Even assuming as much as one-half of the throttling (i.e., 3.75 monthly billing periods) occurred during the first contract period in which the customers were first throttled, this argument if successful would reduce the estimated average damages to about $112.50 per Group A account. AT&T will argue that any possible damages would, at the least, be cut off after the first contract period during which the customer was throttled, because the customer was then "on notice" and could have discontinued their service plan. Some of the throttling occurred after the (generally two-year) contract period in which the accounts were throttled for the first time. AdvertisementĪT&T would have arguments for significantly reducing that amount. that plaintiffs and the class could recover, even assuming plaintiffs were to overcome the numerous remaining pre-trial obstacles, prevail at trial, and survive an inevitable further appeal," plaintiffs wrote in their filing asking for court approval of the settlement.
Despite that, plaintiffs concluded that the $10 or $11 settlement payments are a good deal compared to what they would likely get at trial. This means customers paid AT&T an average of $225 for unlimited data in months they were throttled. The new class-action settlement says that, on average, settlement-class members exceeded the throttling thresholds during 7.5 monthly billing periods. The FTC, which sued AT&T over the practice in 2014, said after the $60 million settlement that "AT&T promised unlimited data-without qualification-and failed to deliver on that promise." The FTC had accused AT&T of violating US law against unfair or deceptive acts in commerce with its "unfair mobile data throttling program" and "deceptive failure to disclose mobile data throttling program." AT&T eased up on the throttling in 20 and now throttles only when consumers are connected to congested cell sites.
This throttling was particularly severe because it was enforced 24 hours a day regardless of whether there was any network congestion, and downloads were throttled to speeds as low as 128kbps. (The FTC/AT&T settlement applied to customers in any state, but the newly announced settlement is only for California residents.)Ĭustomers paid AT&T $30 a month for unlimited data at a time when AT&T automatically throttled "unlimited" plans for the rest of the month once subscribers hit thresholds of either 3GB or 5GB. Many of these same people previously received $12 each from a $60 million settlement between AT&T and the Federal Trade Commission, bringing the typical person's total payout to $22 or $23. After administrative costs and attorneys' fees, typical victims are expected to get $10 or $11 from the new settlement.
The paltry nature of expected per-person payments was explained last week by plaintiffs in a filing that asked the US District Court for the Northern District of California to approve the settlement. As usual, refunds to individual customers amount to a fraction of what the customers paid for the hobbled service. Getty Images | Aurich Lawson reader comments 106 withĪT&T has agreed to a $12 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit over its throttling of "unlimited" mobile data plans.
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