AT&T FirstNet customers are experiencing erroneous bills of approximately $6,200 for minimal data usage, stemming from a system error that incorrectly charges $2 per megabyte. This issue has occurred in at least two separate instances, affecting a Texas police officer in late 2024 and an active-duty military member from Florida recently.
Despite AT&T fixing the charges after media inquiry, the company has not publicly identified the root cause of the system error or detailed any corrective measures. The main topics covered are erroneous billing, AT&T's FirstNet service for first responders, and the company's lack of transparency in addressing a recurring problem.
If you’re an AT&T FirstNet customer and suddenly get hit with a $6,200 charge, the good news is that it’s probably a mistake and can be corrected. But actually getting the wrong charge wiped out might not be so easy.
This has now happened at least twice. In December 2024, a Texas police officer received a $6,223 bill with a $6,194 charge for using 3.1GB of data. He said he had unlimited data but was charged incorrectly after moving a line to AT&T’s FirstNet service for first responders. He called AT&T and went to an AT&T store but only got the bill reversed after contacting the AT&T president’s office.
An AT&T spokesperson told Ars at the time that it was “investigating to determine what caused this system error.” But AT&T never revealed exactly what caused it, and now another FirstNet user has gone through an almost identical ordeal.
On Monday this week, an active-duty military member from Florida emailed us and said he was “experiencing the exact same issue with AT&T.” The man, who preferred that we not publish his name, showed us a bill with a $6,196 charge for about 3.1GB of data use.
$2 per megabyte
The bill stated he had FirstNet Unlimited service from January 19 to February 14. There was also a note of a service change on January 19 and a charge for “FN Data PPU 3,098MB at $2.00 per MB,” adding up to $6,196. This was almost identical to the Texas man’s December 2024 bill that had a $6,194 line item listed as “Data Pay Per use 3,097MB at $2.00 per MB.”
We contacted AT&T on Tuesday with details about the Florida military member’s bill. We asked AT&T if it ever figured out what caused the similar billing problem in December 2024, whether it made any changes to prevent it from happening again, and for details on the cause of the new error.
AT&T didn’t answer our specific questions, but it fixed the bill within a couple of hours. “This was a big relief,” the FirstNet customer told us later that day, saying that AT&T “knocked it out completely today off of my bill.”
Meridiano
