AT&T Always Had The Provision to Throttle Speeds in Its Terms Of Service

AT&T's throttling policies have come under a lot of criticism, after it became known that the company was throttling its unlimited plan subscribers for data usage as low as 2GB

It later amended this policy to literally remove the "unlimited" in its unlimited plan, by setting a limit of 3GB usage, up till which users would receive 3G speeds. On surpassing this limit, the user's connection speed would be throttled to 256Kbps.

This naturally enraged a number of AT&T's unlimited data plan subscribers, some of which took to social networks to express their frustration.

MacRumors took a look at AT&T's terms of service back when the original iPhone wasn't out (using a website called TOSBack) and this is what it found:

AT&T reserves the right to (i) limit throughput or amount of data transferred, deny Service and/or terminate Service, without notice, to anyone it believes is using the Service in any manner prohibited above or whose usage adversely impacts its wireless network or service levels or hinders access to its wireless network.

Even the present TOS features similar language, where AT&T "reserves the right" to do practically anything to your connection if it believes you are degrading its network, right from throttling speeds to outright terminating your connection.

So there you have it, AT&T always kept a provision in its TOS to give the company the right to do anything to your connection, if it (not a third party, but the company itself) believes that your usage pattern degrades the quality of the network.

Now although AT&T has the TOS to protect its in court, customers opted for the unlimited plan believing that they would receive decent speeds, and not be throttled to EDGE speeds. While excessive load on a network is indeed a problem of great concern, especially when there's a spectrum crunch, AT&T were the ones who introduced the plan in the first place. MG Siegler, on his personal blog, writes:

AT&T are the ones that offered the unlimited plans in the first place. If they didn’t know that would be a problem down the road, they’re idiots.

It’s true that nothing in your unlimited contract guarantees the fastest speeds possible, but let’s be honest: that’s what customers were expecting when they signed those contracts. You know it. I know it. AT&T knows it. 

Now they’re in the position where they’re punishing their best customers, which is never a good idea. 

Moreover, the slow EDGE speeds make the data connection almost impossible to use, which is ultimately what matters.

What's your take on this? Are AT&T's actions justified?