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Cellphones Wireless Networking

T-Mobile Returns To Unlimited Data Plans 152

New submitter kevmeister writes "Today T-Mobile decided that unlimited data plans are a good thing after all. Over a year after discontinuation, T-Mobile announced that unlimited data is coming back. 'T-Mobile said the new unlimited data plan will cost $20 a month when added to a Value voice and text plan, and $30 a month when added to a Classic voice and text plan. ... Among its top U.S. network counterparts, only Sprint offers a similar deal, and it costs about $110 a month. But Sprint offers the iPhone; T-Mobile does not. One of the new T-Mobile plan's flaws, though, is that it cannot be used for tethering -- that is, connecting multiple devices to the Internet. MetroPCS, considered the fifth-largest carrier in the U.S., made a big announcement of its own Tuesday, saying it would begin offering an unlimited everything promotional plan for $55 a month for a limited time.'"
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T-Mobile Returns To Unlimited Data Plans

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  • by Mitsoid ( 837831 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @01:36PM (#41084401)

    " One of the new T-Mobile plan's flaws, though, is that it cannot be used for tethering "

    Verizon & AT&T do not either.. not a huge flaw there as T-Mobile gets a one-up on their higher market share competitors.. on top of being GSM like AT&T, you get a bit more phone freedom (minus the #g band differences, which seem to be more of a moot point nowadays anyways for international travelers... since 3g band frequencies change by country)

    • by rwa2 ( 4391 ) *

      Yeah, after a few years of trouble-free tethering, at some point they started doing some sort of browser agent detection, and direct you to a tethering plan upsell.

      OTOH, if you're already on one of the Android plans, you can apparently still tether an Android tablet to your Android phone and have full access to everything. Which works well enough for me. (of course, I haven't been trying to get my work laptop into corporate VPNs and crap like that)

      • If they're using browser agent detection it sounds like a blacklist rather than a whitelist.

        Any idea if this could be bypassed by SSH tunneling all your computer traffic to a computer on the other side? It would still be distinguishable from traffic that originated from your phone by looking at the TTL, but I doubt many people do this.

        • 2 things:

          1. I haven't run into user-agent blocking where I live, maybe it is a regional thing. I have the user-agent on Opera mobile set to use the desktop version without issues. Additionally a few weeks ago my power was out for a couple days and my phone became my primary home internet connection, no browser on 1 windows and 2 linux PCs was blocked.

          2. I doubt they would be able to see the TTL. The TTL of the ssh packet would be unchanged, and the TTL of the tunneled packet would be encrypted.

          • Gaah you're right, I was mixing up SOCKS proxying with how AT&T (or was it Sprint?) was blocking some tethering apps by TTL that just bounced them through; but this is new packets so it's moot. I'm sure some kind of rate information would let them detect various protocols within SSH but I'm not too worried about that 'cause I don't use much data.

            Really I just want to check my email on a device where I can actually reply to it when traveling. I have a $3/day pay-as-you-use T-Mobile contract but I've yet

      • I never had any problems tethering with my T-Mobile phone, but my daughter got that website when she tried to use her phone to watch netflix (we have a family plan). It was a one-time occurrence since I haven't seen it appear again while tethering with my Mac.

        The thing that irritates me is that my "grandfathered" unlimited plan of many years had an unadvertised limit of 5GB added to it when they did their "unlimited w/ throttling plan 2GB" promotion. I'm waiting to see what happens but all indications are

        • by ZosX ( 517789 )

          they did this to me too. i considered it bad faith as i was promised to never be capped. the official line is that there always was a cap. funny. i downloaded tens of gigs every month and never was capped until they rolled out the 2gb plan.

    • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

      My unlimited everything plan doesn't allow tethering either, but I'm only paying $45 per month. TFA says "A plan that includes unlimited everything will cost $89.99 a month." If they included tethering I might be tempted to switch, since it might be possible to get rid of my AT&T DSL bill. But as it is, ninety bucks a monthis way too much money, twice what I'm paying now.

      • by Nadaka ( 224565 )

        Well, I am paying $85 (including my employers 15% discount) a month for sprints "unlimited" "4g". In practice, I never get more than 300kbps on "3g", and I typically hover right about the 200kbps max that 2g edge offers. The speed doesn't even get better in the larger markets like New Orleans, where I should theoretically be getting WiMax.

        So tMobile is most likely going to be better for me, considering that I have a coworker that gets consistently good signal on his phone.

