T-Mobile Wants To Stop Network Abusers

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T-Mobile's CEO John Legere made a blog post yesterday addressing the growing problem of customers, or "hackers" as he called them, that are "willfully stealing" data.

However, these violators are going out of their way with all kinds of workarounds to steal more LTE tethered data. They’re downloading apps that hide their tether usage, rooting their phones, writing code to mask their activity, etc. They are “hacking” the system to swipe high speed tethered data. These aren't naive amateurs; they are clever hackers who are willfully stealing for their own selfish gain.
 
So, what next? TMobile going to start locking down their phones like Verizon & ATT?
 
Greedy a-holes ruining it for the rest of us, like usual.

Go humanity.
 
Instead of trying to find tetherers, that abuse the price-point, just set the bandwidth usage cap so high that it only affects the top 10% or so of users.
 
If I visit a webpage on my phone that's OK, but if I tether my phone to my laptop and then visit the same webpage on the laptop then I need to pay extra for that? It's the same data. How can you steal data that you've already paid for? The carriers are the ones stealing... stealing money from people who pay extra for tethering.
 
That is interesting. They probably had a handful of idiots (the ones who did over a terabyte a month) ruin it for everyone else. When I was driving back and forth from Mississippi to Florida 5 times a month over the last year my 2 year old watched netflix/amazon prime stuff on the kindle over my phone hotspot and we only once passed 40GB per month.

They must be trying to torrent everything under the sun.
 
GaryJohnson said:
If I visit a webpage on my phone that's OK, but if I tether my phone to my laptop and then visit the same webpage on the laptop then I need to pay extra for that? It's the same data. How can you steal data that you've already paid for? The carriers are the ones stealing... stealing money from people who pay extra for tethering.
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This, they can Fuck right of with their here is your data cap but you have to pay extra to use that same data on other devices. I'm not stealing anything, I'm just not willing to double pay for the same data. Now if they want to start offering unlimited plans again excluding tethering then they have an argument. Only want to give be a few measly gb, then I use it how I want.
 
The people he's talking about were doing 2TB a month of traffic. That's basically running servers off their network. I don't have a problem with throttling those people.
 
How the hell do you "steal data", something that has no finite limit. This is nothing more than a money grab. They don't care how much data the heaviest users are consuming, they just want to charge extra for it. This tiny group of people consuming 2 TB of data in a month have no more effect on network congestion than anyone else using data in any given location during peak hours. They are trying to conflate data and bandwidth as if they are the same thing, and since the general public doesn't know the difference, they get away with screwing people.
 
The worst part is, T-Mobile's network absolutely sucks (only Sprint is worse; it is easy to understand why they offer "unlimited data" when you can't use it anywhere).

Verizon may be more expensive, but it works almost anywhere. You get what you pay for.
 
Ryokurin said:
The people he's talking about were doing 2TB a month of traffic. That's basically running servers off their network. I don't have a problem with throttling those people.
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Who cares if they are? It has no effect on anyone. They can peg their connection 24/7, and it won't have any more effect on congestion during peak hours than anyone else. The vast majority of that 2 TB is consumed during off peak hours where it doesn't matter.
 
DriZzLe said:
So, what next? TMobile going to start locking down their phones like Verizon & ATT?
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No, I think its right on the open letter, seems they are going to kick them out or something.. it says about 3000 users.
2TB is a bit too much, even if I converted all my net use to T-mobile, I don't think I would hit 2tb, and that includes netflix (I keep netflix at SD resolutions.. clean digital SD is great, just like a good DVD, like DVDs made from HD content usually look very good.

I think this is a preventative for bad press, a smart move.
 
GaryJohnson said:
If I visit a webpage on my phone that's OK, but if I tether my phone to my laptop and then visit the same webpage on the laptop then I need to pay extra for that? It's the same data. How can you steal data that you've already paid for? The carriers are the ones stealing... stealing money from people who pay extra for tethering.
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+1

Why should it mater what device the data is coming from, as long as I don't go over my cap?
I hate that I would need to pay extra to tether, when 99% of the time I don't need it.

Only time I would need tethering is in an emergency, if I needed to remote into the office from my laptop when traveling and no WiFi is available. Why should I have to pay over $100 more a year for the right to tether once or twice a year?
 
Oh, just stop treating data like it's digital gold you tight ass and there wouldn't be these issues.

CelCo's act like there's a GD shortage of the stuff or something. Sheesh.
 
