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

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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