming, I had may as well wish for a threeway with Katee Sackhoff and Natalie Portman in my new Ferrari.
Re:"We can change this anytime" EULA didn't work? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"We can change this anytime" EULA didn't work? (Score:4, Funny)
"the gearshift" is .. okay, look, we'll have this conversation when you're older.
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Nono. Paddles we like.
Re:"We can change this anytime" EULA didn't work? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If that's the case, perhaps there should be an "opt-out", where in the event the contract does change the consumer has the right to terminate the contract without fees if they so choose.
If you have the 'Unlimited' data plan your initial contract has already 'expired', but you'll lose the 'unlimited' part of it if you opt-out of your existing contract. O think it's better that AT&T have to be worried about these small, annoying lawsuits. It probably cost them more than the $850 settlement in legal fees.
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The deal with the old Cingular clients that came over was that they could keep unlimited data virtually forever. The trick is that you can never modify your plan with AT&T, or they'll stop you and say, "then you'll have to choose another plan". You can't add or remove tethering, etc.
Same thing for those of us with the unlimited AT&T plan.
As for the legal fees, I'm sure they use so many legal services for small things like this that they'd barely feel it unless a million people hit them... in which case you'd end up with a class action.
The 'contract' specifically excludes class action lawsuits.
Re:"We can change this anytime" EULA didn't work? (Score:5, Informative)
That already exists (at least in the US). Any time your provider changes the contract, read the fine print of the contract. You'll find you have a certain time period (usually 14 or 30 days) in which you can discontinue your service without any early termination fee. The person you talk to to try to end the service will generally lie and say that the clause doesn't apply to you, but ultimately the company is bound by the terms of the original contract until such time as you agree to the new contract by paying your next payment.
Re:"We can change this anytime" and Sprint DOES! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"We can change this anytime" and Sprint DOES! (Score:5, Informative)
I used to have a Sprint phone under contract. They upped the monthly cost less than six months after I signed the contract and I told them to piss off. They said the change wasn't material and charged the early termination fee to my credit card. I explained the situation to my credit card company and they reversed the charge and told Sprint to piss off. Sprint pissed off and never bothered me again.
There's nothing naive about my post. I simply refused to take "it's immaterial" as an acceptable response and I know how to deal with companies that do shit like that.
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The only thing is, as a Sprint Customer, I can say these changes they've made do not apply in California as California has already ruled on the state level that an ETF is ilegal and tantamount to "Adhesion". As to class action status and the requirement to go to arbitration, that also is not legal in California as you can never give up your right to pursue legal remedies. That aribtration clause has been thrown out of our contracts as a requirement though they can insist on it as it reduces the case load up
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The only thing is, as a Sprint Customer, I can say these changes they've made do not apply in California as California has already ruled on the state level that an ETF is ilegal and tantamount to "Adhesion".
The decision was for the specific contract signed by the people who took part in the class action suit. Sprint has corrected their contract since. Sprint even made the ETF prorated (the ETF amount depends on how long you have been with Sprint), after this law suit.
So, if you signed up for sprint after they had corrected the contract wording, they can still collect ETF. The concept of ETF is still valid in California. Just use you imagination, how do you think people would reach if they can buy a phone cheap
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Your ONLY recourse is arbitration or small claims court." and the kicker "We INVITE litigation".
Then take them to small claims court. No lawyers, no lawyer fees, and more likely to side on your side.
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They will absolutely try to claim that the changes aren't material (Sprint did this to me). Your credit card company will have no problem reversing early termination fees if they try to charge them and your cell phone provider isn't about to piss off their main source of cash by arguing about a couple hundred dollars.
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Nope. I just had to have my credit card company reverse the early termination fee when I did this less than six months into a contract with Sprint when they upped the monthly fees.
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The person you talk to to try to end the service will generally lie and say that the clause doesn't apply to you
That should be flat out illegal, and punishable by HUGE fucking fines, both on the part of the agent and the company.
Re:"We can change this anytime" EULA didn't work? (Score:5, Informative)
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Oh we do, but it's tricky. You would have to port your number out of your carrier BEFORE telling them you want to cancel for XYZ reason without ETF, which means you're pretty much committed to the fight at that point. If you cancel your service first, you just gave up any right to that phone number and you're pretty much SOL for porting it.
