AT&T Loses Data-Throttling Case in Small-Claims Court

Matt Spaccarelli is an unemployed truck driver in Simi Valley, Calif., and, in the eyes of AT&T, a data hog. The company’s meatiest data plan currently charges consumers $50 for 5 gigabytes a month—enough to stream an hour of video and two hours of music every day, according to AT&T’s own calculations. Spaccarelli is grandfathered into an unlimited data plan, and he makes good use of it. He streamed all five seasons of The Office through his iPhone’s Netflix app. He says he averages about 10 gigabytes a month and one month topped out at 18 gigs.

In December he realized AT&T was throttling his download speeds—a policy it uses to punish the top 5 percent of the heaviest users. “Netflix and streaming audio became impossible to use,” says Spaccarelli, 39, who once drove the Planters Peanut hot rod in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. After a phone spat with customer support he decided to sue. On Feb. 24 a small-claims court judge awarded him $850—the estimated value of the data he can’t use over the final 10 months of his contract. The judge ruled “you cannot tell someone they have an unlimited plan and not provide them with unlimited data,” says Spaccarelli.