The FTC is now mulling over its next course of action.

Although previously the FCC had some success in hauling AT&T to ourt over its throttling unlimited data plans without providing clear warnings to its suctomers, the FTC tried to do the same and ended up with a not-so-favourable result.

A Ninth Circuit court of appeals has thrown out FTC’s lawsuit against AT&T over allegations that the carrier failed to properly disclose slowdown in bandwidth to customers.

In its ruling the district court has said that the supposed violations did not occur when AT&T’s service was covered by common carrier exemptions from rules on deceptive and unfair practices.

The court believes that AT&T’s exemption is based on its inherent status as a common carrier, as opposed to its activities, and thus this exemption lets the carrier say as little as it did about throttling.

As expected, AT&T was all “pleased” with the ruling while the FTC said it was “disappointed.”

This is however not the end of the matter since the FTC is now “considering” its other options and could appeal this decision.

The FCC can push AT&T to the wall and demand that it cough up a $100 million in fine. That is possible in theory. However in practice, the Commission can’t obtain refunds for customers like the FTC can.