FCC Plans $100 Million Fine Against AT&T Over 'Unlimited' Data Plans - NBC News

The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday it plans to fine AT&T, the nation's second-largest wireless carrier, $100 million for misleading customers about "unlimited" data plans. The commission said an investigation revealed that AT&T severely slowed down, or "throttled," the data speeds for customers with such plans without telling them.

I still have the original unlimited plan from AT&T when we first signed up back in 2009. Every time we've gone to upgrade our phones, the rep always tries to pitch dumping the plan and move to their "new" unlimited or tiered rate plans.

I have also heard that when your phone bounces off YOUR CARRIER'S tower, you are given priority if there are too many calls. Supposedly they have premium customers for the owner's of the tower where you pay more and get priority for your users. Not really sure. Anyone?

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I was on an ATT phone last night and got disconnected and received a "busy network message". Pretty lousy service. This is on a phone that is part of a multi thousand phone contract.

Good. I've hit the caps before despite being "unlimited" with them. I'm surprised they didn't simply lose enough business to stop that and still went through to get fined.

Aklim is correct but I think it is more pertinent to the wal-Mart brand plans than anything else. Those are often subcontracted out and get second priority to att, Verizon etc whoever owns the tower.


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Shall we await the cries and howls from those that believe that the government should leave businesses alone and unregulated . . . or wonder what "net neutrality" is?

I think people don't bother as much. They just assume "the net is slow" or whatever they call it so why would they blame AT&T when the net is slow?

Kinda why I ask. You see, Verizon, IIRC, used to make that comparison of "We have more cell towers than any other carrier". So if we are all equal, WGAS if you own 5 towers or 50000? So what if your brand has more towers than mine if my customers can piggy back off your towers?

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The problem is that 5% of users consume 95% of the bandwidth. Rate limiting unreasonably greedy consumers of bandwidth provides a better experience for all other users. Capping the consumption of greedy users permits the others to receive the service they are paying for. The network has finite bandwidth, it's only fair not to let a small subset of individuals consume the great majority of it.

Or maybe we should have a "Single Cell" system where the govt also steps in and becomes BOTH a player and referee? This is a case of them stepping in, to punish deceitful practices. Seeing how they are such experts in "The govt giveth, the govt taketh away with interest", it should be a slam dunk. Beyond making sure there is no false statements made, I would agree they stay the hell out of business.

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That sound reasonable until you visit other countries, where bandwidth isn't being monopolized by less than a handful of carriers.

Nearly all of Seoul’s residents use smartphones, and many of the services just now gaining in popularity in the United States have been commonplace in South Korea for years.

Much of this was made possible by two decades of enormous public investment. Seoul is blanketed with free Wi-Fi that offers the world’s fastest Internet speeds — twice as fast as the average American’s. Back in 1995, the government began a 10-year plan to build out the country’s broadband infrastructure and, through a series of public programs, to teach Koreans what they could do with it. South Korea also eased regulations on service providers to ensure that consumers would have a multitude of choices — in marked contrast to America, where a handful of cable and telecommunications monopolies dominate the market. Such healthy competition in Korea keeps the cost of access low.

To maintain South Korea’s lead, the country’s Science Ministry recently announced a $1.5 billion initiative to upgrade Korea’s mobile infrastructure. By 2020, the government predicts, it will be 1,000 times faster — so fast you could download a feature-length movie in approximately one second. In the same time frame, the Federal Communications Commission hopes to wire most American homes with broadband Internet with speeds of at least 100 megabits per second, or roughly one-sixtieth of South Korea’s goal.

The amount of bandwidth a carrier is able to provide is governed by the spectrum licenses which they own. The federal government limits the amount of spectrum a single carrier may own within any given geographical region to insure competition. Basically, the total bandwidth available is determined by the government, not the carrier.

It wasn't in the article. Where did you ascertain that? Throttling starts at 2GB with is pretty low when you consider that most of us watch Youtube, Netflix, etc, etc over the net and many don't have hard lines anymore. AT&T claims that only 3% are affected. Do you believe that? Obviously I don't since it took a lot of work for just 3%. I believe they are trying to minimize that number so they look "not as bad". Without them showing me hard data, I wouldn't believe that any more than you would believe me when I say "I only made 2 mistakes and overbilled 2 customers out of 100"

If they are really so few, maybe they should refuse service to these people or change the contract and not use the word "Unlimited".

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I see. So what you are saying is that because I am limited by the bandwidth, I can sell it and still call it "unlimited"? Again, what does "Unlimited" mean to you? Either have no limits or remove it.

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I've worked in the wireless industry for 30 years. One of my jobs has been to help carriers provide good service to all their customers despite the 5% bandwidth hogs.

i don't understand your statement, it doesn't make any sense to me.

Fair enough.

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "unlimited" then. You say the govt sold Carrier X 100 units of bandwidth. Now they are pushing close to the cap and have to throttle back the heavy users. So why are you calling it "unlimited"? When you say "unlimited", I take it to mean "as much as I use" for the same price. Otherwise, sell me a "6GB package" which I know what happens when I hit the limit.

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Well this bandwidth hog still hasn't been throttled, 70gb+ a month and counting.

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