FTC: AT&T guilty of throttling unlimited data customers

The FTC says that AT&T have promised customers unlimited data, but then started charging them and reducing their data speeds after they reach a monthly cap.

The FTC claimed that some of AT&T's mobile customers had their data speeds reduced by as much as 90% after reaching their monthly data cap.

The complaint said that the company failed to adequately disclose to customers on "unlimited" data plans that their speeds would be reduced. The speeds were so drastically reduced that many common phone apps including Web browsing, GPS navigation and streaming video, became difficult or nearly impossible.

FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez said: “AT&T promised its customers ‘unlimited’ data, and in many instances, it has failed to deliver on that promise. ‘Unlimited’ means unlimited.”

AT&T began throttling speeds in 2011 for the unlimited plan when customers used as little as 2GB of data. It has since throttled data speeds for as many as 3.5 million customers.