T-Mobile's "unlimited data" marketing was recently criticized by subscribers claiming that the plan was not entirely unlimited as the company throttles the connection speed of users who have exceeded 17GB of data consumption per month.

After an exhaustive investigation, the Federal Communications Commission is imposing a $7.5 million fine against T-Mobile.

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Aside from the $7.5 million penalty, the FCC also ordered T-Mobile to return $35.5 million in "consumer benefits" to MetroPCS and T-Mo unlimited data subscribers. These benefits will come in a form of bonus data for metered plans, discounted accessories and extra tablet plans.

T-Mobile was also forced by the FCC to pay $5 million in equipment and services to United States schools as part of the Bridge The Homework Gap program. Moreover, T-Mobile was ordered to issue necessary notifications to its customers once they are nearing the threshold of their data plan.

T-Mobile customers, who are eligible for the benefits, will be notified in December on how to claim their bonuses.

In a statement acquired by Android Police, FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said, "Consumers should not have to guess whether so-called 'unlimited' data plans contain key restrictions, like speed constraints, data caps and other material limitations."

This recent FCC ruling is said to the first time the agency has ruled against the so-called unlimited plans offered by network providers to their customers.

While some of these unlimited data plans do offer unrestricted data usage, some have restrictions that throttle the overall Internet speed of the customer once they reach a certain amount of data usage. In 2015, the FCC fined AT&T $100 million over the same misleading ads.

TagsFCC, Federal Communications Commission, T-Mobile, unlimited data, unlimited data plan