T-Mobile's "Unlimited" Data Cap Is Now 30GB

Megalith

Megalith

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T-Mobile is attempting to fend off its competitors again. This time, they are making their “unlimited” plan more attractive by raising the deprioritization limit by 2GB. Now, you’ll have to exceed 30GB of usage before your speed is reduced. This gives you about 8GB more of freedom than the competition; Verizon and Sprint will start throttling you at 22GB and 23GB respectively.

The company has raised the limit for “deprioritization” — when heavy data users are slowed down with reduced speeds in favor of other customers — up to 30GB. Previously that threshold was 28G, already higher than the deprioritization limits set by T-Mobile’s competitors. “This threshold represents how much the top 3 percent of data users on our network consume,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to The Verge. T-Mobile adjusts the limit every three months in accordance with overall customer data habits. Verizon Wireless and AT&T may slow down users in areas of network congestion after they reach 22GB in a single month; Sprint allows 1GB extra at 23GB.
 
If you have a family play with 3 lines, does this mean everyone gets exactly 10GB before throttling occurs or does this mean each line gets 30GB before their individual line is throttled?
 
Staples said:
If you have a family play with 3 lines, does this mean everyone gets exactly 10GB before throttling occurs or does this mean each line gets 30GB before their individual line is throttled?
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I would imagine a shared plan would wait until the total hits 30gb, between lines.

So you could use 6gb, 15gb and 9gb respectively and then the throttling will begin.
 
auntjemima said:
I would imagine a shared plan would wait until the total hits 30gb, between lines.

So you could use 6gb, 15gb and 9gb respectively and then the throttling will begin.
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A year or two ago, Tmoble was the only US carrier who had their plan set up where each line had their individual "bank." I rather liked that. I hate sharing resources. This offer sounds compelling but I will only bite if each line has 10 or 30GB. Someone could blow it all in a few days and the rest of the people will have to pay the price.
 
Nice to see what appears to be competition however unlikely that is in this very small and dominated market. How much coverage does tmobil have though, and is it enough that this data cap hike will provide real competition?
 
Gweenz said:
How is calling something "unlimited" but actually isn't unlimited not false advertising? Are we just so used to getting treated like shit by telecoms that we are willing to put up with it?
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No different than how "lifetime" doesn't always mean lifetime in the sense you would think. Video card makers are/were notorious for that.
 
Staples said:
If you have a family play with 3 lines, does this mean everyone gets exactly 10GB before throttling occurs or does this mean each line gets 30GB before their individual line is throttled?
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It is per line, have the One plan with two lines and each line has its own data. Have gone over 28GB before (the old limit) and was not throttled that I could tell.

Master_shake_ said:
what's the speed drop down to?
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3G

sirgallium said:
Nice to see what appears to be competition however unlikely that is in this very small and dominated market. How much coverage does tmobil have though, and is it enough that this data cap hike will provide real competition?
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Tmobile is the reason all of the other providers brought back unlimited data last month. TMO has great coverage IMO and they are the ones driving the competition. All of the big 4 providers are pretty equal now in most regards.
 
Edgar said:
But i mean. Every carrier does this. ALL OF THEM.
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As of last month yes, every major carrier offers unlimited. Verizon, Sprint and AT&T all brought back unlimited plans last month due to losing customers to TMO's unlimited plan.
 
leezard said:
As of last month yes, every major carrier offers unlimited. Verizon, Sprint and AT&T all brought back unlimited plans last month due to losing customers to TMO's unlimited plan.
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I meant cap it. So you get reduced speeds after the cap. All carriers have had a cap for a while now.
 
Up here in the snowy barren wasteland of Trudeaulandia we don't have unlimited plans. The most you can get without doing something special is 10GB. With Unlimited Talk/Text between US and Canada the plan is $145 (this includes travel to the US). For just Canada call/text it's $135 and for 300 local minutes it's a mere $125. We get hosed so bad.
 
Staples said:
A year or two ago, Tmoble was the only US carrier who had their plan set up where each line had their individual "bank." I rather liked that. I hate sharing resources. This offer sounds compelling but I will only bite if each line has 10 or 30GB. Someone could blow it all in a few days and the rest of the people will have to pay the price.
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Each line is individual, afaik. I've never had an issue with another line on my account throttling me.
 
Again it is all individual with T-Mobile. AT&T still pools all the lines together under the unlimited plan. I jumped off a family relative's AT&T plan to get on another family member's plan with T-Mobile. Not only T-Mobile was better, it was cheaper too and my own line of data. Prior to the whole unlimited crap, my family member when I was on AT&T would bitch every week about people using data.
 
Long time lurker, finally decided to add something. Because frankly, I'm tired of the same nonsense each time this comes up. Everything time this comes up everyone confuses Unlimited data, with bandwidth. You can use as much data as you want, you won't get charged anything extra. That however, does not mean you can also have unlimited bandwidth. They are quite clear in that. And further more, this throttling of speed, only happens in congested areas with high traffic.
 