        • by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

          Funny, in France I'm paying 16€/month for unlimited calls to over 200 countries, unlimited SMS and unlimited data with tethering thrown in. The only downside is a cap at 3GB after which they will throttle your traffic. Remember this is a "personal plan" so "unlimited SMS" means no more than 1000 to less than 250 different recipients per month. About the same for phone calls which is about 100x more than my maximum I think.

          Something is badly rotten on the other side of the pond. I still wonder what. The

          • by Nadaka ( 224565 )

            In the US you (get charged/use minutes) for BOTH calling and answering on a mobile phone.

          • To be fair, calls to all 50 US states covers the same area as calls to all of Europe.

            And charging the person calling a cell is ridiculous; you may not know it's a cell. The person answering the cell phone, the owner, is always aware of what costs are involved with answering the phone, and is the one who decided to take on those extra costs for the benefit of having a cell phone.

            Contract cell phones over here do suck pretty hard though, and prepaids aren't usually as nice, and I have to give the EU credit f

            • by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

              To be fair, calls to all 50 US states covers the same area as calls to all of Europe.

              I'm talking about a plan in with which you can call all of Europe, Australia, all of northern America and most of southern America, Asia and Africa. That's still more than the 50 US states combined probably by a factor of 10.

              And charging the person calling a cell is ridiculous; you may not know it's a cell.

              All cell phones start with a 6 or 7 in France. It's dead simple to know you're calling a cell phone. In any case there are always the "special numbers" that are charged some ridiculous price. You've got to know what/who you're calling anyways.

              The person answering the cell phone, the owner, is always aware of what costs are involved with answering the phone, and is the one who decided to take on those extra costs for the benefit of having a cell phone.

              I think this system is much more fair to eve

              • by Nadaka ( 224565 )

                You are wrong.

                I can charge any of my usb devices from any of my chargers, wall mount, lighter socket, usb attached to my computer, playstation or even the keyboard dock on my transformer infinity.

                This goes for phones, tablets and bluetooth headsets. Maybe apple is different, i don't use apple products. But every other usb charger I know of is universal.

          • The problem is the lack of advertising, and different sales markets for plans.

            T-Mo advertises their contract plans, but most people don't know jack about their pay as you go monthy no-contract plans. Most don't know you can get unlimited talk, text, and data on those plans.

            While more expensive than 16euro a month, the 60$/mo pay as you go plan looks pretty compelling.

            T-mobile prepaid and pay as you go plans [t-mobile.com]

            No ETF, unlimited voice, text, and data (but with a cap...), and cheaper than ATT and verizon ever tho

        • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

          So tMobile is most likely going to be better for me, considering that I have a coworker that gets consistently good signal on his phone.

          The phone's manufacturer may have something to do with it. Remember Apple's "you're holding it wrong"? If your co-worker has a Motorola and you don't, it may be the phone. Motorola has shitty programmers but great engineers. They make better radios than anyone. I'm on Boost (which Sprint, your carrier, owns) and when I'm at my friend Mike's house out in the boonies, I'm the

    • How exactly do they prevent tethering? Unless they control all the devices that use their networks they cannot ensure that phones do not have the ability to tether. User-agent detection perhaps?

      On a related note, while I'm in the presence of Americans with knowledge of these things: I'm going to the US for a conference and vacation in two weeks, is there a decent pre-paid SIM-card that includes a few hundred MBs of data? My phone is pentaband so that shouldn't be a problem I assume..

      • You can't buy naked SIMs in the US.

        What you CAN do is buy a cheap GSM bar style phone from just about any walmart, and dump the phone and keep the sim.

        Assuming you handset is not carrier locked, you can then use the cheap prepaid sim.

        I used to do this the other way around when my phones would get damaged before their scheduled replacement, and limp on a bar phone until I could upgrade by putting my contract sim in the cheap feature phone.

        Just drop the phone in any cellphone recycling bin, I believe most wal

        • by fliptout ( 9217 )

          You can buy the SIMs alone, but you need to go to an actual T-Mobile/ATT/carrier store, in my experience. You might be able to do it through the carrier website too.

          The thing I have a problem with is that they will collect all your personal information to activate the disposable SIM, unlike anywhere else in the world.

          • Sounds much better than buying a phone only to throw it away.. Do you have to be a US resident to activate or can I use a temporary address or something?

