A judge in Southern California last month awarded $850 to an iPhone user who was throttled on AT&T’s network. The plaintiff, Matt Spaccarelli, filed a small claims case against AT&T, arguing that the carrier unfairly slowed speeds on his iPhone 4 despite his unlimited data plan. Spaccarelli on Thursday took to Twitter to announce that the carrier will not appeal the decision and instead paid him $850 plus $85 for court fees. In an interview with Mashable, Spaccarelli revealed that AT&T was still throttling his phone, which had an average download speed of 0.31Mbps. He said he plans to use the money to cancel his service with the network before his contract is up and will also travel to an AT&T stockholders meeting in April in Salt Lake City. “To me the check means AT&T didn’t stand a chance in the appeal,” Spaccarelli said. “If they did, they wouldn’t have paid me.” Read on for more.
AT&T’s decision comes shortly after the carrier offered Spaccarelli a new settlement and threatened to shut off his phone service for tethering. Spaccarelli, however, refused to sign the carrier’s proposed non-disclosure agreement. “It isn’t about the money,” Spaccarelli said. “It’s about getting the service I’m paying for. I pay $130 per month and with that I expect a little bit of reasonableness.” Since the lawsuit, Spaccarelli said he switched to Walmart’s Straight Talk and now experiences download speeds of 3.83Mbps on AT&T’s 3G network. “Not bad for paying $45 per month for unlimited talking, texting, data and no contract,” he said.
