a fee, while Sprint Nextel offers a Wi-Fi connected "mobile hotspot" tethering feature at an added charge. However, actions by the FCC and a small claims court in California may make it easier for consumers to tether. On July 31, 2012, the FCC released an unofficial announcement of Commission action, decreeing Verizon Wireless must pay US$1.25 million to resolve the investigation regarding compliance of the C Block Spectrum (see US Wireless Spectrum Auction of 2008). The announcement also stated that "(Verizon) recently revised its service offerings such that consumers on usage-based pricing plans may tether, using any application, without paying an additional fee." After that judgement, Verizon released "Share Everything" plans that enable tethering, however users must drop old plans they were grandfathered under (such as the Unlimited Data plans) and switch, or pay a tethering fee. In another instance, Judge Russell Nadel of the Ventura Superior Court awarded AT&T customer Matt Spaccarelli US$850, despite the fact that Spaccarelli had violated his terms of service by jailbreaking his iPhone in order to fully utilize his iPhone's hardware. Spaccarelli demonstrated that AT&T had unfairly throttled his data connection. His data shows that AT&T had been throttling his connection after approximately 2GB of data was used. Spaccarelli responded by creating a personal web page in order to provide information that allows others to file a similar lawsuit, commenting: "Hopefully with all this concrete data and the courts on our side, AT&T will be forced to change something. Let’s just hope it chooses to go the way of Sprint, not T-Mobile." While T-Mobile did eventually allow tethering, on August 31, 2015 the company announced it will punish users who abuse its unlimited data by violating T-Mobile's rules on tethering (which unlike standard data does carry a 7 GB cap before throttling takes effect) by permanently kicking them off the unlimited plans and making users sign up for tiered data plans. T-Mobile mentioned that it was only a small handful of users who abused the tethering rules by using an Android app that masks T-Mobile's tethering monitoring and uses as much as 2 TB's per month, causing speed issues for most customers who don't abuse the rules. See also Internet Connection Sharing Mobile broadband Mobile Internet device (MID) Mobile modems and routers Open Garden Smartbook Smartphone References Wireless networking Mobile telecommunications Net neutrality