Tag: NAD

Gavel

NARB Ruling On Mint’s “Unlimited” Plan

Christian

It’s almost old news at this point, but last month a self-regulatory body for the advertising industry came out with a ruling against Mint Mobile’s marketing around its “unlimited” plans:

The National Advertising Review Board (NARB), the appellate advertising law body of BBB National Programs, has recommended that Mint Mobile LLC discontinue the use of “UNLIMITED” and “UNLTD” headlines in its advertising or modify them to clearly communicate that its plan does not offer unlimited high-speed data.

Mint’s allegedly “unlimited” plan caps subscribers at 35GB of regular-speed data each month. Subscribers that exceed the 35GB threshold can continue to use data, but they’re throttled to speeds of 128kbps. As I’ve written about before, 128kbps is a sluggish speed that can’t support a lot of common activities.

The recent ruling is unsurprising. The same self-regulatory body ruled against Boost Mobile for a nearly equivalent offense in early 2021. That said, there are two aspects of this story worth highlighting:

  1. AT&T initiated the complaint against Mint. Plenty of carriers offer unlimited plans with similar throttling policies, but it looks like AT&T saw Mint as a particularly threatening competitor.
  2. While Mint has committed to changing its advertisements, I haven’t seen any indication that the carrier will stop calling its 35GB plan an “unlimited” plan. The National Advertising Review Board and the associated National Advertising Division are toothless in some areas of consumer protection.
Gavel

NAD Rules Against Boost’s “Unlimited” Plans

Christian

Boost Mobile has been offering unlimited plans that include 35GB of regular, full-speed data each month. Subscribers that exceed 35GB of use are throttled to 2G speeds.

I’ve argued that plans where customers can be throttled to snails-pace speeds shouldn’t be labeled “unlimited.” It seems the National Advertising Division (NAD), a self-regulatory body, agrees. The organization just ruled against Boost in a dispute initiated by AT&T. I strongly agree with this excerpt:

Based on the case record, NAD concluded that at 2G speeds, consumers will be unable to stream video, surf the web, or do any other activity that requires substantial data usage at speeds that meet consumers’ expectations for an unlimited plan. As noted in the decision, ‘At 2G speeds, many of today’s most commonly used applications such as social-media, e-mail with attachments, web browsing on pages with embedded pictures, videos and ads and music may not work at all or will have such significant delays as to be functionally unavailable because the delays will likely cause the applications to time out.’ The only activities that would still function acceptably are those that use minimal amounts of data, such as email without attachments, or those that use no data, such as talk and text.

Boost’s Marketing

Here’s a screenshot of how the plans appeared on Boost’s website:

Screenshot from Boost's website

The Good

Boost gets a few points of transparency right:

  • It’s clear only 35GB of LTE data is included.
  • The disclaimer text about throttling to 2G speeds is prominent.

The Bad

  • Boost doesn’t say what 2G speeds means.
  • The bits about unlimited streaming are utter bullshit.

You can’t stream normal video at 2G speeds (128kbps). You absolutely can’t stream in HD at 128kbps.

Other “Unlimited” Plans

Boost kind of tried to make reasonable discloses about limitations on its unlimited plans. The company’s marketing of it’s “unlimited” plans is far from the most egregious example in the industry. Several other carriers also offer “unlimited” plans with similar throttling policies, including some decent-sized carriers like Mint and Total Wireless. It’ll be interesting to see if the NAD decision leads any companies besides Boost to change their marketing.1

Rethinking “Nationwide”

Christian 1 Comment

T-Mobile and AT&T started describing their 5G networks as nationwide once the networks covered over 200 million people. I’ve seen multiple people suggest that this is related to FCC rules. Allegedly, the FCC only allows networks to be described as nationwide when they cover over 200 million people. I’ve searched around, and I can’t find any FCC documents mentioning such a guideline.

As far as I can tell, the 200 million number comes from the National Advertising Division (NAD), a self-regulatory body for the advertising industry.1 Here’s an excerpt from a 2014 NAD publication:

NAD noted in its decision that it has applied a consistent standard for ‘coast to coast’ service for the past 10 years. In general, a wireless network can claim to be nationwide or coast to coast if the provider offers service in diverse regions of the country and the network covers at least 200 million people.

200 million people would make up about 60% of the U.S. population.2 I don’t think a network covering 60% of the U.S. population is nationwide in the common-sense meaning of the word. If networks with such lackluster coverage are advertised as nationwide, consumers will be misled.

The NAD should update its approach. The exact meaning of nationwide isn’t clear cut, but I think even a loose standard should be something like this:

Nationwide network: A network that covers at least 85% of the U.S. population and offers service in some parts of every state.

The NAD should probably frame its standard in terms of a percentage of the U.S. population covered (rather than a raw number of people covered). In 2004, 200 million people would have been almost 70% of the U.S. population.3 The NAD’s standard made more sense then. As the country’s population has grown, the NAD’s standard has become weaker.

AT&T Drops 5GE Ads & Keeps 5GE Icon

Christian

For a while now, AT&T has been misleadingly labeling some of its 4G services as “5GE.”

A self-regulatory body in the advertising industry recently concluded that AT&T should stop mentioning 5GE in advertisements:

A panel of the National Advertising Review Board (NARB) has recommended that AT&T Services, Inc. discontinue its ‘5G Evolution’ and ‘5G Evolution, The First Step to 5G’ claims…the NARB panel determined that both claims will mislead reasonable consumers into believing that AT&T is offering a 5G network and recommended that the claims be discontinued.

AT&T agreed to cease advertising 5GE, but the carrier will continue to show the 5GE icon on phones. As a result, AT&T has been receiving well-deserved scorn from journalists.

AT&T’s actions aren’t surprising. I don’t think the National Advertising Review Board has much power to change business practices outside of advertising. Further, AT&T has tricked some subscribers into thinking their 5GE connections are actual 5G connections. If AT&T stopped showing the 5GE icon, the carrier would have to deal with complaints from frustrated customers thinking they lost 5G access.