After Beating AT&T In Court, Matthew Spaccarelli Finally Gets His "Settlement" Payment

AT&T's been mired in a ceaseless flood bad PR since the start of its "unlimited" throttling policy. At every turn and opportunity to make good, the telecom giant's seemingly chained another concrete block to its bullet-riddled feet and sunk ever deeper. Take the recent lawsuit brought by Matthew Spaccarelli: After he sued the company in small claims court and won an $850 judgment, AT&T made things worse by publicly threatening to shut off Spaccarelli's service if a curiously-timed settlement (say what?) could not be reached. While undertaking such action is certainly within the company's rights, most of the blogosphere (rightfully) viewed AT&T's post-suit proclamations as misguided corporate "bullying." Faced with that mother of all PSA buzzwords, AT&T then sought to clarify its position, saying Spaccarelli admitted to unauthorized tethering and was therefore in breach of his contract. But it was too little too late. After all, most folks aren't very fond of AT&T's tethering policies, either. It's no surprise, then, that such reasoning fell on decidedly deaf ears. Nor is it a surprise that AT&T followed this up by announcing intentions to appeal Spaccarelli's victory. What is a surprise, however, is that AT&T finally decided to cut its losses and man up. Rather than stupidly pursuing the lose-lose matter further, Ma Bell has opted to quietly cut Spaccarelli a $935 check and call it a day. So what's next for Spaccarelli?

AT&T is still throttling Spaccarelli’s phone — he had a .31 Mbps download speed on Saturday — but he considers the court ruling a win. He said he plans to use the money to shut off his cellphone service before his contract is up and to go to the AT&T stockholders meeting in April in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Sounds like a plan. From all of us at AppAdvice, you did good, Matt. You did real good.