FTC Sues AT&T For Allegedly Slowing Connections Speeds For 3.5 Million Customers

The Federal Trade Commission tweeted Tuesday afternoon that it's suing AT&T for "deceptive and unfair data throttling."

That means the company allegedly promised unlimited data and then slowed connection speeds, as the FTC explains.

The complaint alleges AT&T didn't adequately disclose the full details of unlimited data plans to customers, according to the FTC's press release. Under the current plan, if customers reach a certain amount of data use in a certain billing cycle, AT&T reduces, or throttles, their data speeds so much that common activities, like GPS or video-streaming, "become difficult or nearly impossible," according to the FTC.

This alleged "bait and switch" began as early as 2011. Since then, the company has throttled at least 3.5 million unique customers more than 25 million times, the FTC alleges. At times, the speed reduction supposedly reached 80 to 90%.

While AT&T bailed on its unlimited data plan for smartphones, some customers remain grandfathered in. AT&T admits that certain customers with existing unlimited data plans who exceed 3 gigs of data in one billing period "may experience reduced speeds when using data services at times and in areas that experiencing network congestion." The company, however, will restore normal speeds the next billing cycle.

If true, these actions violate the the FTC Act by "changing the terms of customers' unlimited data plans while those customers were still under contract, and by failing to adequately disclose the nature of the throttling program to consumers who renewed their unlimited data plans," according to the press release.

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