T-Mobile "Unlimited Data Plans" - a scam.

[SSSnail]

I just love it when they say "Unlimited" and then place a soft cap on you at 5GB. Come on, 5GB? At least ISPs cap it at a few hundred GBs.

When you reach 5GB, they don't cut you off, but they flat out tell you they're gonna throttle you. Basically, they'll throttle your throughput so bad that it's next to useless so in effect your cap is at 5GB. Why the hell have tiered service when Unlimited means "well, we lied".

Spidey, explain this one?

 

[Malak]

This is pretty easy to explain. 98% of all wireless subscribers never use 5GB of data per month. The few that do are obviously using their phone either incorrectly or seriously need a break from the app store.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

The bandwidth is shared. If everyone was smashing it all the time it would be slow for everyone.

 

[Imp]

Throttling only?

I thought places just charged you like $2/extra Gb; that's what they do with my home internet. Bought a lot of shit from Steam for sale last year, and paid a lot more for 8Gb games...

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Well then, you can still get internet can't you? So technically it IS still unlimited, just very very very slow unlimited.

Also, they all define these terms in your contract, in the fine print. You can't complain if you signed it.

 

[SSSnail]

Well, the whole point is that if they advertised tiered service with different pricing from 3GB to 5GB to UNLIMITED, and if I paid for UNLIMITED, then it should be delivered as such. Anything less is bait and switch.

 

[SSSnail]

Well then, you can still get internet can't you? So technically it IS still unlimited, just very very very slow unlimited.

Also, they all define these terms in your contract, in the fine print. You can't complain if you signed it.

It's not on the contract, but it's on their website in a very hard to find section calls "Terms of Service", which is not mentioned to you, ever.

And yes, technically it's not stopped completely, but if you have to wait half a day for a youtube video to load, then it's pretty much unusable.

 

[amdhunter]

Never had an issue with Sprint.

 

[Phokus]

Well, the whole point is that if they advertised tiered service with different pricing from 3GB to 5GB to UNLIMITED, and if I paid for UNLIMITED, then it should be delivered as such. Anything less is bait and switch.

A big corporation used deceptive marketing tactics, Americans willingly take it up the pooper, Spidey will defend this, water is wet.

 

[zerocool84]

This is pretty easy to explain. 98% of all wireless subscribers never use 5GB of data per month. The few that do are obviously using their phone either incorrectly or seriously need a break from the app store.

Just using Pandora for work ~8hrs a day for a month is easily over 2GB of data by itself and I know tons of people that listen to Pandora all day.

These low data caps kill much of the progression we've had in the mobile sector. We won't be able to stream movies like we want to, stream shows like we want to because of these tiny data caps. They only help the wireless companies and hurt us in the long run.

 

[Malak]

Just using Pandora for work ~8hrs a day for a month is easily over 2GB of data by itself and I know tons of people that listen to Pandora all day.

These low data caps kill much of the progression we've had in the mobile sector. We won't be able to stream movies like we want to, stream shows like we want to because of these tiny data caps. They only help the wireless companies and hurt us in the long run.

How does keeping you from watching movies at work hurting you? You speak nothing but nonsense most of the time.

 

[Soccerman06]

Good thing my carrier doesn't have a data cap (sprint). You could always get the more expensive unlimited plan and not bitch...

 

[Leros]

How does keeping you from watching movies at work hurting you? You speak nothing but nonsense most of the time.

You can hit your cap with streaming video in hours. In theory, I would like to be able to watch Netflix streaming on my phone a few hours every day. (not that I would really ever do that, but I would like the ability).

 

[thepd7]

You can hit your cap with streaming video in hours. In theory, I would like to be able to watch Netflix streaming on my phone a few hours every day. (not that I would really ever do that, but I would like the ability).

lol why would you like to do that? That would be horrible. A phone is not supposed to be a substitute for a computer.


Think of it this way. You go to an "all you can eat" buffet. You can't stay there for 12 hours and eat 15 pounds of food. They'll kick you out, as they should.

