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AT&T fined $100M after slowing down its ‘unlimited’ data

washingtonpost.com

31–40 of 169 posts

Re: AT&T fined $100M after slowing down its ‘unlimited’ data

#31
Umm, did they STOP throttling in addition to this settlement? It feels like they did. I was getting throttled like crazy in March and April (I have no internet at my house other than AT&T LTE for stupid reasons, so I have to tether all the time), but in May and June, I seem to mostly never get throttled anymore... or if I do it's much more modest. Anyone else notice a change?

Re: AT&T fined $100M after slowing down its ‘unlimited’ data

#33
Swisscom in Switzerland sells unlimited data plans that are capped at different speeds depending on how much you pay per month. Just like a DSL or cable plan.

I find this a lot more fair than selling unlimited that isn't. Or killing grandfathered accounts by capping them.

Re: AT&T fined $100M after slowing down its ‘unlimited’ data

#35

T-Mobile throttles my "unlimited" family plan. The main number gets 3G and each additional gets 1G and then is throttled. Are they also on the radar or is it less of a problem for them because they give you the throttle data up-front (while still using the unlimited word). In reality, however, when you hit your limit it becomes almost unusable.

They tell you up front, so I don't think it's an issue. Technically it IS unlimited.

Their marketing is pretty clear for the plans that have soft data limits but they hide their throttling for the "unlimited" plan in the fine print.

http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/individual.html

> "*Unlimited 4G LTE customers who use more than 21 GB of data in a bill cycle will have their data usage de-prioritized compared to other customers for that bill cycle at locations and times when competing network demands occur, resulting in relatively slower speeds. See t-mobile.com/OpenInternet for details."

Re: AT&T fined $100M after slowing down its ‘unlimited’ data

#37
post #6
post #4

We should stop lawyers from re-defining words like unlimited. We should make sure that if somebody says unlimited in advertisment or product description it really means unlimited. I know, I am an idealist. :)

So what does unlimited mean then in your definition? Even before they throttle, you will be limited by the throughput of the cell tower.

When it comes to networking providers wired/wireless/mobile it means speed is invariant with regards to volume.

Network neutrality means speed is invariant with regards to source.

I have mixed feelings about traffic shaping between users and protocols – that is limiting a minority of whales taking an unfair share.

Re: AT&T fined $100M after slowing down its ‘unlimited’ data

#38
post #31

Umm, did they STOP throttling in addition to this settlement? It feels like they did. I was getting throttled like crazy in March and April (I have no internet at my house other than AT&T LTE for stupid reasons, so I have to tether all the time), but in May and June, I seem to mostly never get throttled anymore... or if I do it's much more modest. Anyone else notice a change?

Apparently they stopped throttling when the area you're connecting from is not experiencing congestion:

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/07/att-scales-back-unlimite...

Re: AT&T fined $100M after slowing down its ‘unlimited’ data

#39

T-Mobile throttles my "unlimited" family plan. The main number gets 3G and each additional gets 1G and then is throttled. Are they also on the radar or is it less of a problem for them because they give you the throttle data up-front (while still using the unlimited word). In reality, however, when you hit your limit it becomes almost unusable.

They tell you up front, so I don't think it's an issue. Technically it IS unlimited.

"unlimited" means "not limited; unrestricted; unconfined". Speed limiting does not seem to fit that definition. It looks like they will avoid the rathe of the FCC because they were upfront about the limits though. It still feels like false advertising. I knew it would be slower after the limits but I had no idea how slow it would actually be.

Re: AT&T fined $100M after slowing down its ‘unlimited’ data

#40
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tell you up front, so I don't think it's an issue. Technically it IS unlimited.

The problem is that it's quite literally not fit for use. It's some completely fucked software rate limiting or something that produces insane packet loss, pages don't load at all, IRC barely works, ssh breaks up and dies. I don't mind being shaped to 5KB/s, but at least give me something resembling a consistent 5KB/s, not 12KB/s for two seconds and then 300 bytes/s (actual measurement) for the next half hour at 50%…

Are you talking about data above the 21GB limit on their "unlimited" plan or the 2G data you get after going above your data limits on the lower plans?

I only pay for the 1GB plan but I haven't found it unusable when I go above that and I can buy a one-time increase if I like.

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