T-Mobile to Restrict Unlimited Customers Using Up to 2,000 GB of Data Per Month

[McGiord]

Do you have unlimited water for a set price? If you're paying for water based on how much you consume each month, then your analogy doesn't work.

If you're paying for unlimited water each month, is it fair to fill your neighbor's swimming pool with your water? I mean, you have unlimited water, you should be able to fill all of your neighbor's pools with your unlimited water.

The public service water system has a capacity and through my house's water main pipe I can only get a limited amount of water in a given period of time. As much as I wanted I cannot get more out of it. I'm not paying for unlimited water I only pay for what I consume. Now regarding mobile data I do pay $30/ month to AT&T for "unlimited" service, which is technicality limited to the amount of data I can download at 4G LTE in one month.

 

[DavidLynch]

T-Mobile is offering unlimited data on your phone's data plan. Why is this difficult for people to understand? The 7GB of tethering is a generous bonus that few other providers offer.

And then we complain when providers stop offering the unlimited data plans...

 

[McGiord]

From Wikipedia: Peak download rates up to 299.6 Mbit/s and upload rates up to 75.4 Mbit/s depending on the user equipment category.

You cannot make the 4G LTE system to download more than 3.24TB per day.

 

[McGiord]

T-Mobile is offering unlimited data on your phone's data plan. Why is this difficult for people to understand? The 7GB of tethering is a generous bonus that few other providers offer.

And then we complain when providers stop offering the unlimited data plans...

Isn't a bonus. It's a service. It isn't free. Naive customers are the real issue. When people overpay for a service there will be enough demand and the prices keep going up.
Nothing is free. But there is limited competition in the U.S. Market. I hope Google finishes their ISP experiments and provides some real competition to shake the market.

 

[campyguy]

:munching popcorn:

 

[aristobrat]

Isn't a bonus. It's a service. It isn't free. Naive customers are the real issue. When people overpay for a service there will be enough demand and the prices keep going up.
Nothing is free. But there is limited competition in the U.S. Market. I hope Google finishes their ISP experiments and provides some real competition to shake the market.

When people overpay for a service?

AT&T never offered an unlimited data service that allowed tethering. Either did Sprint.

When Verizon offered it, it was a $30/month add-on to the already $30/month data plan, which was added to $50/month voice + text base. So you're talking about a plan that cost more than $100/month. Not that it matters, since Verizon dropped it many years ago.

So now T-Mobile is the only US carrier that offers this feature, and they're doing it for significantly cheaper than it's ever been done before.

How is this an example of naive customers overpaying for something? Do you honestly think there's even a chance AT&T and Verizon will bring back an unlimited data plan, much less one that offers an included bucket of data for tethering?

 

[McGiord]

When people overpay for a service?

AT&T never offered an unlimited data service that allowed tethering. Either did Sprint.

When Verizon offered it, it was a $30/month add-on to the already $30/month data plan, which was added to $50/month voice + text base. So you're talking about a plan that cost more than $100/month. Not that it matters, since Verizon dropped it many years ago.

So now T-Mobile is the only US carrier that offers this feature, and they're doing it for significantly cheaper than it's ever been done before.

How is this an example of naive customers overpaying for something? Do you honestly think there's even a chance AT&T and Verizon will bring back an unlimited data plan, much less one that offers an included bucket of data for tethering?

The hardware technology currently in your possession is not fully utilized because the carriers had been successful at overcharging for their services. They claim to be the fastest in the market when in reality you barely get a signal or reach peak speed because their services are poor.
AT&T started with the iPhone with Edge speed at $20/month, then it was changed to $30/month for 3G and since then all that are grandfathered still ou $30/month for 4G LTE, when you reach their defined cap they don't scale down to 3G or Edge but make it impossible to be useful.
Because most of the new smartphones users never complained whe they signed in into the data quota plans and they keep paying you have caps and extra charges when you consume more data.
Other markets are better in terms of price/speed/quota.
Wi-Fi calling being limited is another example how we are continually screwed by the carriers.
http://qz.com/360548/these-countries-have-the-fastest-4g-wireless-networks-in-the-world/
It's not a matter of who is right or what is just, is a matter of having real services that are on par with the hardware technology we are buying every year. Not the crippled experience normally offered because the majority is pleased with what they have or pay. If you pay for 10GB/month and don't use all of them, do you get data rollover? Not all carriers offer that.

 

[aristobrat]

The hardware technology currently in your possession is not fully utilized because the carriers had been successful at overcharging for their services.

Can you please give an example of this, using T-Mobile's unlimited smartphone data plan?

 

[McGiord]

Can you please give an example of this, using T-Mobile's unlimited smartphone data plan?

This article is a good example. Even though T mobile has better offers when compared with the other carriers in the US, it's still crying about user "abusing". As a user you cannot make the network work any faster therefore you cannot abuse it, you are just using it. Their network hardware doesn't have enough capability city to handle all users at maximum speed all the time, nor any other carrier does. I'm not a T mobile customer so I can't provide you with my experience with it.
I like their approach to make a nice competition with AT&T and Verizon, but crying about it just makes them behave the same way as other carriers and that sucks.
Tethering or not you cannot consume any more data in a given period of time than what their network can manage.
if you cannot provide the services to all your users at the same time then you start prioritizing and no one likes to be the lowest priority as a customer.
Kudos to those who maximize the output of their data connection and sorry for those who can't get it all.
If you are paying for something that you are not using to its fullest potential: wasting money.

 

[AdonisSMU]

This article is a good example. Even though T mobile has better offers when compared with the other carriers in the US, it's still crying about user "abusing". As a user you cannot make the network work any faster therefore you cannot abuse it, you are just using it. Their network hardware doesn't have enough capability city to handle all users at maximum speed all the time, nor any other carrier does. I'm not a T mobile customer so I can't provide you with my experience with it.
I like their approach to make a nice competition with AT&T and Verizon, but crying about it just makes them behave the same way as other carriers and that sucks.
Tethering or not you cannot consume any more data in a given period of time than what their network can manage.
if you cannot provide the services to all your users at the same time then you start prioritizing and no one likes to be the lowest priority as a customer.
Kudos to those who maximize the output of their data connection and sorry for those who can't get it all.
If you are paying for something that you are not using to its fullest potential: wasting money.

ATT has rollover data... thats why I didnt go to T mobile.

 

[McGiord]

Nice for you. It wasn't there previously, I believe it was added after T-Mobile started their campaigns.

 

[zhenya]

This article is a good example. Even though T mobile has better offers when compared with the other carriers in the US, it's still crying about user "abusing". As a user you cannot make the network work any faster therefore you cannot abuse it, you are just using it. Their network hardware doesn't have enough capability city to handle all users at maximum speed all the time, nor any other carrier does. I'm not a T mobile customer so I can't provide you with my experience with it.
I like their approach to make a nice competition with AT&T and Verizon, but crying about it just makes them behave the same way as other carriers and that sucks.
Tethering or not you cannot consume any more data in a given period of time than what their network can manage.
if you cannot provide the services to all your users at the same time then you start prioritizing and no one likes to be the lowest priority as a customer.
Kudos to those who maximize the output of their data connection and sorry for those who can't get it all.
If you are paying for something that you are not using to its fullest potential: wasting money.

Regardless of what you think, the spectrum available for mobile data operations does not provide anywhere near enough bandwidth to allow every user to use their connection at full speed all of the time. It's not possible, technically, nor is it desirable from an efficiency standpoint. The vast majority of users will use their connection in a 'normal' fashion which means in bursts. Building a network to allow hundreds of millions of devices to operate at maximum capacity 24/7 is not only not possible with the available wireless spectrum, but would be so costly that most of those users would no longer be able to afford service.

The reason that T-Mobile distinguishes between smart-phone data and tethering is basically all about torrenting. Mobile devices for the most part can only utilize a single stream of data at once, so even if they are watching a lot of HD video, their overall ability to consume network data is limited. Once you allow users to connect regular computers to that network, that opens the door for bit-torrent traffic, which will utilize all available network capacity by design. See the first paragraph again to understand why this is not possible or desirable.

 

[SteveW928]

wow 2 TB i don't even use that with my cable ISP and i DL a lot of stuff

No kidding!!! I consider myself a fairly heavy broadband user (i.e.: Cable), but the most I've ever used in a month is a few hundred GB. What the heck could they be doing?

 

[SteveW928]

THEN DON'T ****ING CALL IT UNLIMITED AND THEN THEY WON'T USE UNLIMITED AMOUNTS OF DATA! ****ERS!!

Very true! Decide what it is. Then call it what it is. Price it somewhat fairly.

 

[SteveW928]

I'd also be *really* curious about how many we're talking about here. That's such an extreme amount of data, I'm wondering if this 'some users' is like 2.

 

[McGiord]

Regardless of what you think, the spectrum available for mobile data operations does not provide anywhere near enough bandwidth to allow every user to use their connection at full speed all of the time. It's not possible, technically, nor is it desirable from an efficiency standpoint. The vast majority of users will use their connection in a 'normal' fashion which means in bursts. Building a network to allow hundreds of millions of devices to operate at maximum capacity 24/7 is not only not possible with the available wireless spectrum, but would be so costly that most of those users would no longer be able to afford service.

The reason that T-Mobile distinguishes between smart-phone data and tethering is basically all about torrenting. Mobile devices for the most part can only utilize a single stream of data at once, so even if they are watching a lot of HD video, their overall ability to consume network data is limited. Once you allow users to connect regular computers to that network, that opens the door for bit-torrent traffic, which will utilize all available network capacity by design. See the first paragraph again to understand why this is not possible or desirable.

You just prove my point that the carriers network isn't there yet, they are still operating like in the 90s.
For every line activation they do they should be able to scale the network, but they don't. Where all those activation and renewal fees go?

 

[McGiord]

And about torrenting they can simply block the ports or something like it and be done with it.

 

[DavidLynch]

ATT has rollover data... thats why I didnt go to T mobile.

T-Mobile does too and they start you off with 10GB in your rollover data stash on any plan with 3GB or more per month.

 

[zhenya]

You just prove my point that the carriers network isn't there yet, they are still operating like in the 90s.
For every line activation they do they should be able to scale the network, but they don't. Where all those activation and renewal fees go?

No, wireless bandwidth is very much a finite commodity. You seem to think that there is unlimited capacity out there that the networks are just holding back because they are greedy. Certainly there are areas where they could invest in additional coverage, but in the majority of areas, coverage is not the issue, the ability of available technology to carry the network load is. Investing more money in areas that have plenty of coverage won't change that, despite what you wish to be true.

And about torrenting they can simply block the ports or something like it and be done with it.

Only moderately effective, and again, because wireless bandwidth is relatively scarce, it takes only a couple of users on a given tower taking the relatively easy steps to bypass that kind of blocking to consume all the available bandwidth. And really, is someone who is advocating for 'unlimited to really mean unlimited' now advocating for classifying traffic and blocking some of it based on type??

 

[McGiord]

No, wireless bandwidth is very much a finite commodity. You seem to think that there is unlimited capacity out there that the networks are just holding back because they are greedy. Certainly there are areas where they could invest in additional coverage, but in the majority of areas, coverage is not the issue, the ability of available technology to carry the network load is. Investing more money in areas that have plenty of coverage won't change that, despite what you wish to be true.



Only moderately effective, and again, because wireless bandwidth is relatively scarce, it takes only a couple of users on a given tower taking the relatively easy steps to bypass that kind of blocking to consume all the available bandwidth. And really, is someone who is advocating for 'unlimited to really mean unlimited' now advocating for classifying traffic and blocking some of it based on type??

What is your definition of bandwidth? Why do you think it is scarce? Ins't it because the carriers don't have the capability to service all their customers?

Where do you get the idea that I think the carriers have unlimited capacity?

You are making a lot of inferences projecting your thoughts.

The only things I am advocating for:
1) better smartphone customers that don't pay for non-sense charges from the carriers, and demand better services.
2) faster connection speed for data by the carriers not limiting your smartphone connecting to their crippled network
3) no carrier interference with the way you use your data

My post about torrenting and blocking the ports, is to dismiss the need to limit all the users when they can do something as simple as that. I'm not in favor of it.

Let's give this thought a try: why can't they provide Wi-Fi services, increasing the speed, coverage and capacity?
http://fortune.com/2015/01/26/wifi-cellphone-plan/

 

[_Refurbished_]

The public service water system has a capacity and through my house's water main pipe I can only get a limited amount of water in a given period of time. As much as I wanted I cannot get more out of it. I'm not paying for unlimited water I only pay for what I consume. Now regarding mobile data I do pay $30/ month to AT&T for "unlimited" service, which is technicality limited to the amount of data I can download at 4G LTE in one month.

You pay for your water based on how much you consume. If you give water to your neighbor, you are completely justified doing so because you're paying for it.

Theoretically, if it were unlimited water for just your household, then it wouldn't be fair to use that same water in all of your houses around town (because, of course, you're filthy rich and own plenty of houses). While you would be getting unlimited water for your main household, you would still need to purchase water for your other houses. The word unlimited is perfectly acceptable in that situation, since you receive unlimited water for your main house. If your water company gave you 100 gallons of free water to use at your other houses, that doesn't negate the fact that you get unlimited water in your main household. This can be directly compared to what T-Mobile is doing with their unlimited data.


T-Mobile is giving users 7GB of hotspot data to use on additional devices. This stands alone from your unlimited phone data, and is a feature for their plans. This is like the water company giving you 100 gallons of free water for additional houses.

T-Mobile is going after users that are using their phone data for all of their devices, which is not what you are paying for, nor what is advertised. T-Mobile is completely justified going after these people and their wording is perfectly acceptable.

On the other hand, I find it misleading that T-Mobile says that all of their plans have unlimited data. Their "throttled" data is slow enough that they shouldn't be allowed to call their plans unlimited. They should be forced to advertise their plans as "10GB of data with 64kbit throttled data thereafter." But that's a conversation for another day .

 

[AdonisSMU]

You pay for your water based on how much you consume. If you give water to your neighbor, you are completely justified doing so because you're paying for it.

Theoretically, if it were unlimited water for just your household, then it wouldn't be fair to use that same water in all of your houses around town (because, of course, you're filthy rich and own plenty of houses). While you would be getting unlimited water for your main household, you would still need to purchase water for your other houses. The word unlimited is perfectly acceptable in that situation, since you receive unlimited water for your main house. If your water company gave you 100 gallons of free water to use at your other houses, that doesn't negate the fact that you get unlimited water in your main household. This can be directly compared to what T-Mobile is doing with their unlimited data.


T-Mobile is giving users 7GB of hotspot data to use on additional devices. This stands alone from your unlimited phone data, and is a feature for their plans. This is like the water company giving you 100 gallons of free water for additional houses.

T-Mobile is going after users that are using their phone data for all of their devices, which is not what you are paying for, nor what is advertised. T-Mobile is completely justified going after these people and their wording is perfectly acceptable.

On the other hand, I find it misleading that T-Mobile says that all of their plans have unlimited data. Their "throttled" data is slow enough that they shouldn't be allowed to call their plans unlimited. They should be forced to advertise their plans as "10GB of data with 64kbit throttled data thereafter." But that's a conversation for another day .

Its not misleading. You are free to read the SLA in the TOS. Don't hate the messenger when you're the one who chose to ignore the message.

 

[Shirasaki]

A fantastic debate. And this is the first thing I get.

Then, talking about unlimited, I suggest T-Mobile use such "400GB of mobile data, and 7GB of tethered data per month with only $80!". Would it be better?

By the way, I still use highly limited mobile data plan (3.5GB per month and $10 per GB outside allowance). I am currently happy with it, but I hope ISP could provide more in the same price tag, since downloading a couple of apps and making long time video call could exceed data in an accelerated speed.

 

[geoff5093]

ATT has rollover data... thats why I didnt go to T mobile.

Your data only rolls over for 1 month, after that month it disappears. T-Mobile on the other hand also had rollover data, but it lasts for a year I believe.

 

[_Refurbished_]

Its not misleading. You are free to read the SLA in the TOS. Don't hate the messenger when you're the one who chose to ignore the message.

Another "read the TOS" argument, so tired

Unfortunately, until your data gets throttled there's no way to truly know how slow your internet will become after you've reached your monthly cap. Reading the TOS doesn't help you in this case.

While I prefer this implementation to overages, you still need to pay for more data in order to resume using your phone normally. It's not like the throttled data is usable, but slower. It's unusable in most situations and requires your to pay for more data if you wish to resume using your phone normally. I think the government should dictate a minimum throttled speed in order for a company to advertise unlimited internet. Just as they recently made the term broadband require a 10mbit connection.