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
