_____________________________________________________________________________ Ticket: # 364230 - AT&T Wireless Cellular Internet Throttling Date: 6/25/2015 11:13:59 AM City/State/Zip: Chantilly, Virginia 20152 Company Complaining About: AT&T _____________________________________________________________________________ Description I have an AT&T cellular phone with grandfathered unlimited internet. AT&T continues to throttle data rates as the usage approaches 5GB. It is my understanding that this is a violation under the new Open Internet policies and AT&T has been significantly been fined. I received the following text from AT&T this morning (6/25/2015) at 9:45am from 753-5. "ATT Free Msg: Your data has reached 75% of the 5GB network management threshold. If you exceed 5GB this month you may experience reduced data speeds at times and in areas that are experiences network congestion. Wi-Fi helps you reduce speeds. For further info visit att.com/datainfo or att.com/broadbandinfo" _____________________________________________________________________________ Ticket: # 364330 - ATT throttling Date: 6/25/2015 11:39:49 AM City/State/Zip: Houston, Texas 77040 Company Complaining About: AT&T _____________________________________________________________________________ Description Re: FCC 15-63 I have been an ATT customer since buying my first iPhone in 2007. I was a loyal T-Mobile customer for years and reluctantly moved to ATT only due to their exclusive position with the iPhone. Having prior experience with ATT long distance and other telephony services, I was circumspect due to what I perceived as game/tricks and downright deception which ATT utilized in their advertising and billing practices. However, having read the terms and conditions "unlimited" was unqualified other than for abuse. As an early adopter, I believe ATT used this tactic to build what is now one of the largest markets in the world and to maintain an effectively exclusive or at least dominant position in this market based largely on this position. My data usage over the years has been very "normal" and could not be seen as "excessive" or "abusive" by any measure. I have used the phone as advertised without worrying about limits but not taking advantage of the unlimited data, and have foregone numerous alternative deals offering services such as tethering and other benefits to maintain this privilege. However, after beginning to receive text messages from ATT a year or so indicating my data usage was "excessive" (by what standard?!) and after ATT began threatening to throttle my bandwidth to what would effectively render the device worthless under normal operation, I have severely curtailed my free use of the device and resist normal operations in today's market such as streaming audio or listening to lectures on YouTube in the car. I have never had an "always on" mentality with respect to my device, do not just keep video streaming in the background, etc., but I do have podcast apps and the like which periodically download material for consumption at regular intervals. This is normal advertised operation and is one of the primary benefits of a smart phone. The limits at which ATT began issuing these "warnings" or "threats" began at 3GB. My average usage is normally well below 3GB, but on occasion after watching a single Netflix movie or streaming an Apple WWDC keynote speech or the like, I might bump against the 3GB limit. Since one of the more popular data plans offered by ATT was 3GB at the time, this would hardly be seen as "abusive." I completely understand wireless companies needing to periodically throttle users' data in a particularly over-saturated area, but only due to the congestion at the time and without regard to individual (non-abusive) useres. Instead, ATT's practice appears to throttle (or at least threaten same) particular users' data without regard to any particular congestion issues. I would completely understand if heavy users were merely tagged for lower priority in the event of congestion, but to throttle or threaten same based on quite normal activity levels is anti-competitive and abusive. What ATT really wants is for users like me who built their network to leave these unlimited plans which were convenient for them for a time, but now are not (or to pay for unlimited plans and curtail their usage based on their threats). I have remained an ATT user over the years ONLY because of this single benefit. I would absolutely have left ATT for T-Mobile or other providers if this plan had not remained in place. Now, the bandwidth “limits” (on an unlimited plan) have seemingly grown to 5Gb, but so has the average media consumption and bandwidth requirements to merely surf normal web sites and consume common forms of media. Moreover, as these data requirements have grown, so have the fees and technical capabilities to manage data beyond mere throttling, so that the congestion should not be more of an issue for a non-abusive consumer than ever before. Speaking of "abuse," the type of things I would consider abusive would be running a streaming media server, tethering and providing hot spot access for others, maintaining an always on streaming player to replace a television in a common area 24 hours per day, and the like. Merely, enjoying average consumer media consumption such as a periodic podcast or drive-time audio, and automatic background uploading of photos, etc. can not be seen as abusive -- these are the very benefits touted not only by the device manufacturers but also ATT, itself. If unlimited means ANYTHING, it should permit my usage pattern. If an average consumption is 2- 3Gb, one would consider as abusive a user using an order of magnitude more data such as 20-30Gb, not 4 or 5Gb. In my opinion, a fine is not sufficient -- ATT should be precluded from these anti-consumer abusive "threats" and should be precluded from changing the terms of service for the loyal early adopters who built their network and dominant position. They should be required to permit such users to purchase (without losing their plan) "add-on" services such as tethering (as a convenience for other devices such as book readers or for laptop email, etc.) as long as their data is still not abusive (by an objective standard well out of line with their then-highest available bandwidth offering). Perhaps, the tethered data could be provided at a per-data usage cost, but to technically prevent such a convenience is just a punishment intended to incent users to abandon such plans. Further, any throttling necessary to maintain network availability should be only neutral as to user or should provide at least a still "usable" bandwidth for the throttled user. If the average user is provided several Mbits/sec, a reasonable throttling would be to 1Mbit/sec, not several k/sec (which is reportedly the throttling we have heard of) which is unusable even for basic email/mapping use. Finally, I believe ATT has been deceptive in their warnings/threats to users. Since this began, I have been tracking my data usage closely. I have a reliable application which monitors my non-wifi data usage and for this period, I am in day 19/30 days and have used 1.9Mb of data, which is projected by the app to correspond to a 3.1Mb usage for the period. I received the following warning just today: "Your data usage is near 5GB this month. Exceeding 5GB during this or future billing cycles may result in reduced data speeds. Wi-Fi helps you avoid reduced speeds." This is deceptive and abusive behavior from a dominant market provider and must be remedied. _____________________________________________________________________________ Ticket: # 364730 - Unfair billing practices, data cap, and speed throttling Date: 6/25/2015 12:38:38 PM City/State/Zip: Nashville, Tennessee 37013 Company Complaining About: Comcast _____________________________________________________________________________ Description Comcast continues to bait and switch customers. I am forced to call on a near monthly basis to receive the pricing that was promised for a 12 month period. It continually creeps up without notification. My speed is obviously being throttled when accessing youtube and netflix streams even prior to reaching the absurd 300GB data cap. I have validated this network throttling by using both VPN and proxy services to strip Comcasts ability to throttle, this instantly removes the choke hold on steaming services. Comcast's business practices are down right unethical and i'd venture to guess fraudulent if they were to be properly investigated. _____________________________________________________________________________ Ticket: # 365165 - Time Warner Cable Net Neutrality Complaint Date: 6/25/2015 1:51:20 PM City/State/Zip: Wheelersburg, Ohio 45694 Company Complaining About: Time Warner _____________________________________________________________________________ Description My Time Warner Cable account is experiencing Intermittent outages either caused by throttling or limitations on my account. I am not able to achieve my contractual connectivity speeds during all hours of the day. _____________________________________________________________________________ Ticket: # 365667 - Open Internet ATT Date: 6/25/2015 2:52:44 PM City/State/Zip: Sewell, New Jersey 08080 Company Complaining About: AT&T _____________________________________________________________________________ Description Today I got a SMS from ATT that my data has reached 75% of my 5GB network management threshold. I am on the grandfathered ATT unlimted