Battle escalates in dispute over ‘unlimited’ data service

NEW YORK — AT&T is offering to discuss a settlement to an iPhone user who won a small-claims case that alleged the company was slowing down his “unlimited” data service.

In a letter dated Friday, a law firm retained by AT&T Inc. is threatening to shut off Matthew Spaccarelli’s phone service if he doesn’t sit down to talk.

The phone company doesn’t say if the settlement would involve money beyond the $850 award the Simi Valley, Calif., resident won from the company in small claims court on Feb. 24.

AT&T has about 17 million smartphone customers on “unlimited” plans, and has started slowing down service for users who hit certain traffic thresholds. Spaccarelli maintained at his Feb. 24 small-claims hearing that AT&T broke its promise to provide “unlimited” service; the judge agreed.

Spaccarelli has posted online the documents he used to argue his case and encourages other AT&T customers copy his suit. Legal settlements usually include non-disclosure agreements that would force Spaccarelli to take down the documents.

In its letter, AT&T asked Spaccarelli to be quiet about the settlement talks, including the fact that it offered to start them, another common stipulation. Spaccarelli said he was not interested in settling, and forwarded the letter to The Associated Press.

Maine’s unemployment rate stable at 7 percent in January

AUGUSTA – The Maine Labor Department says January’s unemployment rate was 7 percent, the same rate as December.

Commissioner Robert Winglass said Tuesday the preliminary, seasonally adjusted rate was down 1 percentage point from January 2011.

For the month, 49,500 Mainers were unemployed, compared to 56,000 who were jobless a year earlier. Cumberland County had the lowest jobless rate, while Washington County had the highest.

Unemployment rates across New England range from 5 percent in Vermont to 10.9 percent in Rhode Island, with the regional average coming in at 7.2 percent. The national jobless rate in January was 8.3 percent.

Walmart scores exclusive DVD ‘disc-to-digital’ service

LOS ANGELES — Walmart has unveiled an exclusive arrangement with five of Hollywood’s top studios to convert DVDs into digital copies.

Beginning April 16, consumers will be able to take their DVDs to about 3,500 Walmart stores and have a digital copy stored in the cloud – a storage system offering access from a broad array of Internet-connected devices – for $2 each. Customers will have the option to upgrade standard DVDs to high-definition online copies for $5 each.

Walmart, by far the nation’s largest retailer of DVDs, will be the only store that can offer so-called “disc-to-digital” until its period of exclusivity ends in the fall. The retail giant received exclusive rights from the studios in exchange for an aggressive offer to launch the service first.

Also announced Tuesday was Walmart’s support for UltraViolet, the online movie technology backed by most movie studios and a coalition of technology companies. The previously expected news provides a major boost to UltraViolet, which has had a rocky launch and faces a formidable competitor in Apple’s iCloud film service.