Same exact concept.

 

[frostedflakes]

It's a holdover from the 56k dial-up days when there were actually limits on how long you could stay connected. So broadband providers started advertising their service as always on/unlimited, meaning you can stay connected 24/7, not that you can download or upload as much as you want while you're connected.

Deceptive, maybe, but the fine print that explains what unlimited actually means is in the terms of service that you agree to when you sign up for the service.

 

[Tequila]

Never had an issue with Sprint.

Sprint has unlimited 4g but 3g is capped at 5gb.

Not that it matters to me much. At work I'm on our wifi network and same at home. Got some decent 4g signal a while back while travelling but it sure drained the life out of my Evo 4g battery

 

[FelixDeCat]

Tmobile > *

 

[techs]

Only in America can "unlimited" mean "limited" and we just sit back and take it.

 

[SSSnail]

Good thing my carrier doesn't have a data cap (sprint). You could always get the more expensive unlimited plan and not bitch...

How about unlimited was the highest tier they have? Can I resume my bitching now? And I have t mobile

 

[Soccerman06]

How about unlimited was the highest tier they have? Can I resume my bitching now? And I have t mobile

Sorry no bitching is allowed on atot :hmm:

 

[zerocool84]

How does keeping you from watching movies at work hurting you? You speak nothing but nonsense most of the time.

Yes nonsense because who wants to watch shows or movies while they're waiting in line for things or in a taxi or bus or train, or simply sitting outside somewhere like the park? Pure nonsense.

 

[Pulsar]

Unlimited means unlimited. They want to fight about it, it'd be more than worth it to take them to court assuming you haven't signed your life away.

Second, to those being smartasses and saying "well it's just a phone" or "use a computer", shove it where the sun don't shine. For nearly 50% of America, a wireless broadband plan is our ONLY option to connect to the internet faster than 24.4 (which is the max I can get on my phoneline). No cable, no dsl, and I'm not paying $129 a month for some variation of a very small satellite limit.

That said, I use sprint, and I have a true unlimited plan grandfathered in from 5 years ago. Last month I used 18 Gb, this month will probably be a bit less. Family of 5, and it's the only net connection, 18 Gb really isn't all that much considering we're streaming hulu plus and netflix, plus normal usage.

 

[frostedflakes]

Satellite is an option (not a great one, maybe, but a viable option for most people). Also I don't remember plans being anywhere close to $129/mo. I thought the basic plans were closer to $60/mo, and then you do have some pretty hefty one-time equipment/installation fees. And one nice thing about satellite providers (or at least HughesNet does this) is they have a free download period between like 1:00AM to 8:00AM, something like that, where downloads don't count toward your bandwidth limit. So you can schedule large downloads during this period and not have to worry about them eating into the bandwidth allotted for your normal browsing during the day.

But I agree that 5GB/mo isn't nearly enough if this is intended to be your primary connection (not even joking, I have a grandfathered Alltel data plan with Verizon and use like 50GB/mo...). But you have to realize that most customers don't use mobile broadband as their primary, it's just a supplementary connection for when they're on the go. They do most of their high-bandwidth stuff at home on their primary connection.

 

[reallyscrued]

This is pretty easy to explain. 98% of all wireless subscribers never use 5GB of data per month. The few that do are obviously using their phone either incorrectly or seriously need a break from the app store.

Not sure if you're trolling...but that's a pretty shameless cop-out for wireless providers (or even ISPs) to say 98% of their subscribers don't use the 5 GB. It almost implies that if they did, their networks won't be able to take it.

If it's marketed as unlimited, it should be delivered as such. Would buffets be able to get away with this? Fat people would be comfortably rolling in their graves. 90% of people can't eat as much as them..so they will be cut off. Great business technique assholes.

Cliffs:
Suck it Comcast and your 250GB/mo cap.

 

[IGBT]

all those wireless gigahertz flying around.