Good Essay On Federal Trade Commission Versus AT&T Mobility

Advertisements are very powerful tool in convincing people to buy a service or product of a company. Offers here and there regarding a promise of what customers can get if they’ll subscribe to one are what they hold on to. But failing to deliver such promise is the worst back slash a company can get.
Internet nowadays is almost a necessity to most people. Some offers promise to give good connection and the most popular now, “unlimited data” which what the AT&T does. But it was found that the said company has not been delivering the said promise to its millions of customer. After few days of using few gigabytes, sometimes as little as two gigabytes, of their unlimited data, the said company will start slowing down the internet speed until the end of their billing period, approximately 12 days on average, which happened on at least 25 million cases and in some cases customers’ internet speed got cut by 90 percent.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against AT&T seeking financial damage to be repaid to the company’s customer. The suit was approved and filed in US District Court in San Francisco. It was found by the investigating body that the company is aware of the customers’ disagreement with the throttling they experience. As for the company’s response to the lawsuit, they claimed that the allegations were baseless and an intrusion to the normal practice of wireless network companies. They also claimed that they have been sending their customers notifications via texts and emails to notify them that their internet speed will be slowed since they have already reached their limit.
As a result, FTC’s investigation has often become out-of-court settlements that only progress to legal action if two parties will not agree to a resolution. AT&T’s inability to agree on terms of possible settlements puts them at risk especially now that they are still settling charges for the bogus third party fees billed to their customers.

References

Federal Trade Commission (FTC). (2014). “FTC Says AT&T Has Misled Millions of Consumers with ‘Unlimited’ Data Promises.” Federal Trade Commission News and Events. Retrieved from https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/10/ftc-says-att-has-misled-millions-consumers-unlimited-data
Fung, B. & Timberg, C. (2014). “The FTC is suing AT&T for throttling its unlimited data customers.” The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/28/the-ftc-is-suing-att-for-throttling-its-unlimited-data-customers/