T-Mobile to pay millions in fines over misleading 'unlimited' data plans

(Image credit: John Moore/Getty Images)

published 19 October 2016

T-Mobile has been fined millions of dollars by federal regulators, who say the company misled customers about having "unlimited" data.

T-Mobile touted an unlimited data plan, but the fine print showed that during busy times, the top 3 percent of data users temporarily have their network usage de-prioritized, The Washington Post reports. The Federal Communications Commission announced Wednesday that it has received hundreds of complaints about T-Mobile from customers, who said "this policy rendered data services 'unusable' for many hours each day and substantially limited their access to data."

The FCC says T-Mobile did not do enough to let consumers know about the data limits, and now the company has to pay $7.5 million to the government and $35.5 million to consumers in the form of mobile data and discounts on phone accessories. T-Mobile also must now give $5 million worth of tablets and other devices to low-income schools, benefiting as many as 80,000 kids, as well as four years of free mobile data for schools and the families of students. John Legere, T-Mobile's chief executive, called it a "good settlement," and tweeted the company believes "more info is best for customers."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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