AT&T To Start Data Throttling Heaviest Users 207
greymond writes "AT&T has announced that starting on Oct. 1 it will throttle the data speeds of users with unlimited data plans who exceed bandwidth thresholds on its 3G network. AT&T is following in the tracks Verizon and Virgin Mobile in reducing data throughput speeds of its heaviest mobile data users."
breach of contract (Score:4, Insightful)
I signed up for unlimited back years ago. Not for unlimited with limits that reduce speed. This is an arbitrary change of contract.
Re:breach of contract (Score:5, Insightful)
A change in terms offers you the chance to get out of your contract. But that's fine for them as they want to transition everyone off unlimited plans anyways.. That said, they probably also had no guarantee of data speed/service provided in the contract. Limiting speed is possibly within their right without modifying any contract terms.. Those service agreements don't exactly work to the consumer's advantage.
When telecos function as a cartel (Score:5, Insightful)
AT&T has you by the nads. You have a hard time finding phone service where you don't waive your right to sue and the carrier can make changes any time they want.
There's always some pompous horses ass who jumps in to say, "If you don't like the terms, don't sign the contract." But when you can't get service anywhere without those stipulations, there is no consumer choice. The wireless carriers operate as a cartel, not a free market.
Markets are not free if they're not also fair. And when one side can change the terms of a contract at any time, it's not fair.
Some of us... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:AT&T is already slow shit (Score:4, Insightful)
So they plan to make their shit service even worse?
No, they are making it better.
As soon as they get rid of the guys pulling 30 to 100 gig a month there will be some bandwidth for the rest of us.
Yes, we would all like a 3g network that could be used like a cable modem, but the the fact of the matter is that
wireless is more constrained for bandwidth than wireline, and even wireline is getting caps.
Yes it would be nice if unlimited meant truly unlimited, but we are all adult enough to realize that was never the case in any market for any commodity at any time in the history of earth. There are always limits.
The reasonable expectation was always around 5 gig a month.
This is where everyone jumps in and claims that when they said unlimited they are bound to that and should support it.
Well, guess what, they still do support it. It will just flow slower. You can still get as much as you want across your
unlimited 3g plan, its just that you won't want to anymore.
The idea that on demand TV and streaming media should all go to the internet was ill-conceived and is proving inconvenient for both wired and wireless usage.
There is a reason multicast was invented.
Re:am I the only person who thinks this a good thi (Score:4, Insightful)
or the CEO could go without his new jet this month and actually expand their spread so thin you can see though it decade old network ... many have signed into this thing as unlimited, not unlimted as long as it doesnt effect ATT, I went through the exact same thing with them on long distance and dialup, its their oldest trick
They offer you the moon for a penny and when it starts to catch up with them and bite them in the ass they change your contract and sometimes they might even bother to inform you, most of the time they just add charges and hope you wont bitch
Re:breach of contract (Score:3, Insightful)
The "provision" that allows them to do this is the decision of the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which enables AT&T to give unlimited amounts of money to elect (or defeat) politicians.
As long as Citizens United is the law of the land, there will never, ever be another law enforced that protects consumers from anything a large corporations decides to do. The government acting as a counterbalance to corporate power is now an historical relic. The Savings and Loan Scandal back in the 80s, when crooked bankers were put in jail? That will never happen again. Tobacco companies being fined billions for lying about the safety of their products? Never again. Even the occasional attorney general who takes his job seriously and busts a company for dumping toxic waste into the municipal water supply, rare as it was, has now become extinct.
You work for AT&T now. AT&T (and Exxon, and ADM, etc) are the government now.
The "provision" that allows AT$T to "do this" is a gang of 5 ideologues named Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts and Kennedy. Politicians in black robes. Extremist activists masquerading as "originalists" who devalued the human right of free speech by giving it to nonhuman entities. Bad enough that an earlier court decided that "money = speech" (something that diverse thinkers such as Jefferson and Madison both specifically rejected).