(IANAL but I used to work in number porting for a telecom)
Re:"We can change this anytime" EULA didn't work? (Score:4, Informative)
"If either party fails, without reasonable cause, to comply with the terms of this Agreement, then the other party may give written notice requiring the default to be ended. If the default continues for 7 days after receipt of the notice then the employment of the Building Contractor may be terminated upon receipt by the defaulting party of a further written notice stating that the employment of the Building Contractor is terminated forthwith. The Building Contractor will then be entitled to payment for work carried out that is reasonable in all the circumstances of the determination, provided that the Householder may deduct reasonable expenses incurred in obtaining a new Contractor if the Building Contractor was the only defaulting party."
Note that last line? In legalese, the "Householder" gets to take the money for a new contractor right outta the original contractor's pocket (within reason, of course).
These "contracts" we all sign for our phones aren't really contracts, at all; that would mean that a thing of mutual benefit or interest to 2 or more parties is being officially agreed upon. If they were, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, or whoever would owe ME money for every dropped call, EULA change, or asshole customer service rep, the fucks. But I guess there's no real reason to supply a reasonably reliable service at an agreed upon rate with a friendly smile these days. Bah.
On the other hand, I wonder if I can start charging my print shop's customers for the bandwidth I use to send their images to my printers. It's just ripe for the picking. Hmm.
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Re:"We can change this anytime" EULA didn't work? (Score:5, Informative)
They don't change the contract. t-mobile and AT&T just redefine "unlimited data" to mean "all the data you can get, but at 5% of the maximum speed that your 4G device can deliver it".
Which may keep them in the letter of the law and contract, but absolutely not in the spirit. Especially if you take into account the inherent and explicit promises of their advertisements.
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There's a reason why I don't get a smart phone. Data plan ripoffs is a big part of it.
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That's like pulling your battery out of your laptop and throwing it away. Yes, the device will still . . . do stuff. It just doesn't do everything it's supposed to.
Oh, and that extra functionality you're cutting out? It's one of the primary purposes of paying more money for a smaller, slower device.
Re:the device will still . . . do stuff (Score:2)
Your analogy isn't quite right. We don't pay $80/month for batteries. It's that ominous slow financial drain that's the issue for me.
Oh, and I live a quiet life, so at home I do comp stuff such as this on my desktop, work has Wifi as well, so it's the "third rail" scenario when I'd "theoretically" want a data app out and about - so then I simply plan to go somewhere that has it. I'm not a crackberry exec so the times I *haven't* wanted Wifi but been unable to get there are very rare - hasn't happened for ab
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Enter: iPhone on AT&T's GoPhone Plan. No Data Plan at all. Just buy minutes/text. Then you go to any McDonald's to use their Wifi free for data.
If only. Pretty much every cell phone company in the country requires a data access plan if you have a smartphone. No opt-out, even if you didn't buy the phone from them.
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I'll see your If Only and raise you the Anecdote. I bought my iPhone "in the usual way", had it for a few months while I used the full strength plan, then just canceled the plan and paid about a month's worth as the termination fee (but cheaper than retaining the other 8 months of the plan!). Then he rep at the AT&T Store just switched it over. She did warn me it was unusual and creative and he/she wasn't sure it would work, but here I am and there it is. I now have all the fun of the hardware without t
Re:"We can change this anytime" EULA didn't work? (Score:5, Interesting)
We went through this same shit years ago in Australia.
ISPs started selling Unlimited* data, and hiding what the asterisk meant in T&Cs under what they called an "Acceptable Use Policy". The Acceptable Use Policy usually said something like, "you can use unlimited data up to this particular limit at which point you will be charged X/throttled/something else".
Our consumer watchdog group, the ACCC (which IMHO is a truly excellent example of well done government regulation that works for the people) took exception to this after user complaints. I can't remember the exact details (and am too lazy to search) but the gist of it was that this was not transparent enough and not clear enough for the end users.
The end result is that every ISP was forced to stop selling these bullshit "unlimited*" plans and required to label them accurately and concisely.
We have quite low monthly download quotas compared to the rest of the world (I work in broadband content and regularly talk to people that struggle on 12-20GB a month because it is all that is available for them), but the plans are clearly labelled and generally very transparent and easy to understand - and while many people are still pretty pissed about the low quotas and sometimes high overage charges (especially on mobile)... the problem of getting bullshitted into an "unlimited" plan only to find out that it is not at all unlimited has all but vanished.
