amuck-landowner

Burn in Hell AT&T - Unlimited Lies Have them Simmering in Government Water

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
AT&T cannot get the US Federal Trade Commission to toss a lawsuit over ripping off an estimated 3.5 million "unlimited" data plan customers who they routinely threshold met throttled.

Now word is that the FCC is coming after AT&T for the same behavior.

AT&T argued that the FTC doesn't have jurisdiction, but the FTC said they retain such for AT&T's past misconduct. Bahahaha!

The case is Federal Trade Commission v. AT&T Inc., 14-cv-04785, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-31/at-t-loses-bid-to-dismiss-ftc-mobile-data-slowdown-lawsuit-i7xvxj28
 

Aldryic C'boas

The Pony
T-Mobile's service is shite here, you're lucky if you can even get passable 3G (5th largest city in Louisiana), and I've never had a pleasant dealing with anyone in their sales, support, management, or PR teams.  ATT's service here is pretty decent, never had cause to deal with support/sales/etc.

Using Sprint for mine and my wife's lines.  'bout 100$ a month, no contract, unlimited talk/text/data (yeah, they're known to occassionally throttle usage if you go over threshhold, but since I don't use my phone as a seedbox that's never been an issue), and it's pretty rare that I don't have a good 4G signal here, even in older buildings.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

WSWD

Active Member
Verified Provider
This isn't the first time they've been sued for this.  We need similar for the hosting industry.  Get rid of all these a-hole "unlimited"hosts...
 

SeriesN

Active Member
Verified Provider
Coverage issue was one of the biggest concern for T-Mobile but we did came out with multiple coverage solution options. One of them being Lte signal booster and the other is WiFi calling. With new 600mghz spectrums kicking in, issues with old buildings will be sorted soon . Take us out on a test drive if you haven't within last 6 month @Aldryic. You are looking at some huge big changes. Customer care? T-Mobile came a long way since 2011 that's a fact. #PraiseMagenta


@DomainBop that's an old old old school video. Just looking at the store fixture, I can tell for a fact that you are looking at a minimum 4 year old video.


@Curtis yes sirrrr.
 

Aldryic C'boas

The Pony
What part of "I've never had a pleasant dealing with anyone in their sales, support, management, or PR teams" escaped your attention?  The only 'fact' is that it doesn't matter how much some random employee claims "Things are better!", I refuse to do any further business with a company full of Fabozzis.  This isn't from ~2003 - I was using TMO up until June last year, and they've had plenty of chances to make things right.

For the record, you have absolutely no idea what 'changes' T-Mobile has made in this area (and everyone I know with TMO service reports that it's still horrible).  Unless you're getting paid to make "OMG SQUEE" fanboy posts, have some dignity and reign that shit in.
 

SeriesN

Active Member
Verified Provider
Man, did I not miss getting told off by pony.


Good ol fabozzi reference. I guess you had a bad experience but sure sir. If it works for you, it works for you.

What part of "I've never had a pleasant dealing with anyone in their sales, support, management, or PR teams" escaped your attention? The only 'fact' is that it doesn't matter how much some random employee claims "Things are better!", I refuse to do any further business with a company full of Fabozzis. This isn't from ~2003 - I was using TMO up until June last year, and they've had plenty of chances to make things right.


For the record, you have absolutely no idea what 'changes' T-Mobile has made in this area (and everyone I know with TMO service reports that it's still horrible). Unless you're getting paid to make "OMG SQUEE" fanboy posts, have some dignity and reign that shit in.
 

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
T-Mobile's service is shite here, you're lucky if you can even get passable 3G (5th largest city in Louisiana), and I've never had a pleasant dealing with anyone in their sales, support, management, or PR teams.  ATT's service here is pretty decent, never had cause to deal with support/sales/etc.

Using Sprint for mine and my wife's lines.  'bout 100$ a month, no contract, unlimited talk/text/data (yeah, they're known to occassionally throttle usage if you go over threshhold, but since I don't use my phone as a seedbox that's never been an issue), and it's pretty rare that I don't have a good 4G signal here, even in older buildings.
It's funny, here Sprint has coverage and lots of MVNO's reselling their stuff.  Tried on 3G a year or three back and was horrendous.   Have a Sprint reseller with a 4G handset now and much peppier.  Not on level of the current big market speed brags I see out there there.  Maybe 5Mbps throughput downside and upside is really varied from a few Mbps to way less than 1.  

Sprint direct remains a nice network for price vs. coverage.  The resellers and such remain damn iffy and I suspect de-prioritized.

T-mobile remains interesting, but the footprint scares me to death. I am already in rural county.  Any place I'd tend to drive out to isn't going to get coverage and certainly not 4G on T-Mobile.  But, that aside and that blinding corporate color scheme, T-mobile does seem to be competitive lately and high performing, given in good coverage area.   Coverage for me = outdoors, if I want indoors I'll build a repeater.
 

DomainBop

Dormant VPSB Pathogen
Man, did I not miss getting told off by pony.


