No flat rate throttling at Telekom

Deutsche Telekom: judges stop pseudo flat rate - Clause for throttling the line in contracts declared inadmissible

The Cologne district court thwarted Deutsche Telekom's plans http://telekom.de according to which the surfing speed should be throttled after consuming a certain amount of data with Internet flat rates. Consumer rights are clearly strengthened with the judgment delivered today, Wednesday. It affects both the originally announced throttling to 384 kilobits and the one to two megabits per second. The corresponding clauses in the telecommunications contracts have been declared inadmissible.

Telekom headquarters in Bonn: Group has to give up throttling (Photo: telekom.de)

Telekom headquarters in Bonn: Group has to give up throttling (Photo: telekom.de)

Two-tier network feared

The court is giving in to a lawsuit from the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer center. The reason is: With the term "flat rate" the customer associates a certain surfing speed with Internet access via the fixed network and does not expect any restrictions as a result. The plans for a corresponding throttling presented by Telekom in the summer had caused massive criticism and even earned the company the nickname "Drosselkom". The Pirate Party in particular ran a storm against the plans.

In the run-up to the decision, industry experts feared that Telekom would want to enforce a two-tier network with its business policy. This is because the company's television and multimedia offers, for example, then use the same line, but the data volume is not charged separately. The consequence would be a market distortion. Because telecom services and providers who work with Deutsche Telekom do not run the risk of being slowed down. Telekom also advocated higher tariffs for frequent users.

(ck) 4.11.2013/XNUMX/XNUMX

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