I am not sure what the US equivalent of our ACCC is (FTC?) but I find it staggering that this has not brought their attention yet. Does the FTC have no teeth (seems unlikely from previous readings) or is the government just completely in the pocket of these giant telcos, or is it just user apathy/ignorance...?
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"you can use unlimited data up to this particular limit at which point you will be charged X/throttled/something else".
There is a big difference between "charged" and "throttled". I assume that if they ever tried to charge users for an "unlimited" plan, they would be sued much faster
I believe the argument is that "unlimited" refers to amount of data and not the speed. You certainly can't argue that you expected "unlimited" download speed because obviously you'd be limited by the physical link capacity
Why _does_ wireless plan cost 30/month for 3Gigs of data? It's not like other competitors are rushing in to offer someth
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Are you trying to say it's better for the ISP to be able to outright lie, and not define the caps at all? At least having them publish the caps means they can't change them secretly at will.
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It would be nice to think that rulings like this might have some effect on the traditional corporate practice of making new users sign "contracts" that basically give one party the right to change the terms any damn time they want and in any damn way they want, while giving the other party the right to pay their money and shut up.
I don't disagree with the sentiment, but the law of unintended consequences applies as well. Suppose the law changes, making it illegal to modify a contract without active two party consent (i.e. none of this 'if you used it after we change the contract, you implicitly agree to the new rules' crap). The logical conclusion of businesses trying to make money by providing a service would be to limit contract lengths. Now, you get to sign up for a year of service (more likely 6 months) at agreed upon rates,
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Additionally suprising is how this user got a court to hear the case. Most EULAs have a clause that forces a litigant to binding arbitration.
It will be a long time and real costly before he sees a dime from this judgement, if ever.
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I hate this sort of rubbish. People always think "binding arbitration" clause, with disregard that it's illegal to have "binding arbitration" as it circumvents several laws.
Arbitration is NEVER binding. You ALWAYS have the right say you disagree with the arbitration. You will be required to go through the motions of arbitration, but that doesn't mean you have to live with the outcome. With a house I'd contracted to be built, the company declared bankruptcy while building it, I felt this was breech of co
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You ALWAYS have the right say you disagree with the arbitration. You will be required to go through the motions of arbitration, but that doesn't mean you have to live with the outcome.
Right - Hire a lawyer, take a dozen man-hours off of work, travel to wherever the "motions" are taking place, listen to non-sense, and then hope that you get your $850 back to recover part of your costs. It's noble, but only makes sense for the big game, not for the small rip-offs where the fat cats make their money.
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It depends on what state you are in. Some small claims courts don't even allow lawyers.
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Most EULAs have a clause that forces a litigant to binding arbitration.
So you are disputing the EULA... But in order to dispute the EULA you have to abide my the EULA? Yeah I don't think it works that way. Take them to court.
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It would be nice to think that rulings like this might have some effect on the traditional corporate practice of making new users sign "contracts" that basically give one party the right to change the terms any damn time they want and in any damn way they want, while giving the other party the right to pay their money and shut up.
I'm thinking that even if you made your own cell carrier, that you'd still be upset with the service you provided yourself.
Guaranteeing "unlimited use" forever, in spite of how the market and usage patterns change, is just impossible. It's like your Natalie Portman dream plus hot grits. If you want to argue that AT&T should have never made such bogus claims in the first place, then I could agree with you. If you think you are justified to take 30% of the bandwidth of your tower just so you can run a N
Re:"We can change this anytime" EULA didn't work? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it' not impossible. There exist natural limits on the connection unrelated to any imposed limitation. An honest company wishing to offer 'unlimited' service will make sure their offer is profitable at that natural limit. Meanwhile, provision is getting cheaper over time, not more expensive.
They offered 'unlimited' with secret limits so they could take customers away from providers offering what was actually a better deal but were honest about the actual limits. They had no interest in that honesty thing.
At this point, they should just fess up and take their lumps, but they're trying to avoid even that by driving their customers (who did nothing wrong) to 'voluntarily' abandon the unlimited plan.