There is a certain amount of traffic allowed for tethering with their unlimited plan. When you sign up for these plans it is in the terms of use that over a specified about of data when tethering needs to be paid extra for. If they do not like it then those users can go to a different carrier.

People crying about this are the ones that ruin it for everyone else. I am a power user and even have my own home server that I communicate with on the go... it is hard for me to hit more then 300-400gb in a month and these fools were hitting 2tb.

I had ATT for two years before I switched to Tmobile... they screwed me over about a dozen times in a year and I had to fight on the phone for an hour or two minimum each time to fix it. I have lived all over the US and have never had an issue with Tmobile. Any time they have screwed me over with billing issues they always have fixed it. They even reserved my phone number for me for four years while I am stationed overseas in Japan with a good plan and discounted phone waiting for me when I get back.
 
Ryokurin said:
The people he's talking about were doing 2TB a month of traffic. That's basically running servers off their network. I don't have a problem with throttling those people.
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No, he says some of them are using 2TB. That means most of them aren't.

Those few 2TB people might be causing a problem for their network. Seems like the obvious fix is to cap everybody at 1TB or whatever big amount makes it so your network can handle the load. And then stop charging for tethering. Because charging and paying for tethering is dumb. It's the same data.
 
Actually this seems like a reasonable solution ... focus on the high bandwidth users and drop them ... if they are consuming 2 TB or more (as the blog mentioned) then they should be on a hard connection and not wireless ... companies should have the right to choose their clients who are best matched to their business needs and if there is a mismatch then they should be allowed to send those clients off to find a provider who is better suited to their needs ... people wanted an end to Telco contract services and this is one side effect (either party can end the relationship, not just the user) ;)
 
GaryJohnson said:
If I visit a webpage on my phone that's OK, but if I tether my phone to my laptop and then visit the same webpage on the laptop then I need to pay extra for that? It's the same data. How can you steal data that you've already paid for? The carriers are the ones stealing... stealing money from people who pay extra for tethering.
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Quite simple, your laptop will render websites differently, view youtube videos at different resolutions/quality, you're essentially using more data on your laptop than your smart phone.

Of course you can argue that you can just view the website as desktop view.

They just need to cap the bandwidth to maybe 30GB or some other reasonable cap.
 
I see a lot of comments here about going after tetherers. That's NOT what they're doing. Tethering is free with T-mobile. Anyone can do it, with whatever current data plan. (The older data plans had a certain level, 2GB I think, where tethering was available, but they no longer offer those.) So, don't think they're going after people who are tethering.

The issue he's addressing here is about people cloaking their activity and traffic somehow to make it not register with their data tracking, and using FAR more data than they laid to use. For example, they might be paying for the 1GB data plan, the smallest they currently offer, and are using that cloaking to download 2TB of data at full speed, 2000 times what they paid for. That's like going to the gas station and filling up a tanker truck while paying for filling up a 1 gallon gas can. These guys are thieves, make no mistake. T-mobile is going after them for certain, specific, criminal activity.
 
"Throttle this. Throttle that. I don't do that. Go after them."
"Those people do things I don't so go after those people."
"Those people are using their computers over their phone, I don't do that, they should be punished."
"It's only a tiny number of people using their service to the maximum."

Martin Niemöller had something to say about this sort of thing.
 
dgingeri said:
I see a lot of comments here about going after tetherers. That's NOT what they're doing. Tethering is free with T-mobile. Anyone can do it, with whatever current data plan. (The older data plans had a certain level, 2GB I think, where tethering was available, but they no longer offer those.) So, don't think they're going after people who are tethering.

The issue he's addressing here is about people cloaking their activity and traffic somehow to make it not register with their data tracking, and using FAR more data than they laid to use. For example, they might be paying for the 1GB data plan, the smallest they currently offer, and are using that cloaking to download 2TB of data at full speed, 2000 times what they paid for. That's like going to the gas station and filling up a tanker truck while paying for filling up a 1 gallon gas can. These guys are thieves, make no mistake. T-mobile is going after them for certain, specific, criminal activity.
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This is exactly what they're talking about and people seem to either miss it or flat out ignore it. Then again reading comprehension seems to escape most people.

I use T-Mobile and I'm quite happy. Unlimited data for my smartphone and 7GB tethering per month. I hardly ever have to tether.

