Two days left! Support our fundraiser by January 5th and 
Wireless Industry Fined Yet Again For Selling Very Limited ‘Unlimited’ Data Plans
from the words-are-but-wind dept
For decades now, U.S. wireless carriers have sold consumers “unlimited data” plans that actually have all manner of sometimes hidden throttling, caps, and restrictions. And every few years a regulator comes out with a wrist slap against wireless carriers for misleading consumers, for whatever good it does.
Back in 2007, for example, then NY AG Andrew Cuomo fined Verizon a tiny $150,000 for selling “unlimited” plans that were very limited (Verizon kept doing it anyway). In 2019, the FTC fined AT&T $60 million for selling “unlimited” plans that were very limited, then repeatedly lying to consumers about it (impacted consumers saw refunds of around $22 each).
Similar state and federal fines and lawsuits have also been levied against these companies prepaid wireless brands over the years. This never-ending game of patty cake over the term “unlimited” also happens in Canada fairly routinely.
Last week, NY AG Leticia James that T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T will pay a combined $10.2 million settlement for — you guessed it — selling “unlimited” plans that were very limited:
“A multistate investigation found that the companies made false claims in advertisements in New York and across the nation, including misrepresentations about “unlimited” data plans that were in fact limited and had reduced quality and speed after a certain limit was reached by the user. The companies will pay $520,000 to New York and are required to change their advertising to ensure that wireless service plans are accurately and fairly explained.”
Will wireless carriers actually change their marketing tactics? Probably not! Will consumers see refunds? Probably not! Do the carriers have to admit any legal wrongdoing? Nope! Are the penalties stiff enough to deter future abuses? No way.
In this case, the settlement — which involved every U.S. state but DeSantistan Florida — was built on an investigation that started nine years ago but was effectively slow walked by industry lawyers. The investigation found that not only do wireless carriers (and their prepaid subsidiaries) routinely sell “unlimited” data plans with limits, but they also promote “free” phones that aren’t free.
If telecom industry history is any indication, the $10.2 million in fines will likely be watered down after another year or two of legal wrangling. And you’ll probably be right back here a few years from now reading about another wrist slap levied against an industry seemingly obsessed with abusing consumer trust — and the dictionary definition of very basic terminology.
Filed Under: broadband, caps, consumer protection, leticia james, NY AG, regulation, unlimited, wireless
Companies: at&t, t-mobile, verizon
Comments on “Wireless Industry Fined Yet Again For Selling Very Limited ‘Unlimited’ Data Plans”
to be CLEAR
the correct Title ought be “Wireless Customers FINED,…” for until those that made the decisions for such malfeasance be held accountable, NOTHING will change.
Its just the cost of doing business. What are you going to do, go to a competitor? Ohhh, they have a REAL UNLIMITED plan do they? Look at the fine print, sucker! We also OWN the government so feel free to reach out to your senators and AGs. We DARE you!
Re:
The law is both unable and unwilling to provide meaningful consequences.
Ooh…$10.2 million? I’m sure that’ll hurt these companies.
Verizon 2023 revenue: ~134B
AT&T 2023 revenue: ~122.4B
T-Mobile 2023 revenue: ~78.6B
My quick math says that the fine is 0.003% of their combined revenue for a single year. Why WOULD they change their marketing if the government is just going to keep taking the money from their metaphorical couch cushions?
Strange
As the major corps bought the T1 Fiber about 10 years ago, and have no payments to make Except for the towers they install for Property Lease.
And many times they DONT have great coverage for the area they are in.
And with all those Fines, Not 1 penny is given tot he customers, and If so, Not enough for 1 months payments.
But there are stupid facts. WHO to complain to, and Where to complain to on the internet, and will anything get done in a reasonable period, NOT 2-10 years from now, or when they get ENOUGH complaints.
Waiting for enough complaints? yep, they wont do much until then. Which is a trick to see if enough people KNOW they can complain, and where.
T1 Fiber
A T-1 circuit is 1.544Mbps on copper wire with repeaters no more than 6000ft apart. Feel free to look that up. There’s no such thing as T-1 Fiber. Feel free to look that up.
The telcos that provide fiber-optic circuits to their towers typically “ride” along shared fibers and use either smart switches or optical splitters to take their bite at the bandwidth apple. Typical bandwidths are not measured in “T” anything (feel free…) but rather optical carrier (OC-x) units.
So if a mobile cellular carrier brought bandwidth to a tower in 2004 and it was at an OC-3 capacity (155.52Mbps or roughly 3 DS3s which is 84 DS1s which if they were on copper with those repeaters under the manhole covers would be 84×1.544Mbps… and that might have been GREAT for 2004 and LTE (not a real thing, just a placeholder name) and stuff, but here we are 20 years later with 5G (not a real thing, just a marketing term meaning entirely different things depending on where you are) and bandwidth usage is higher.
Are NEEDS higher? No. It takes as much bandwidth to view email, post on social media, and watch Netflix as it did 20 years ago. There are now more people WITH ACCESS to that bandwidth, because more phones now allow access to that bandwidth, but THEY ARE NOT ALL WATCHING NETFLIX IN 4K AT THE SAME TIME IN THE SAME CELL.
Worse yet, US 5G implementation by those same carriers is so bad they just had to hit a peppermill over a map of the country to figure out where to drop more towers. They had to get bandwidth to all those towers, so your “T1 Fiber” thing means new capex. Now they want all of us to pay for their investment in infrastructure.
Summarizing:
There’s no such thing as Fiber T1. Never was. Ever. Just don’t say it.
Towers used to be massive thing but now it could be a weird oval thing on an electric pole (look for the genset at the foot of the pole or nearby).
Bandwidth is NOT increasing exponentially because nobody is using that much, but carriers are incrementally adding capacity because new phones mean more people COULD use that capacity.
And finally, if you’re running an open-source Android or other flavor of phone that allows bandwidth monitoring in the status bar… TURN IT ON and be surprised. Most of the time US users use less than 1Mbps even when browsing intensively, less than 50Kbp when idling, and 2-4Mbps when streaming.
Have some T1 Fiber with your diet. It will make what you put out rock solid.
Re:
pretty sure they meant the Tier 1 fiber backbone network, not a T1 twisted pair copper internet connection that has not been widely relevant for a few decades now. not everyone is like those of us that had to experience dial-up days when a T1 was our dream connection (or better yet an OC3)