They didn’t lie. They did give the users unlimited data, but just slowed down the loading of apps and web browsers. That is completely understandable because where are they going to store all of this data.
AT&T doesn’t store the contents of your data usage; The NSA might, though...
But seriously, an unlimited data plan should be exactly that: unlimited. No throttling. If you’re gonna include throttling over a certain limit: say that; Don’t hide it in the fine print that no one but lawyers read. That’s deceptive advertising, and is illegal. The FTC should go after them for that.
Most people aren’t upset about network management throttling, but about the deceptive advertising that says you get unlimited, but in fine print: “limited to EDGE speeds (128Kb/s) after 2 GB”
I seem to recall that something similar as this case happened in Sweden (10+ years ago?), where a operator was forced to not claim "unlimited data" unless it truly is unlimited and without throttling, but I can't find any references to this right now...
Does it really matter if they change their branding to be unmetered rather than unlimited?
No, not honestly.
There is a natural "hard cap", though. If you're paying for a certain speed, then the natural limit would be however much data you can pump at that speed over a set period of time.
I think it would be fair to call that "unlimited", in the sense that the service provider would not be imposing an artificial lower limit from what physics allows.
If a service provider isn't allowing that, then it's hard to see how they can characterize a service as "unlimited" without it being an outright lie.
Not good enough?
In my view, the entire problem is that they want so badly to say "unlimited" while at the same time not allowing actual unlimited use.
The problem could be easily resolved at no cost -- all the companies have to do is stop using the word "unlimited".
The problem is that mobile operators are incredibly underprovisioned. If your plan offers 1 GB of LTE data, at 35 Mbps, you can burn through a monthly allocation in 3.8 minutes. That's an average utilization of 0.0087%, or an underprovisioning by a factor of 11,500.
They sell it as if you're buying 35 Mbps access to the network all month long, when really, you can't use that for more than a few hours even on 'unlimited' plans.
I don't expect 1:1 access so that everyone can use their full bandwidth full time; I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars a month for that. But I'd pay a tenth of that for 1:10 underprovisioned access, and I'm sure that plenty would pay a few cents for the current 1:10,000 underprovisioned service...
Unlimited means no limits to speed, and no limits to quantity. If there is any type of artificial limit, then the thing ceases to be "unlimited". That is just straight up common sense, based on dictionary definitions.
But somewhere along the way (or perhaps as an unfortunate consequence of not seeing far enough ahead to always throttle unlimited plans) the definition in consumer minds also seemed to include no speed limits either.
If the same buffet made you wait 2 hours between plates, then it's no longer realistically an all-you-can-eat buffet.
If the restaurant is crowded, you’re going to have to both wait longer to get through the line and the kitchen won’t be able to cook enough to satisfy all of the customers.
There is also a known limit of how much data can be transmitted over a certain frequency and only certain frequencies are amenable to data.
For instance, T-mobile was infamous for not working well in buildings because the spectrum they were using couldn’t travel through buildings.
Yes, everyone understood that unlimited meant "not limited". And then telecoms started trying to change that definition to mean "limited".
Or wait a minute...
If AT&T didn't throttle, I suppose "unlimited" would still be a lie because there is still a limit to how fast your phone will download it. If you remove that it's still a lie because there's a limit to medium bandwidth, and so on.
All of these things are artificial! Should AT&T upgrade all users to phones with the latest modems because otherwise they are "artificially limiting" their experience? The impact on AT&T would be the same as stopping traffic shaping: spending more per user.
I disagree. In my view, "unlimited" means that the service provider will not introduce artificial limits. Of course there are natural limits (the speed of the devices involved, network congestion and signal quality, etc.). None of those are the service provider imposing an artificial limit, though.
Who is "they"? If it's the users, simple. Either on your harddisk or RAM (temporary).
It is deceitful, regardless.