I stream shit all the time but I have to go to work (for the record the most I've ever done is about 17GB and I normally average about 8GB/mo). I have to run errands and I visit friends and take my kids places. Even if I actively tried to bust 100GB in a month I bet I couldn't with normal usage. Now could I download a pile of Linux ISO's or Android factory images? Sure but that is gaming the system. So what exactly are these people pushing 2 terabytes of data doing? My initial guess would be they're doing illegal things. -.-
 
Twisted Kidney said:
"Throttle this. Throttle that. I don't do that. Go after them."
"Those people do things I don't so go after those people."
"Those people are using their computers over their phone, I don't do that, they should be punished."
"It's only a tiny number of people using their service to the maximum."

Martin Niemöller had something to say about this sort of thing.
Click to expand...

Wow ... only two pages in and Godwin's Law has already come into effect ... that didn't take long :eek:
 
Vermillion said:
This is exactly what they're talking about and people seem to either miss it or flat out ignore it. Then again reading comprehension seems to escape most people.

I use T-Mobile and I'm quite happy. Unlimited data for my smartphone and 7GB tethering per month. I hardly ever have to tether.

I stream shit all the time but I have to go to work (for the record the most I've ever done is about 17GB and I normally average about 8GB/mo). I have to run errands and I visit friends and take my kids places. Even if I actively tried to bust 100GB in a month I bet I couldn't with normal usage. Now could I download a pile of Linux ISO's or Android factory images? Sure but that is gaming the system. So what exactly are these people pushing 2 terabytes of data doing? My initial guess would be they're doing illegal things. -.-
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I knew what I said. Unlimited data on the phone = it shouldn't matter how I use it. If you want to charge me a flat amount to enable tethering thats fine. Fucking the further limited data cap however is bullshit.

That said I'm on Verizon where I have it far worse anyhow. I have a stupid data cap across the board and they want to charge additional to tether. You better damn well believe I'm rooted So I can tether. I get 2gb of data, they can Fuck off if they think I'm going to pay additional money on top of their exorbitant rates just to connect to my computer.

That said, I barely ever tether anyhow. I dislike the practicevb On principle. It's extremely anti consumer.
 
Compddd said:
Greedy a-holes ruining it for the rest of us, like usual.

Go humanity.
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What's greedy is labelling data as 'tethered' and charging more for something that is no different to T-Mobile than using the phone to directly access view the data.
 
The company really should be very clear on what's acceptable and stuff in their contract and then have a penalty system for doing stuff you're not supposed to do that is very damaging to people to discourage them from abusing the service. As long as civil courts support it, that should reduce the problem a lot.
 
Just allow tethering and cap it at something reasonable, throttling after that point, and have it in clear writing. Problem solved.

Charging for tethering, on the other hand, is just shady, double dipping should be illegal.
 
Now wait a min, I would consider myself to be a heavy user at 250-350gb per month. How the hell does one do 2 tb over an LTE tether? Isnt the limit of a 2x2 N wireless connecting 2.5MBs? And if its a 1x 150mbs without dual mode its limited to 1 meg a sec.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I knew what I said. Unlimited data on the phone = it shouldn't matter how I use it. If you want to charge me a flat amount to enable tethering thats fine. Fucking the further limited data cap however is bullshit.

That said I'm on Verizon where I have it far worse anyhow. I have a stupid data cap across the board and they want to charge additional to tether. You better damn well believe I'm rooted So I can tether. I get 2gb of data, they can Fuck off if they think I'm going to pay additional money on top of their exorbitant rates just to connect to my computer.

That said, I barely ever tether anyhow. I dislike the practicevb On principle. It's extremely anti consumer.
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It isn't about tethering. It's about people getting more than what they're paying for.

These guys are paying for the lower level service, 1GB or 2GB, and then cloaking their traffic so that the system doesn't recognize that they've exceeded their cap, and get monstrous amounts more than what they paid for.

It doesn't matter how they've used it. T-mobile allows tethering for free under all their current plans. What matters is that these people are avoiding the throttling, illegally. They're paying for filling up a gas can, and wind up filling up a tanker truck.
 
You guys do realize if you tether to your desktop/laptop, it really isn't the same right? Sure, the web page data itself will be very similar, but most people's PCs have a lot of background programs that potentially consume large amounts of data because it is expected that you are on a landline of some sort.

Not that I'm taking their side, but its not just "this webpage uses the same data regardless of platform". The people they are going for are masking their behavior to download far more than they are paying for in the first place though. And by offering unlimited mobile data, there is the expectation that the user will not be downloading 50gb steam games, because its designed for mobile data. If you are just using tethering for browsing web pages, you will never hit the caps that are in place.
 