Good ol fabozzi reference. I guess you had a bad experience but sure sir. If it works for you, it works for you.
What would have worked for me is if T-Mobile had accepted Iliad's $15 billion buyout offer last summer and offered package deals: pay for x number of months of T-Mobile service upfront and get a free Nano U2250 dedicated from their Online.net division. :p
 

WSWD

Active Member
Verified Provider
I don't know a single person who is happy with T-Mobile or AT&T (and Cingular in the past)...not one.  Conversely, I don't know a single person who is dissatisfied with Verizon, aside from the bill. :D

AT&T and T-Mobile are apparently just horrendous here, and that's in LA, which you would think is one of their largest markets.  If they can't get it right here, chances are they aren't going to get it right anywhere.
 

drmike

100% Tier-1 Gogent
I don't know a single person who is happy with T-Mobile or AT&T (and Cingular in the past)...not one.  Conversely, I don't know a single person who is dissatisfied with Verizon, aside from the bill. :D
I'm not happy with Verizon.  In my house, others got into bullshit plans with them.  Simple into the retail location to resolve issues seems to every time end up with more rope forming noose around my pocketbook and bullshit upgrades.  Their retail here is more sharktank than useful. 

That said, I sent someone with a dumb flip phone purchased retail elsewhere (Verizon store wanted north of $100 for a Samsung flip dumb phone --- in contrast Walmart was < $20).   They were good about activating the phone and transferring the account to it while person waited. I was surprised.

Where Verizon excels is coverage, at least here.

Their prices suck and at least with older stuff we have on their network, the throughput has always been horrendous.
 

DomainBop

Dormant VPSB Pathogen
For Immediate Release

FCC PLANS TO FINE AT&T $100 MILLION FOR MISLEADING CONSUMERS

ABOUT UNLIMITED DATA PLANS, VIOLATING TRANSPARENCY OBLIGATIONS


Washington, D.C., June 17, 2015 – The Federal Communications Commission plans to fine


AT&T Mobility, LLC $100,000,000 for misleading its customers about unlimited mobile data


plans. The FCC’s investigation alleges that AT&T severely slowed down the data speeds for


customers with unlimited data plans and that the company failed to adequately notify its


customers that they could receive speeds slower than the normal network speeds AT&T


advertised.


AT&T began offering unlimited data plans in 2007, allowing customers to use unrestricted


amounts of data. Although the company no longer offers unlimited plans to new customers, it


allows current unlimited customers to renew their plans and has sold millions of existing


unlimited customers new term contracts for data plans that continue to be labeled as “unlimited”.


In 2011, AT&T implemented a “Maximum Bit Rate” policy and capped the maximum data


speeds for unlimited customers after they used a set amount of data within a billing cycle. The


capped speeds were much slower than the normal network speeds AT&T advertised and


significantly impaired the ability of AT&T customers to access the Internet or use data


applications for the remainder of the billing cycle.


The Commission charges AT&T with violating the 2010 Open Internet Transparency Rule by


falsely labeling these plans as “unlimited” and by failing to sufficiently inform customers of the


maximum speed they would receive under the Maximum Bit Rate policy.


“Consumers deserve to get what they pay for,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “Broadband


providers must be upfront and transparent about the services they provide. The FCC will not


stand idly by while consumers are deceived by misleading marketing materials and insufficient


disclosure.”


“Unlimited means unlimited,” said FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc. “As today’s


action demonstrates, the Commission is committed to holding accountable those broadband


providers who fail to be fully transparent about data limits.”


Since 2011, the Commission has received thousands of complaints from AT&T’s unlimited data


plan customers stating that they were surprised and felt misled by AT&T’s policy of intentionally


reducing their speeds. Consumers also complained about being locked into a long-term AT&T


contract, subject to early termination fees, for an unlimited data plan that wasn’t actually


unlimited.

 The Enforcement Bureau’s investigation revealed that millions of AT&T customers were


affected. The customers who were subject to speed reductions were slowed for an average of 12


days per billing cycle, significantly impeding their ability to use common data applications such


as GPS mapping or streaming video.

In today’s action, the Commission found that the notice provided to unlimited data plan


customers about the Maximum Bit Rate policy was not sufficient to enable AT&T customers to


make informed decisions about their data plans.

The FCC’s Open Internet Transparency Rule was adopted in the 2010 Open Internet Order. The


Transparency Rule requires fixed and mobile broadband providers to publicly disclose sufficient


and accurate information about the providers’ network management practices, performance, and


commercial terms of their services, so that consumers can make informed choices when selecting


and using Internet access services. The Transparency Rule went into effect in 2011 and was


upheld by the D.C. Circuit in its opinion in Verizon v. FCC.

The Notice of Apparent Liability is available here:

https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-63A1.pdf


The July 2014 Open Internet Advisory is available here:

https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-14-1039A1.pdf
 
Last edited by a moderator:

gordonrp

New Member
Verified Provider
AT&T market cap; 187,000,000,000

FTC Fine: 100,000,000

For perspective; if you've slaved away, paid off your mortgage, and have a little cash in the bank, let's say you're now worth $500,000. FTC just fined you $350. No winks of sleep lost.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

HalfEatenPie

The Irrational One
Retired Staff
AT&T market cap; 187,000,000,000

FTC Fine: 100,000,000

For perspective; if you've slaved away, paid off your mortgage, and have a little cash in the bank, let's say you're now worth $500,000. FTC just fined you $350. No winks of sleep lost.
Think of all the Texas BBQ you can have though with that money.  

Dem briskets weep.  
 

Coastercraze

Top Thrill
Verified Provider
Yeah, AT&T works in the plant, the other 3 don't really work. I pick up some decent 20 - 30 Mbps speeds which is good enough for me IMO.
 
Top
amuck-landowner