Judge awards iPhone user $850 in throttling case

Judge awards iPhone user $850 in throttling case

http://j.mp/zp3bLj (AP / Yahoo)

"SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) - When AT&T started slowing down the data
service for his iPhone, Matt Spaccarelli, an unemployed truck driver
and student, took the country's largest telecommunications company to
small claims court. And won. His award: $850. Pro-tem Judge Russell
Nadel found in favor of Spaccarelli in Ventura Superior Court in Simi
Valley on Friday, saying it wasn't fair for the company to purposely
slow down his iPhone, when it had sold him an "unlimited data" plan."

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› See More: Judge awards iPhone user $850 in throttling case

"NotMe" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Judge awards iPhone user $850 in throttling case
>
> http://j.mp/zp3bLj (AP / Yahoo)
>
> "SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) - When AT&T started slowing down the data
> service for his iPhone, Matt Spaccarelli, an unemployed truck driver
> and student, took the country's largest telecommunications company to
> small claims court. And won. His award: $850. Pro-tem Judge Russell
> Nadel found in favor of Spaccarelli in Ventura Superior Court in Simi
> Valley on Friday, saying it wasn't fair for the company to purposely
> slow down his iPhone, when it had sold him an "unlimited data" plan."

Thanks for the info and the expanded link follows:

http://news.yahoo.com/judge-awards-i...195042925.html

On 3/2/2012 8:04 AM, Roger 2008 wrote:
> "NotMe"<[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>> Judge awards iPhone user $850 in throttling case
>>
>> http://j.mp/zp3bLj (AP / Yahoo)
>>
>> "SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) - When AT&T started slowing down the data
>> service for his iPhone, Matt Spaccarelli, an unemployed truck driver
>> and student, took the country's largest telecommunications company to
>> small claims court. And won. His award: $850. Pro-tem Judge Russell
>> Nadel found in favor of Spaccarelli in Ventura Superior Court in Simi
>> Valley on Friday, saying it wasn't fair for the company to purposely
>> slow down his iPhone, when it had sold him an "unlimited data" plan."
>
> Thanks for the info and the expanded link follows:
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/judge-awards-i...195042925.html

This is going to be interesting. Regular lawsuits against AT&T are not
allowed due to a clause in the contract requiring binding arbitration,
and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the legality of these clauses. But
tens of thousands of individual small claims court cases would be very
bad for AT&T as well.

Of course what AT&T needs to do, and what would be legal for them to do,
is to stop renewing contracts with grandfathered unlimited data. If
their network can't handle unlimited 3G/4G data then they should not be
continuing to grandfather in those unlimited customers at contract
renewal time. Now that other carriers are throttling it should not be
that bad in terms of competitiveness.