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I would just like them to explain how data caps help them. As I understand it, the problem is that there are a couple of peak usage times every day where congestion is a problem. Throttling heavy users will only help this situation if their heavy usage coincides with the periods of congestion. If, instead, the heavy users are using the bits watching Netflix late at night, throttling them won't help.
Somebody who saturates their network connection from midnight to 6 am every day is less of a burden on the net
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There seems to be a general trend towards using data transfer as a proxy for peak rates even though it is only poorly correlated.
OF course they could just be greedy and making the same bad assumption that all demand is perfectly inelastic like the *AA does.
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It would be nice to think that rulings like this might have some effect on the traditional corporate practice of making new users sign "contracts" that basically give one party the right to change the terms any damn time they want and in any damn way they want, while giving the other party the right to pay their money and shut up.
The contract can say anything that isn't illegal.
But you can't market your service as "unlimited" when it clearly isn't - that is FRAUD.
No, that's deception.
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Fraud is deception, when done intentionally and for profit. That's its definition.
Can't change contract without compensation (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Can't change contract without compensation (Score:5, Insightful)
If the network is so limited, they should be trying to upgrade the network.
Re:Can't change contract without compensation (Score:5, Insightful)
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In addition, they could also have published clear specifications on when this throttling would occur and relaxed just how limited it was.
Re:Can't change contract without compensation (Score:5, Insightful)
natural throttling happens on the network without extra effort when it's transferring near it's limits.
at&t's throttling is throttling just for the sake of being dicks, regardless of the network congestion. it's not qossing, it's just making it unfeasible for you to actually use the network to create data transfer bills for them.. you know, running torrents during the night or whatever it is that normal internet connections are used for.
it should be noted that at&t has plenty of moolah in bank to upgrade the network, but why bother when american sheeple are happy with paying for more?(and they can use not upgrading the backbone as an excuse for mergers to get more air bandwidth).
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Here's my modest proposal:
(Deliberate) throttling is a result of not having enough resources to allow all your customers to use your product/service fully. It is sometimes necessary, in the case of truly explosive growth in usage.
But, adding more users to an already overused service is tantamount to false advertising. If you say "25mbps", people expect to be able to use that fully.
Therefore, I would allow companies to engage in throttling, but forbid them to add any new subscribers while the throttling is i
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I wish I hadn't commented yet. That's the best idea I've ever seen.
Re:Can't change contract without compensation (Score:5, Insightful)
If the network is so limited, they should stop selling "unlimited data" and then saying that bandwidth is not the same as data (which is their core argument).
t-mobile does the same thing, and it is absolutely false advertising. The level of deceit is amazing - they have showboat aps on their front webpage for streaming video and TV, they show ads with people watching the game in a restaurant, but if you do these things, you're going to get throttled to the point that your smartphone becomes useless.
It's like going to an all you can eat buffet, and getting your first plate of food with no problem, but each subsequent bite of food has to be acquired spoonful by spoonful after waiting in line each time.
Maybe instead of spending all their money on tricking customers and attempted mergers, they should, oh, I don't know, build out their infrastructure to meet the level of use that is to be expected with the products they sell?
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It's like going to an all you can eat buffet, and getting your first plate of food with no problem, but each subsequent bite of food has to be acquired spoonful by spoonful after waiting in line each time.
The perfect slashdoter analogy.
Much better than car analogies. Long live restaurant buffet analogies!
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The perfect slashdoter analogy.
Much better than car analogies. Long live restaurant buffet analogies!
Agreed - This sounds exactly like a chain-restaurant all-you-can-eat crab night. "You'd like more? I'll be back in 30 minutes w/ 2 more legs and 30 minutes after that to ask you if you'd like another 2."
Let's try cars: How about "A full tank of gas for as long as you can drive - With a free sheet to use as a sail for any miles after that!"
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Sure they do. When you buy a 3G or 4G device, you are buying bandwidth capability. Plain and simple.
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No, you're buying maximum speed. The dreaded car analogy: if you buy a Ferrari, are you surprised when the police take umbrage to your driving it at 200km/h down the highway? The car is quite capable of handling that speed safely, but the road network can't safely handle cars travelling that fast. Do you sue Ferrari when you start driving in traffic and can't get over 50km/h?
Now, it's a bit of a flawed analogy... in this case, some of the people who bought the fast car are being told "have fun, but you can
Re:Can't change contract without compensation (Score:5, Insightful)
False advertising--and indeed most law--involves what a reasonable person would expect. A reasonable person seeing particular speeds advertised right next to an unlimited plan does not expect the unlimited plan to be throttled. A reasonable person who signed up for an unlimited plan at a certain speed isn't going to expect that speed to suddenly decrease while other people with a limited plan are seeing the original speeds.
Most of meatspace isn't highly technical or bound by discrete laws, and judges (particularly in small claims court) tend to favor the little guy who doesn't get paid to know the law inside-and-out. They rule based upon common when there's any wriggle room. Contract law also favors the weaker party any time there is lack of specificity.
This is honestly not that surprising.
That said, AT&T can almost certainly cancel this guy's service, and should do so. You don't want customers who are going to sue you.
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If AT&T cancels the service of a customer who is under contract, does AT&T owe that customer an early termination fee?
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Generally, no. They have clauses that let them cancel for any reason.
But AT&T killed their unlimited plan slightly less than two years ago. It's pretty unlikely that this guy is under contract anymore. Possible, but unlikely.
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Not necessarily. I have unlimited data with AT&T, and I am still under contract for quite a while yet. I signed up with AT&T with unlimited data on my iPhone 3g, and when I upgraded to a 4, I got to keep my unlimited data but I got the upgrade price for the 4 by renewing my contract (and the unlimited data was grandfathered). Hell, if I did the same thing with the iPhone 5 or whatever this fall I could still have unlimited data and be under contract until 2014.
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So, bandwidth is data divided by time (by definition).
If they are reducing bandwidth there are two possibilities. They are either decreasing the amount of data involved (meaning that data is not unlimited) or increasing time (in which case, they're God and I'm in a world of hurt for criticizing).
I understand that they can't support some of the usage. And while I do think that they should be putting more into infrastructure than they are, I also realize that you can't build the level of systems that they
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This concerns people who contracted into the unlimited data plan while they were selling it.
Then why do they let people keep it?
I had an iPhone 3GS with AT&T's Unlimited plan for about two-and-a-quarter years. When I decided to upgrade to the iPhone 4S, I figured I'd have to forgo my Unlimited plan. "Nope," according to the AT&T person--they were quite happy to give me my old plan with the new phone.
If they're trying to get people off these plans, why are they still offering them to holdover people?
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I think they'd expect to lose a lot of customers (more than from throttling) if they didn't allow us to keep our unlimited plans?
Just a guess.
Re:Can't change contract without compensation (Score:5, Interesting)
They should innovate their way out of this. There are other ways to shift traffic, incentives to use or support a WiFi traffic path for others, and some advancing picking of video/music so it can be downloaded during traffic dips or via WiFi etc.
It's simple, cheap to do, and customers can be compensated in some way for doing something. Then it's a win for all involved.
If regulatory agencies wont help, some should sue AT&T over the continuing unjustified price bumps even for slower grade DSL. It looks like a conspiracy to make it less viable for customers to get video programming from other providers. And at the same time, the shift away from reliable copper phone services may leave some areas very vulnerable if an extended emergency hits. Boxes around town with batteries (powering optical to copper converters), and techs hundreds of miles away, can mean serious widespread downtime over a large area in an extended disaster.
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If the network is so limited, they should be trying to upgrade the network.
Building your infrastructure does nothing good for short-term profit, which is what Wall Street and Electronic Trading are all about.
Great for long-term, but it's all about leaving that for the next CEO to wheedle out of banks and assauge fears of robo-investors to raise capital for investment. Us landlubbers are mostly still on copper because it costs money to upgrade to glass. And why upgrade when you can make the same money on the same old crap?
Now, if there were real competition in the market, AT&T
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If the network is so limited, they shouldn't be selling devices where network access is marketed as the primary feature.
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Analysis shows they could have done the needed upgrades cheaper than the cost of buying T-Mobile. Since they have been told NO, I notice they didn't take the money they had at the ready and start upgrading their network.
Essentially, YES, they just wanted the cute girl in the pink dress to quit telling people how crappy they are.
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Yes, I do. It STILL would have been cheaper for them to build out their own network even with the rest taken into account. Nobody put a gun to their heads and made them offer all that money if the deal didn't go through.