            • by Macrat ( 638047 )

              You don't have to be a resident. I have friends from the UK and Brazil who own T-Mobile prepay SIMs and use them each time they come to the US for business every 6-10 months. Very convient to get off the plane and have a working number.

              They use the prepay plan where you buy the SIM and $100 of credit and that number/SIM is good for a year. Each time you add any credit, it extends the life for another year. They use the $1talk/day, $2talk/2G/day or $3talk/4G/day options since their visits are usually around

          • by Mitreya ( 579078 ) <mitreya.gmail@com> on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @04:15PM (#41086773)

            The thing I have a problem with is that they will collect all your personal information to activate the disposable SIM

            You can buy a naked SIM in T-Mobile store -- I have done so several times. They do not really collect your information (they do ask for a name and for a birthday, but told me that this is for phone-support authentication. they don't verify with ID or anything.).
            You certainly do not have to provide them with an address.

          • Oh another question for those in the know about the area (sorry if this is becoming too much off-topic): I'm thinking of renting a car and go on a road-trip down to SF from Portland after the conference, which carrier would have the best coverage there? It seems from the maps I've seen that rural coverage is quite poor..

        • Sounds very strange, but I guess they like throwing phones away for nothing.. Is this only in Wal-Marts or are there other places? I won't have a car so getting to a Wal-Mart could be complicated.
          There's the further complication of my phone using Micro-SIM (Nokia N9), it's unlocked though. I suppose I could bring my old HTC Magic (also unlocked), it only has, it only has the 900, 1700 and 2100 MHz UMTS bands though...

          • As others pointed out, you might be able to get a naked sim if you buy it from a dedicated ATT or T-Mo store, but there are generally far fewer of those than walmarts.

            Walmarts are usually on the metropolitan transit system's stop list, so getting to and from one without a vehicle may or may not be a problem.

            Often, at leat in my area anyay, the maor carriers also have small cart vendor stalls in the malls that might be able to service your phones.

            If you need a micro sim, the carrier store is your best bet.

            Bu

        • by Skapare ( 16644 )

          Send the phone to me, instead.

        • I think you're wrong. [straighttalksim.com]

        • You can't buy naked SIMs in the US.

          Sure you can [amazon.com].

        • Did you seriously not Google search for "US SIM CARD"?

          I had zero problem buying an AT&T GoPhone SIMs for Chromebook 3G modem bringup here at Google.

          You can also get T-Mobile as well; whether the data will work on 3G or only on Edge will depend on the frequency bands your phone supports; for example, an iPhone will not do 3G on T-Mobile, unless you know how to hack the radio table, which requires rewriting the baseband firmware in the older phones. Even if you did that, it'd suffer from "you're holding

        • by ogdenk ( 712300 )

          Bullshit. StraightTalk offers naked SIM cards. $45/mo all-you-can-eat-but-no-tethering prepaid. T-Mobile does as well. Just not in the store usually. You have to go online and get one. $15 to get my unlocked iPhone going with them. They use AT&T's network last I checked.

    • by Niomosy ( 1503 )

      Verizon's new family shared data plans allows you to use your phone to tether as much as you want. The grandfathered unlimited plans are unable to do this per the agreement.

  • I'm a T-Mobile customer and I'd be happy if I could just get voice service from them at my house. I drop calls all the time and they always claim to be "working" on the problem. I would drop them entirely but I'm expecting to move from my current location to another location hundreds - if not thousands - of miles away fairly soon and don't want a new contract until I get there and know which company's coverage is the best there.

    I can certainly tell you though that I would not sign up for a data plan with T-Mobile, at least not where I currently live. That would be a tremendous waste of money.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Just get a phone that supports wifi calling. I think pretty much any of their Android phones do. That way when you phone has a wifi signal, it registers with T-Mobiles network and you can make and receive calls normally.

    • by Burning1 ( 204959 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @01:53PM (#41084677) Homepage

      I'm also a T-Mobile customer, and I live in the Bay Area. Voice / Text / Data isn't really an issue here. I recently switched from Verizon, because I could get a monthly plan with unlimited data for $50, rather than paying $85/mo for Verizon.

      If you live in rural America, Verizon is one of the better choices. I grew up in the Santa Cruz Mountains and owned my first cell phone 12 years ago. Back then, coverage was really an issue.

      Since I love to go riding in rural areas, I may end up buying a Verizon Pay as You Go phone as well. $1.99 for unlimited calls on the few days I need it.

