October last year, the Federal Trade Commission filed in federal court lawsuit against AT&T for data throttling. According to the FTC, the carrier deceived consumers by offering unlimited data plans and throttling speeds. Allegedly, AT&T was controlling the network speed once the 3GB or 5GB limit was reached. AT&T was then quick to respond by saying FTC can’t sue them because they were just a common carrier and there was an exception.
AT&T made the claims last January but it was only yesterday, April 1, that Judge Edward Chen US District Court in Northern California refused to dismiss the lawsuit and claim by the carrier. (April Fool’s Day but it wasn’t a joke). You see, there is an FTC Act that exempts common carriers from some issues. AT&T said they fall under that category. That is true but only for landline telephone and mobile voice service. The company’s mobile data services, the main subject of the case, were not considered a common carrier service.
Judge Chen said this exception applies “only where the entity has the status of common carrier and is actually engaging in common carrier activity”. At the time when the lawsuit was filed, AT&T’s mobile services were not classified as common carrier service. In February, however, the Federal Communications Commission made some changes by reclassifying mobile data as a common carrier service. AT&T used this argument but the Judge still rejected it.
Judge Chen wrote:
“When this suit was filed, AT&T’s mobile data service was not regulated as common carrier activity by the Federal Communications Commission. Once the Reclassification Order of the Federal Communications Commission (which now treats mobile data serve as common carrier activity) goes into effect, that will not deprive the FTC of any jurisdiction over past alleged misconduct as asserted in this pending action.”
Judge Edward Chen believes AT&T misinterpreted the rule which was really meant to “prevent overlap between common carrier regulations”.
SOURCE: arstechnica