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Whoa! Hold on, guys... Can't it be both?
AT&T LLC? (Score:3)
Is AT&T now an LLC? How can that clause hold up?
If this was a car rental (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you imagine if you went to rent a car that advertised unlimited mileage that had the same contractual caveats that unlimited data plans have. Your conversation with the agent might go something like this.
"Yes you do get unlimited mileage but if you drive too much then the car will slow down and only go 5 MPH."
"Well how much is too much?"
"There is no set amount, it varies by how much other people are driving. It is only the top 5%"
"Then how am I supposed to know if I am driving to much?"
"Well there is really know way to know, just try to drive as little as possible and you should be fine."
I don't think anyone would stand for that kind of car rental contract.
Re:If this was a car rental (Score:5, Insightful)
Good analogy; I like the "all you can eat buffet one" myself. The first plate is fine, but after that, you have to go to the back of a long line, and are only allowed to take a single spoonful of food back to your table. And no eating in line.
And while you're doing this, you have to look at the posters on the walls proclaiming how yummy the food is, how much better your life is because you're eating it, and how filling it is.
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I always thought I could set up an outstanding and wildly profitable "All you can eat" place. Suckers ^w Customers would get their first plateful, and then I'd throw them out, telling them "That's all you can eat. Beat it."
And if they get uppity, I'd prove that they are no longer capable of eating by breaking their jaws.
But, alas, you can't do things like that in the real world. Just services and software.
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Can you imagine if you went to rent a car that advertised unlimited mileage that had the same contractual caveats that unlimited data plans have. Your conversation with the agent might go something like this.
"Yes you do get unlimited mileage but if you drive too much then the car will slow down and only go 5 MPH."
"Well how much is too much?"
"There is no set amount, it varies by how much other people are driving. It is only the top 5%"
"Then how am I supposed to know if I am driving to much?"
"Well there is really know way to know, just try to drive as little as possible and you should be fine."
I don't think anyone would stand for that kind of car rental contract.
Well... that IS in fact what happens when everyone is driving too much... The rental agency is happy to rent you a Corvette for lots of money that can do almost 200MPH, in spite of the fact that most roads are "throttled" to 30-70MPH. And if there are too many people driving, you might only get 5MPH.
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The rental agency is happy to rent you a Corvette for lots of money that can do almost 200MPH, in spite of the fact that most roads are "throttled" to 30-70MPH. And if there are too many people driving, you might only get 5MPH.
Sorry, how is this "informative"? No one is complaining that they got throttled because of network overload or state-based network link regulation (your analogy). People are complaining of being throttled after using up 3Gigs of data (or so). In your analogy it'd be after your first three hours of driving the Corvette, regardless of speed limits or road congestion.
$850 vs. $10,000 -- WTF, Judge! (Score:3, Informative)
The customer contract specifies that those who win an award from the company in arbitration will get at least $10,000. Spaccarelli picked the same amount for his claim. Judge Nadel instead awarded him $85 for each of the 10 months left on his contract.
Er, what part of contract law does this Judge not understand?
Re:$850 vs. $10,000 -- WTF, Judge! (Score:5, Insightful)
The part every judge doesn't understand anymore: that people and corporations are supposed to be treated equally in court.
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The part every judge doesn't understand anymore: that people and corporations are supposed to be treated equally in court.
They are, Show up to court with a legal department the size of AT&T and you will be treated the same.
Re:$850 vs. $10,000 -- WTF, Judge! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$850 vs. $10,000 -- WTF, Judge! (Score:4, Informative)
The Judge understood fine. Spaccarelli didn't go to arbitration, so why should the clause that pertains to damage awards in arbitration apply in court?
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Good point. IANAL; my understanding is: in small claims court one can't sue for punitive damages, just actual damages, so this is apparently how the judge arrived at the amount. Then again, isn't $85 greater than what he was paying per month anyway, so he must be getting some "extra" money above and beyond his actual damages, right?
The contract probably was $85 a month. AT&T never sold $30 unlimited Internet for mobile phones. It was sold on top of a plan.
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if he had gone to arbitration, he wouldn't have won, so the judge should also have made this a case about that and award him the ten grand he would have gotten in arbitration(...IF he had won there..).
