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In a decision that will inevitably lead to similar cases in the future, Associated Press reported a judge in California awarded an iPhone user $850 in a small claims case filed against AT&T that found the carrier guilty of throttling data speeds on the iPhone 4’s unlimited data plan. According to the iPhone user, who was grandfathered in to the unlimited data plan, his data was throttled after reaching between 1.5GB to 2GB of data in any given billing cycle:
When asked for comment, AT&T said:
There is a possibility AT&T will appeal the judge’s decision. AP said AT&T Area Sales Manager Peter Hartlove “argued in court that his employer has the right to modify or cancel customers’ contracts if their data usage adversely affects the network.”
As of October 2011, AT&T officially began throttling data speeds of the top 5 percent of heavy data users and told us last month “throttling only applies to top users with grandfathered unlimited plans.” At that time, an AT&T spokesperson provided us with the following explanation:
