T-Mobile to Simplify Phone Bills With Single Unlimited Data Plan and No Additional Fees

Drink a glass of water, now spit it into your friends mouth, now have them spit it back into your mouth. Repeat (well, as long as you're alive).

There you go, infinite water source.

 

True if you never leave the city, but Utah has alot of rural areas that Tmo has no coverage. If it did I would switch. If you use over 20 GB of data a month I get it. But with Verizon having roll over data now and great LTE in the middle of nowhere and lower parking subbasement at City Creek i'm good.

 

True, but why can't we just pay our bill. We might want it, because it's convenient, but they *require* it. We don't get an option. Just seems odd.

 

Everything is finite. Data, too. Even if you used the entire universe to store bits, it would be finite. Bandwidth is finite, and time is limited. I don't have a billion years to live waiting for data to download. In fact telecomm frequencies are an even more precious resource than water.

 

Except you can't run out of bits and bytes....a little different...sure it uses throughput but it's not a physical thing like electricity and water.

 

They probably encourge it to save money (the more people use autopay, the less missed payments and the lower the cost of bill collection). But AFAIK you don't have to use autopay, you just pay a bit more if you don't.

 

Data is a limited resource. You cannot build capacity out. It's like saying 640kB should be enough for everyone. As soon as capacity is available, people just use 4K, 120fps 8K. Yes, there's a limit to how much information our brain can meaningfully process, but we'll always need more and more and more, just because we can. When was the last time you said that your 100 TB backup is enough? Or your gigabit internet is so fast that you can't reach its limits?

The real difference is that water is vital, while 120fps 8K isn't.

 

Don't you love Macrumors, posters go off on tangents like water, beat it to death, then repeat,repeat,repeat. Like Bernie said enough about the damn water

 

Tethering is also unlimited, but limited to 3G.
You can pay an additional fee to get 4G tethering.

 

Yes, I do. In theory, assuming I'm an average person using an average amount of data, the net monthly cost should be about the same to me regardless of billing. The price ISPs charge today is essentially an averaging of all users. Those who use less data are in essence subsidizing the service of those who use more data.

Currently I pay $40/month for some relatively fast internet. Let's say the average usage is 200GB/month. So the price should be $0.20/GB, right?

So if I use 100GB in a month, I would pay $20. If I use 400GB in a month, I would pay $80. It seems fair to me.
If I use less, why shouldn't I save some money? If I use more, why shouldn't I pay more?

If I decide to get a hot tub, my water bill should go up. If I decide to get a 4K TV, my internet bill should go up. If I decide to not use my dryer and instead air dry my laundry, my electricity bill should go down. If I decide to not use internet for a week and instead read a book, my internet bill should go down.

Why does my grandfather, who checks his Yahoo email and weather once per week at most, pay the same amount as me, who streams at least two episodes of a TV show daily?

Why should some guy who hosts a basement videogame server pay the same amount as me?

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As someone smarter than me explained above, it is in fact not true that the internet is unlimited. There are physical limits.

If anything, it is water that is pseudo-unlimited as nearly every molecule of water used is eventually returned to the ground, air, or oceans.

 

Me 2 Grandfathered AT&T unlimited talk, text and data for $117 a month. Been with them since 2008 and very pleased.

 

I get service at City Creek and yea, every time I am in a lower-level parking lot, Im just dying to get service to make my calls for the 20 seconds I'm down there. Lol.

What is your plan price? I dont ever go over 6GB per phone per month. I have two lines.

 

Holy crap. So my bill just went down with T-Mobile AGAIN?! Now for my family of 4, I'm paying a flat $160 with nothing else on top of that, I'm getting a $5/line discount for having autopay set up, and a 15% corporate discount bringing my bill to a total of $119/month, or $29.75/person. If any of these people on my plan use less than 2GB in a month, their bill is $19.75 for the month. Holy crap. I'm calling right now to see if they're seriously still going to honor those discounts. This sounds too good to be true.

 

This is my exact experience only my shift was from AT&T to T-Mobile. Has been frustrating at times, but overall worth it. I've also managed to get some free stuff on Tuesdays from time to time.

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I'm not sure if all those deals will stack like that. Also why would the price go down for less than 2GB of data? Maybe you have something special, but I'm pretty sure the unlimited plan described here doesn't include a reduced cost for using less data.

 

These guys change their data plans more often than Trump changes his stance on political issues.

 

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I'm not sure if all those deals will stack like that. Also why would the price go down for less than 2GB of data? Maybe you have something special, but I'm pretty sure the unlimited plan described here doesn't include a reduced cost for using less data.[/QUOTE]

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The rep I talked to didn't know for sure if the autopay and corporate discounts were still going to be on there, but her supervisor was pretty sure that they are staying and they'll know for sure by the 22nd.

 

Single line service will always cost much more with all post paid plans on all carriers. I have a friend who was the last Verizon hold out, he's finally had it with Verizon paying over $180 a month for a single line. He's been paying that forever, being grandfathered into the unlimited plan for years. He moved to TMo One.

So now that they're including all taxes and fees in the $70 base price, this is nice discount for those on the One plan, as taxes and fees usually add up to be 15-20% of the bill.

I'm holding on to my simple choice as long as possible. I have 10 lines, couple of unlimited and couple of 6GB, the rest being 4GB, plus a 5GB/mo IPad all for $210 all fees and taxes included. I guess it's the perk for the early TMo adopters for sticking with TMo when their service was just barely acceptable. Now everywhere I go it's very strong reception.

 

Had to use a T-mobile iPhone SE for two weeks some time ago. Horrible coverage compared to my AT&T 6S Plus, and I live just 50 miles from Los Angeles. Don't even get me started on indoor performance. I don't care how many times John Legere says he's improved the network. If that was improvement, I can't imagine what horrible service long time T-mobile users had before.

Nope. Definitely not switching to T-Mobile. I may be paying a lot for my 10GB of AT&T, but being able to tether at full LTE speeds on the train or in someplace with no internet is totally worth it.

 

It includes unlimited tethering, but at a very slow 512kbps

 

Just not an accurate argument, as other people have and probably will continue to point out. You ask why internet isn't like water? You first should establish why internet IS like water. Your initial post was that they're both 'utilities' .... Hm, from my recollection of water, it doesn't appear to share any similarities with 'internet' or 'data transfer.' Your initial premise is very weak, and then based on that premise your argument moves forward. We pay for the internet equipment, I don't use 'less of the equipment' because I check my email once a month, indeed I use the same amount of it. I may use more data through it, but I'm not reducing the supply of 'internet' by using it, whereas I am with water (your water cycle theory aside, it's simply false with respect to using the water supply as is very very well known to us in CA at this point, and so you will get charged for use of water.) Use of internet, amount of data, and so on, are technical inefficiencies that are solvable, I mean hell why is it that the jump from 56k to fiber wasn't proportional in cost to our use of the data difference? Just so so many arguments why your theory is incorrect, I'll perhaps find better examinations after work, as even the ISPs themselves have let slip that there's no actual technical reason for charging for data caps, only a business reason to extract more money. There's technical reasons why people who consume more water get charged more.

Edit, heres one http://www.cio.com/article/3075975/...ps-dont-want-you-to-know-about-data-caps.html

 

SAN Francisco here. 9 lines with att and 4 lines with T-Mobile. Att blows T-Mobile away in every location I go. Sad part is T-Mobile has better service in Cambodia than they have in Los Angeles. Haha.

And the one plan. No no no. I have 9 lines sharing 35 gb on att for $248 a month after tax. The "TMO is unlimited" is garbage. You have to pay more for quality video. You have to pay more to use the data as a hotspot. And that's assuming there's decent signal to even be usable. I see 4G more than I see LTE on my TMO iPhone in sf and LA and SD. Pass.

 

Yeah but after you drink it you pee it out! So.... there!

Oh and I love John Legere! Awesome CEO!

 

If you watched the whole keynote...someone asked this exact question. Truth is that their 6gb plan is $50 and with taxes and fees that one line costs over $60 a month...so $70 all in is not that much more for a lot more.

 

I contend the internet is like water. Both are delivered to your home through infrastructure, and both are essentially a service. I'm not really paying the water company for a gallon of water, rather I'm paying them to clean a gallon of water and bring it to me over a network of pipes, valves, and reservoirs. I'm not really paying my ISP for a webpage, rather I'm paying them to bring it to me over a network of wires, switches, and servers.

I can very easily place the word water into what you said and it still makes sense: We pay for the water equipment, I don't use 'less of the equipment' because I run my tap once a month, indeed I use the same amount of it. I may use more water through it, but I'm not reducing the supply of worldwide water by using it.

Also, while yes local water is finite, so is the internet. Thing of a DDoS attack. Too many people trying to access the same resource at once causes it to fail.

You're talking about data transfer, which is analogous to water flow-rate. Increasing my house's water connection from 50 gallons per minute to 500 gallons per minute won't cause me to use more water, but it will help me full my hot tub quicker. Likewise, if my house only supports 120volt electricity, I can't charge my electric car as fast, but if I upgrade to 240volt electricity, I can charge my electric car faster.

I look forward to your better examinations after work. The fact is ISPs really really don't want us to think of them as a utility. That is why they muddle the facts and go on all sorts of industry-funded campaign to draw a distinction where there is really no meaningful difference.

I think of it this way - what does my ISP really provide for me? They upkeep the infrastructure, and they provide me a connection to some larger internet system. Isn't that the same thing my electric company provides - infrastructure upkeep and connection to a larger power grid? Isn't that the same thing my water company provides - infrastructure upkeep and connection to a larger water reservoir? My ISP doesn't actually make any of the data I consume - Netflix and MacRumors forum members make the data Likewise, my electric company doesn't make the electricity (or, not all of it), but rather a power plant up north does. Likewise, the water company doesn't make the water (though they do clean it), but the water comes from somewhere else.

Yes, there are differences. None of the differences change the fact that I think economically, we would be better if ISPs were treated like utilities and if ISPs charged us by unit of use.

 

The link talks about broadband backbone, not wireless (radio). Radio spectrum allocation is extremely limited.

Shannon and Hartley's theorem from the last century already gave an upper bound for channel capacity in noise limited channels.

Spectrum is a finite resource - especially usable spectrum (for practical purposes 1-3Ghz range).

Data caps are therefore not necessarily unreasonable.

From a phone hence brevity.