AT&T pushes back on $100 million throttling fine

AT&T Mobility first began offering unlimited data in 2007; that service option has since been discontinued. After hearing from thousands of disgruntled customers over the past few years that complained about throttling, the FCC decided that it had heard enough.

Just over a month ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) really stuck it to AT&T, fining the communications giant a whopping 0 million fine for misleading customers with regards to throttling data speeds.

The disclosure is described in the filing: “Its descriptions of the practice’s effects on subscribers to AT&T’s Unlimited Data Plan, the criteria or trigger for the practice, and the consequences of exceeding the usage threshold were unmistakable”.

However, AT&T isn’t going to pay the massive fine without putting up a fight. Basically stating that they did notify users that they would be throttling their data speeds. AT&T also said that the FCC should, even if it does not agree with withdrawing the notice, halt any enforcement of its non-monetary penalties until a court could weigh in on their legalities. The company also stated that the fact that they followed the rules and notified their customers, should end this case. However, AT&T is now fighting back, calling the FCC’s findings “wholly implausible” in a new filing. AT&T, however, argued that the FCC was acting outside its authority in imposing these punishments, as well as the fine. Its “moderate” forfeiture penalty of $100 million is plucked out of thin air, and the injunctive sanctions it proposes are beyond the Commission’s authority.

It seems AT&T thinks throttling the data speeds of customers without telling them about it isn’t such a big deal. It’ll be interesting to see what actually happens here.

The carrier has now filed a document with the FCC requesting that the ruling and the proposed fine be cancelled and dropped. Even though the smaller competitors, namely Sprint and T-Mobile, have been petitioning the FCC to have a larger reserve and the FCC has declined to do so, so far.