I believe the FCC’s recent decision to go after T-Mobile and impose a $48M fine for lacking transparency in their throttling policies for “unlimited” plans is a case of our government working for us, and protecting consumer rights. I truly believe that transparency and clarity in business dealings is of the utmost importance and companies should be held accountable for missing the mark.
The practice of hyping up a product or service, but not making efforts to ensure clarity on limitations you may impose if a customer actually makes full use of that product, and not just what a provider thinks should be a reasonable amount, are rampart with ISPs and cellular carriers. What they do here is not quite as bad is an old fashioned “Bait and Switch” but comes close, and just doesn’t sit right with me as a consumer.
Bottom line T-Mobile’s throttling policy should have been made clear to consumers who signed up for these “unlimited” plans upfront. I like T-Mobile, hopefully they will learn from this mistake, and before you feel to sorry for them it should be noted that they had a Q2 net income of $225M (Q3 earnings are not yet released). Hopefully this will send a message to other companies that they are being watched, and misleading consumers, directly or indirectly, is not acceptable.