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So you're saying a contract can override a decision by a judge? That doesn't seem right.
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Talk about a double standard. When the RIAA or MPAA sues their customers, huge - HUGE - punitive damages are involved. But when a customer sues a big corporation like AT&T, there's no punitive damages, and the required award is even disregarded in favor of something resembling actual damages? Where's the disincentive that's supposed to keep AT&T honest?
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It was during the New Deal that the judicial modification of contracts was hotly debated. The jurisprudence was created that judges can indeed alter contracts with a stroke of their pen. "Pray [they] do not alter it any further"
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Small claims court isn't arbitration.
ISPs ... (Score:2)
US Cellular (Score:2)
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So buy an Iphone or an Android or whatever device you want. Sounds like a decent price on the bandwidth. Does it matter what device you use?
btw, I have unlimited, unthrottled 3.5g service for the equivalent price of $23, in SA. I absolutly abuse the service, torrenting, tethering, running an ap, using voip even swapping the sim to another device and I dont use any voice services they sell. All on a prepaid sim. I've never had a problem.
A big oops for AT&T (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an unlimited plan on my phone and so far I have not been throttled. I also have a 2 gig plan for my iPad. Last week I subscribed to Clear, now I have a mobile wifi hotspot. In my area the coverage is pretty good and I can hook up to 8 devices up to it. As a result I am canceling my iPad data plan. In short, even though I wasn't directly affected, I am dropping their service.
I wouldn't have even looked into Clear if they hadn't started messing with their customers.
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I'm not on a contract witg Clear. They're welcome to try it.
All I have to say on the subject. (Score:2)
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Re:One of two things is happening here. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, do you understand what the definition of bandwidth is? It's real simple: bandwidth = data / time
If they lower bandwidth, they have to be either lowering data (meaning not unlimited within the constraints of 3G or 4G), or they are increasing time (which obviously is impossible).
Furthermore, the throttling was not in the older contracts; those got changed without grandfathering. And the text concerning the redefinition of unlimited, while present, is buried pretty deep in the contract.
Ice this cake with the sort of advertisements shown, the aps show cased (streaming video, watching the game wherever you are, etc) along with the whole push of fastest network capabilities and such, and absolutely a false picture is generated.
You wouldn't accept an all you can eat buffet that you can only remove food from one teaspoon at a time, unless it was made abundantly clear to you before hand that this was the case. And even then, you'd look askance at anyone offering such a deal with a name like "unlimited food" or "all you can eat".
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Frankly, phone companies with a fervor for fixing frustration and financial feasibility really need to free us to flood our phones at a flat fee for the foreseeable future while factoring in a fleet and fixed.... uh.... flandwidth (?).
Maybe alliteration will help them remember. Shrug.
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So someone with a clear head please explain, is this just bullshit whining of people who don't understand that there is no _speed_ component in the phrase "unlimited data" and it's perfectly legitimate to throttle at some point as long as it's disclosed, or is it truly AT&T advertising unlimited data at guaranteed 3g or 4g speeds?
The problem is that, at the time these "unlimited data" plans were sold and the contracts were signed, there were no constraints (i.e. throttling). iPhones started killing AT&Ts network, so they stopped selling "unlimited data" plans and started only selling only plans with a specified amount of data and prearranged overage charges (2 GB, 5 GB, etc.)
The people with existing "unlimited data" contracts were grandfathered in and for a time, nothing changed. Recently they have started throttling the
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I think the point is that this is deceptive marketing. You maybe look at the term "unlimited data" and separate out the speed component, but most people do not. This is intentional on the part of their marketing. Otherwise they would advertise it as "unlimited data, throttled throughput" and sell far fewer contracts because of it. Whatever they bury in the contract makes it a case of bait and switch. Like taking a test drive in a Ferrari, agreeing to pay only $10,000 for it and then they put a massive contr
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It's a good point: You don't get charged for data overages or the like.
Part of the issue is that, while T-Mobile is clear about what will happen, AT&T is not. You purchase Unlimited Data on your 3G plan, you expect an unlimited amount of data at 3G speeds. To suddenly get a note saying, "Guess what? You use too much data so we're slowing you down" is a bit off. There isn't even a, "We're going to start throttling your speed when you download 5GB, 3GB, or whatever." It's completely arbitrary.