T-Mobile and AT&T Go Back and Forth in Court Over Customers

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2025 – T-Mobile is trying to take customers from its rivals, and has built a tool to make it as easy as possible to switch.

Now, AT&T is asking federal judges to block T-Mobile’s switching tool from accessing AT&T customer account data. T-Mobile wants the request denied.

The request should be denied, T-Mobile says, because it’s no longer doing what AT&T originally complained about.

The company also accused AT&T of trying to make it more difficult for its customers to find better plans from another carrier. 

A switching tool in T-Mobile’s T-Life app, launched in beta on Nov. 20, prompted users to log into their AT&T or Verizon account and uses that information to recommend a T-Mobile plan and entice them to switch right from their device.

In a Nov. 26 lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas, AT&T had accused T-Mobile of using the tool to illegally scrape customer data from AT&T systems without the company’s consent. 

A back and forth on circumvention measures

By the time the lawsuit was filed, according to court documents, the carriers had already engaged in a back-and-forth in which AT&T repeatedly tried to block the T-Mobile tool and T-Mobile tried to circumvent AT&T’s measures.

The same day the lawsuit was filed, T-Mobile altered its switching tool to ask users for a copy of their bill or to manually enter certain plan information, both of which are routine. It doesn’t plan to start again, at least with respect to AT&T customers, T-Mobile said in a court filing.

On Nov. 30, AT&T filed for a restraining order anyway, asking judges to block T-Mobile’s app from accessing its systems in the future.

T-Mobile said in a Monday, Dec. 8 response that its attorneys told AT&T on Friday, Dec. 4 that the company would keep in place the modified version of its switching tool and not revert back to asking customers to log into their accounts directly.

“These facts resolve the motion. The conduct AT&T challenges is not occurring and AT&T has not objected to the operation of Easy Switch in its current form,” the company wrote. “Courts routinely deny emergency and preliminary relief when, as here, the challenged conduct is not ongoing and there is nothing to enjoin.”

T-Mobile said AT&T “grossly mischaracterizes” the switching tool “in an effort to mask its true motivation – to make it more difficult for AT&T customers to see that T-Mobile may offer better service terms.” 

In its motion asking for a restraining order, AT&T maintained that “this case is not about competition for customers. It is about T-Mobile’s deliberate, unauthorized, and deceptive intrusions into AT&T’s computer systems to scrape AT&T customer data using its ‘T-Life App.’” 

Legally speaking, T-Mobile argued it did nothing improper. Customers were voluntarily logging in to their accounts and sharing information, the company argued, rather than T-Mobile hacking into AT&T systems and retrieving customer data without any permission.

“A customer’s voluntary decision to share their own plan information with T-Mobile from their own phone is not in any respect equivalent or analogous to hacking AT&T’s computer systems,” the company wrote.

An in-person hearing is set  for Tuesday, Dec. 16.

AT&T emphasizes ‘scraping customer data’

An AT&T spokesperson said in an email that “We appreciate T-Mobile says they will stop recklessly scraping customer data for now. We ask that they commit – on the record – to never employing these unlawful tactics that put customers and intellectual property rights at risk again.”

For Verizon’s part, a spokesperson said “T-Mobile's recent ‘switch in 15 minutes’ AI tool poses significant customer privacy concerns that we - and others in the industry - take seriously.” 

AT&T CEO John Stankey said Tuesday at a UBS conference that T-Mobile actually had the right idea by offering a fully online switching process.

“Most of you in this room, if I said, ‘Ok, it’s time to go through your two-year cycle and get a new device, what’s your choice? Do you want to sit at home and do it? Or do you want to come into one of our stores?’” he said. “Most of you would say, ‘I’d rather stay at home.’”

He said AT&T would have something similar rolling out in early 2026, but “we’re taking a little bit of a different attack as to how we’re doing it.”

T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan said at the same conference Tuesday reiterated that the goal was to get prospective customers switching in 15 minutes or less and “start smashing one of the biggest pain points customers have, which is the process of switching.”

An advertising dispute, too

Separately Wednesday, the National Advertising Division, an ad industry watchdog, said it was referring T-Mobile to the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general for declining to participate in an NAD inquiry over its claims of superior 5G capacity. The complaint that prompted the inquiry was brought by AT&T.

“T-Mobile informed NAD that although T-Mobile is a strong supporter of the NAD self-regulatory process, it would decline to participate in this inquiry in light of a pending federal lawsuit brought by AT&T against BBB National Programs,” NAD’s parent organization, the group said in a statement.

“Because T-Mobile declined to participate, NAD will refer this matter to the FTC and state Attorneys General. NAD will also refer the matter to the platforms on which the advertising appeared and with which NAD has a reporting relationship,” NAD wrote.

As an industry self-regulatory body, NAD doesn’t have its own enforcement power but adverse decisions can lead to ads being pulled by platforms and, like in this instance, the group refers some cases to law enforcement officials.

AT&T sued the NAD in October, after the group found the carrier violated NAD rules by tallying adverse decisions against T-Mobile in an ad campaign. Companies aren’t supposed to use NAD releases in promotional material.

The company argued it didn’t violate that rule. But regardless, AT&T said it should only be subject to NAD rules in certain instances, like when it directly initiated a complaint, and potentially not even then. 

“When an NAD case is referred to the FTC, the FTC will first encourage the advertiser to go back to the NAD to participate in the self-regulatory process. At that point, many companies agree that reengaging with the NAD makes more sense than facing FTC scrutiny,” law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth wrote in a January blog post. 

When companies decline, the agency does a more formal review, which can lead to legal action, and publishes its findings on its website.