AT&T pushed the Federal Communications Commission to omit unflattering data on its DSL internet service from a government internet speed report, and left the program.

According to the Wall Street Journal, AT&T also didn’t provide information the FCC needed to validate speeds on those customers.

"AT&T this year told the commission it will no longer cooperate with the FCC's SamKnows speed test," The Wall Street Journal wrote in a report.

AT&T already convinced the FCC to exclude certain DSL test results from last year's Measuring Broadband America report. The reports are based on the SamKnows testing equipment installed in thousands of homes across the US.

"AT&T was dismayed at its report card from a government test measuring Internet speeds" and thus "pushed the Federal Communications Commission to omit unflattering data on its DSL Internet service from the report," the Journal wrote.

"In the end, the DSL data was left out of the report released late last year, to the chagrin of some agency officials," the Journal wrote. "AT&T's remaining speed tiers notched high marks."

FCC began the Measuring Broadband America program in 2011 to compare the actual speeds customers receive to the advertised speeds customers are promised. The FCC released reports annually through 2016, but no further reports have been released in the years that folowed. in 2018, the FCC finally released both the 2017 and 2018 reports. The 2017 report includes two categories for AT&T, one for its DSL technology and another for its DSL-based IP broadband. While AT&T's oldest DSL service only provided 82 percent of advertised download speeds, AT&T IP broadband was over 100 percent. The 2018 report only includes AT&T's IP broadband category, obviously excluding the company's worst results.

AT&T claims that it offers a "best-in-class tool" to measure its consumer broadband services. The company's tool measures performance on all AT&T IP broadband technologies and "is more accurate, versatile, and transparent," according to the company.

The Journal report also provided details about other providers trying to artificially boost their FCC speed-test scores.

The report claims that in some cases, providers boost speeds for households during the actual FCC speed-testing period. In the past, Comcast had even upgraded speeds in some regions without notifying the FCC, making test results look stellar, according to the WSJ.