Gweenz said:
How is calling something "unlimited" but actually isn't unlimited not false advertising? Are we just so used to getting treated like shit by telecoms that we are willing to put up with it?
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Because you are not actually paying for extra data usage, you get unlimited data at limited speeds :D

In fact you NEVER have unlimited speeds, your speed is always limited in some fashion. So yeah, it's kind of like MetroPCS "Free Phone" deals, yeah sure ok you pay taxes on the phone but ok that can be excused but then you need to pay a $35 transfer fee or something... they're not free at all
 
ir0nw0lf said:
No different than how "lifetime" doesn't always mean lifetime in the sense you would think. Video card makers are/were notorious for that.
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"Lifetime Subscription"... 25 years. Pfft. I'm dying early.

"Lifetime supply of donuts". A dozen a month.

"Unlimited Data". 30GB a month at the "normal" speed.

Do people really think they can tell me how to live my life? I want a dozen donuts a day, a lifetime sub to be until I die (which might be under 25 years depending on those donuts), and unlimited data at full speed.
 
LogicEarth said:
Long time lurker, finally decided to add something. Because frankly, I'm tired of the same nonsense each time this comes up. Everything time this comes up everyone confuses Unlimited data, with bandwidth. You can use as much data as you want, you won't get charged anything extra. That however, does not mean you can also have unlimited bandwidth. They are quite clear in that. And further more, this throttling of speed, only happens in congested areas with high traffic.
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Which Telecom do you work for?

Why defend them? It's bullshit and you know it. Do you think the average person understands what bandwidth is? Do you think they are NOT playing word games in order to fool people? Come on, man. WE all know the difference, that's not the point.
 
LogicEarth said:
Long time lurker, finally decided to add something. Because frankly, I'm tired of the same nonsense each time this comes up. Everything time this comes up everyone confuses Unlimited data, with bandwidth. You can use as much data as you want, you won't get charged anything extra. That however, does not mean you can also have unlimited bandwidth. They are quite clear in that. And further more, this throttling of speed, only happens in congested areas with high traffic.
Click to expand...

It is blatant misleading advertising. You can attempt to defend it and split hairs with technicalities all you want, it is deceptive no matter what you try to say. They use the term unlimited because they know people hear that word and ignore all reason and sign up. It is deceptive advertising and it should be illegal.
 
Time to lobby for a dictionary change, unlimited will take the place of limited, and limited will take the place of unlimited.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
It is blatant misleading advertising. You can attempt to defend it and split hairs with technicalities all you want....
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So stating facts is now splitting hairs with technicalities? Being ignorant is not a get out of jail free card.

Here lets look at it, what this entails, instead of reacting to click bait sensationalized title. This 30 GB cap only comes into play for high data users in highly congested and or high traffic areas. These areas alone will have slower speeds even without the cap and de-prioritizing your connection. For your everyday Joe this is going to be a non issue.
 
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Our telecoms would have advertised that as 30GB, and either state you will either not being able to download anything or download at very heavily throttled speed thereafter (the latter would probably still be "unlimited" by the definition in OP, but not here).

Here, "unlimited" translates to "no throttling under any circumstances besides being network conjested". I don't think we even have a "fair-use" clause.
 
chenw said:
Our telecoms would have advertised that as 30GB, and either state you will either not being able to download anything or download at very heavily throttled speed thereafter (the latter would probably still be "unlimited" by the definition in OP, but not here).

Here, "unlimited" translates to "no throttling under any circumstances besides being network conjested". I don't think we even have a "fair-use" clause.
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It doesnt throttle you unless tower is busy,
 
Master_shake_ said:
what's the speed drop down to?
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This is always a good question but no one asks.

They might say 3G or whatever but what does that even mean? I have Sprint and I refuse to pay for high speed data. Because of the shared BS I mentioned earlier (they give 1GB shared for free), I am at their throttled speed 29 days of the month. It is downright unuseable. Speedtest says .02Mbps but I think that is an over estimation. The only thing that works (sometimes) is GPS maps.
 
This is great at the high end of the plans, but I wish the big carriers would come out with lower-priced basic plans.
 
And you wonder why the states are falling more and more behind on the IT integration. shit like this that make company not able to push the envelop to provider proper services. but more investing into ways that they can manipulate wording and "cheat" their customers...
What if we had like this big organisation chosen by the public make sure these kind of things where in the public interest instead of companies and the lobyist...
 
SvenBent said:
And you wonder why the states are falling more and more behind on the IT integration. shit like this that make company not able to push the envelop to provider proper services. but more investing into ways that they can manipulate wording and "cheat" their customers...
What if we had like this big organisation chosen by the public make sure these kind of things where in the public interest instead of companies and the lobyist...
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So what are you saying? There should be nothing keeping one person from monopolizing all the bandwidth in a heavy congested area with hundreds of people? Did you even bother to read what this cap is for, or did you just read the title like everyone else?

This cap has nothing to do with a data cap, rather it is a bandwidth cap in congested areas. Designed to keep one person from monopolizing all the bandwidth.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
It is blatant misleading advertising. You can attempt to defend it and split hairs with technicalities all you want, it is deceptive no matter what you try to say. They use the term unlimited because they know people hear that word and ignore all reason and sign up. It is deceptive advertising and it should be illegal.
Click to expand...

Actually it's not. You are getting unlimited data, just not all at LTE speeds. It's not anyone's fault but your own if you can't read.
 
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