If you advertise UNLIMITED DATA... Then guess what? The data amount should be unlimited. No question. No monitoring. Etc...

I couldn't survive off tethering, but if some people can good for them.
 
Wierdo said:
Just allow tethering and cap it at something reasonable, throttling after that point, and have it in clear writing. Problem solved.

Charging for tethering, on the other hand, is just shady, double dipping should be illegal.
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So having it writing that I get 7GB tethering a month (per device for me so 14GB total between my phone and the wife's) isn't clear enough? I find 7GB pretty reasonable as I still have Internet at home too.

Unlimited mobile data is not there to replace your home Internet connection like some of these people are doing.

Not to mention let's not ignore the fact that these people abusing the system signed a ToS in good faith to NOT do stuff like this. I love how that's glossed over by so many people who jump on the bandwagon and say "data is data no matter what". That's fine believe in what you believe in but don't sign that ToS and then say well I don't agree with that so I'll do it my way.

Personally, I'm still trying to wrap my head about the whole 2TB of data in a month. The average 2 hour movie 1080p in mp4 format is roughly 2GB. That means 200GB for 100 movies. That's still a far cry from 2TB. So honestly WTF is that person doing and why are people defending them?
 
I also don't see how people are using TB's of data. I pay for the extra tethering. I rarely use it myself but only use it when there is no wifi and some emergency thing came up.

I've used it a few times for my son to watch some of his shows thru Amazon or something. I think the most i ever used was like 10GB's.
 
felt said:
Quite simple, your laptop will render websites differently, view youtube videos at different resolutions/quality, you're essentially using more data on your laptop than your smart phone.
Click to expand...

That's not what always does or has to happen. Laptops don't inherently have to use more data than phones. A mobile version of a page could be made to use more data than the desktop version. It's in the hands of the site owner. Or you could use a browser like Opera mini that shrinks the pages for your device. Or you could write a script on your phone that downloads the same file over and over again from the web and constantly uses max data.

It's true that most users with laptops use more data than most users with phones. This does not seem like a good reason to punish the people with laptops that don't use a lot of data by making them buy a tethering plan - which is basically subsidizing the users with phones that might use more data than them. Especially when it would be easier for the carrier to solve the "some people use too much data" problem by just capping the data than by throwing in all these weird tethering plans and trying to police their customers' devices.

This is basically a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument I'm making here. Laptops, phones, devices don't use data, people use data.
 
Vermillion said:
Unlimited mobile data is not there to replace your home Internet connection like some of these people are doing.
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Funny you say that.

Verizon has openly stated that their bandwidth capped LTE service is a perfectly acceptable replacement for a broadband internet connection. They told the State of New Jersey exactly that, after NJ paid Verizon a few billion to build out landline service....and Verizon kept the few billion USD too, in addition to not building out new landline networks.
 
damicatz said:
The worst part is, T-Mobile's network absolutely sucks (only Sprint is worse; it is easy to understand why they offer "unlimited data" when you can't use it anywhere).

Verizon may be more expensive, but it works almost anywhere. You get what you pay for.
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T-Mobile's service is fast as hell in my area, and more reliable than Comcast imo.
 
I forgot to add, I pay for unlimited and some months I use 30~ gb.

Never a peep from T-mo, never a slowdown.
 
article said:
...but some of them are using as much as 2 terabytes (2,000GB!) of data in a month. I’m not sure what they are doing with it – stealing wireless access for their entire business, powering a small cloud service, providing broadband to a small city, mining for bitcoin -- but I really don’t care!
Click to expand...

Just a little melodramatic don't ya think? Granted, it's about 10 times more than what my wife and I use from our 15 Mbps cable internet, but we don't stream Netflix, Hulu, or youtube every night. I suspect a family of 6 using one tethered device can burn through 2 Terabytes pretty easily in a month if there's a lot of streaming going on.
 
Cyraxx said:
If you advertise UNLIMITED DATA... Then guess what? The data amount should be unlimited. No question. No monitoring. Etc...
Click to expand...
And you do have unlimited data, the fact someone used 2TB of data in a month kind of shows that, however they do say you only get X amount of 4G LTE speeds via tethering, you still get unlimited data just at slower speeds if you exceed that amount while tethering.

For some of you bitching and moaning about "it's my data how I use it..." geezus, you must be some of the people they're talking about in the article who willfully hide the fact you're tethering in order to get around the known policies, and yes they obviously are known since you're fucking circumventing it, so don't give me this "well they say unlimited" garbage.
 
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