    • by anagama ( 611277 )

      This kind of problem is purely situational and can apply to any provider -- in contrast, I have T-Mobile and have no problem streaming Netflix in most of the places I go, and I pay the extra $15 so I can use my phone as a wifi hotspot with my tablet or laptop.

      There is one place that I go regularly where I've never had reception, except way back in the day when I had a phone that had an external antenna jack -- I put a "trucker antenna" way up a pole and then I had five bars when plugged in.

    • by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @02:01PM (#41084785)

      I can certainly tell you though that I would not sign up for a data plan with T-Mobile, at least not where I currently live. That would be a tremendous waste of money.

      At home you have wifi, don't you?

      Not only does that mean you don't really need data coverage, but you can make and receive phonecalls seamlessly via wifi calling. Myself and several other coworkers switched to tmobile specifically because wifi calling works perfectly (provided there's enough wifi signal strength) and as a result, we can make calls from our building's basement - we have wifi everywhere on campus, and as a result we have the best "cell service."

      You can even set whether to prefer wifi or cellular. It just switches over automatically. If you have your phone set to keep wifi on all the time, you can receive calls without issue.

      If you have signal strength issues at home, you can also purchase an amplifier/antenna pair. An antenna goes on your roof (or stuck to the inside of a window, or attached to the exterior wall), a cable goes into a central part of the house where you locate the amplifier+indoor antenna.

      • by Hatta ( 162192 )

        At home you have wifi, don't you?

        Not only does that mean you don't really need data coverage

        What? The point of having a data plan on a mobile device is to replace the wifi at home?

        you can make and receive phonecalls seamlessly via wifi calling.

        This is an excellent point and should not be diminished by its proximity to the statement above.

        • What? The point of having a data plan on a mobile device is to replace the wifi at home?

          That may be your point for having mobile data. Mine is to be able to access data...while mobile. I have a 12Mbs line at home for data consumption. I'd hate to even think about the lag trying to play one of my FPS games over wireless data. That's what kept me from switching to Clear from AT&T. OH...and I can access the media on my home server from any internet connected DLNA client. Kinda hard to do if the home internet leaves the house when you do.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • One caveat of WiFi calling being that T-Mobile still counts the minutes towards your allotted monthly calling plan and will bill you for any minutes over the allotment. I never gone over the allotment, but the possibility it still there.
        • since you are actually placing calls using their network when on wifi calling, why should you expect anything less than to be charged minutes?

          • Because I'm using the broadband connection that I pay for to send the GSM packets directly to their network, thus preventing them from having to put up another wireless tower to make room for more subscribers or to increase signal coverage. Why do you think we have unlimited t-mobile to t-mobile minutes? Because once the data reaches their packet switch network, it doesn't cost them much to move the packets across their calling areas.
            • and they are in turn using their network to connect to the traditional phone system/other carrier networks which they pay to access.

              • True but the bulk of the expense is use of the towers themselves. As for network access it also works both ways, a call originating from AT&T will not cost T-Mobile anything yet still show up as minutes being used on my account.

                Anyway, I didn't say it was necessarily bad just that the caller needs to be aware of the minutes being accrued.

    • by godrik ( 1287354 )

      OTOH, I live in columbus OH. I have been using tmobile for years and I have perfect coverage and 3g data speed. Oh, I also tether from time to time without any issues. They are the cheapest provider that can give me that type of coverage. They don't carry iPhone. So what? With the price difference on the contract I could buy one if I was interested.

    • by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      Unless you're moving really soon, you could port your current number to a pre-paid MVNO that uses the network that does get the reception in your immediate area. Then set up new service in your new home with a different provider. You'll likely be changing phone numbers at your new location but the prepaid would give you a chance to keep you old number on an active phone for a little longer with no contract as well.

  • by gfxguy ( 98788 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @01:37PM (#41084417)
    I got in on Virgin Mobile's $25 unlimited (plus 300 talk minutes). Good luck finding anything like that ever again.
  • by Miros ( 734652 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @01:41PM (#41084477)
    T-Mobile is having trouble retaining / gaining subscribers. I doubt this is altruistic, they need to draw more customers in so they are attempting deep discounting.
    • by Jeng ( 926980 )

      Unfortunately though one of their main selling points has been that with them data is data, they never cared if it was a mobile hotspot or tethered, it was just data.

      It still is just data, there is absolutely no reason to treat the traffic different.

    • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

      T-Mobile is having trouble retaining / gaining subscribers. I doubt this is altruistic,

      You'll have better luck finding a unicorn than an altruistic corporation. Still, sometimes corporations act in customer's interests.

      I am surprised T-Mobile is not gaining ground because to me they have two selling points:

      1. They actually throttle you (instead of CHARGING per MB) when you go over data cap. Now throttling sucks (and I haven't subscribed to data plan yet), but it sure beats being charged. I don't even know if you can get AT&T to kill your internet when you hit the cap instead automat

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I would be a bit surprised if T-Mobile didn't have the iPhone after the upcoming release.

    • I wouldn't - T-Mobile's network runs on a different frequency from the other major providers. It would take a change to the radios used in the iPhone to get them working on T-Mobile at anything faster than EDGE.
    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      I would be a bit surprised if T-Mobile didn't have the iPhone after the upcoming release.

      Well, if they have unlimited data, I'd say they wouldn't be getting it. Only Sprint has kept unlimited data around - AT&T and Verizon switched to capped plans shortly after the iPhone after seeing the bandwidth used by iPhone users (who seem to really use it. There may be more Android users, but a good chunk don't seem to really use their data plan).

  • by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @01:46PM (#41084575)
    This is clearly a dividend of last year's enforcement of anti-trust law against the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile: [wikipedia.org]

    On March 20, 2011, AT&T announced that it would purchase T-Mobile USA. On August 31, 2011, the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice formally announced that it would seek to block the takeover, and filed a lawsuit to such effect in federal court. The bid was abandoned by AT&T on December 19, 2011.

    Obviously the acquisition was intended to prevent exactly this sort of competitive undercutting.

  • by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @01:47PM (#41084589) Homepage

    Remember this ruling [slashdot.org] that prevents Verizon from blocking tethering apps? Someone at the FCC needs to be patted on the back for forcing Network Neutrality in the original contract for Verizon's 4G spectrum. Now, if only we could force the other carriers to do the same thing.

  • by codeAlDente ( 1643257 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @01:48PM (#41084607)
    The analysis on market-ticker today suggests 5GB is still the approximate upper limit. http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=210521 [market-ticker.org]
    • by TheCarp ( 96830 )

      I have always thought that companies that advertise unlimited, but still put on a cap are underhanded and deserve some smack down. I will never get how that isn't false advertising.

    • The article doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. They acknowledge the 5GB cap on current plans, then assume that same throttling cap will apply to the new plan as well. Then they state that because you can't tether, it's virtually impossible to hit 5GB anyway.

      • I hit 5gig on tmobile almost every month, without the [free] tethering. if you have feeds on your fav stuff like rss, twit, FB and the like it isnt hard to hit the 5gig
  • Because they have almost no LTE coverage in the US right now. So yea, you can get unlimited data, but since it's so damn slow you won't bother downloading anything on your mobile device.

    I am leaving them as soon as my contract is up.... what a terrible idea that was.

    • T-Mobile has great "4G" coverage in my area. I live on the outskirts of the Kansas City metro area. My new T-Mobile smartphone gets 6-7Mbps downstream, while my Verizon iPhone (which I am reluctantly dropping due to Verizon's shoddy pricing plans) clocks in at 1.5Mbps. I ran these tests side-by-side and the numbers from three subsequent tests came in strongly in favor of T-Mobile. I found that particularly unacceptable on Verizon's part since their service costs easily twice as much.

      Do you live out i
      • by wjcofkc ( 964165 )
        I also live in Kansas City. A friend of mine has T-mobile and I can confirm that their downstream and upstream are wicked fast. He has found a way to tether his phone to his Samsung Smart TV and can stream absolutely anything with almost zero hesitation - for unknown reasons he has been doing this in an unlimited way. This may be because it's through an employee plan. The relative in question was able to look and see that he uses the equivalent of over 50 tethering plans a month or something like that. P
  • by crazyjj ( 2598719 ) * on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @01:54PM (#41084697)

    One of the new T-Mobile plan's flaws, though, is that it cannot be used for tethering

    Thought the FCC case [cnet.com] recently required carriers to allow tethering, or is that just for Verizon?

    • by pavon ( 30274 )

      No, that requirement was placed on new spectrum that was up for auction a while back. T-Mobile didn't end up with any of that spectrum so the rules don't apply to them. Furthermore, even for Verizon, they are only required to allow tethering on their capped data plans, not their (grandfathered) unlimited plans.

    • by erice ( 13380 )

      No. The FCC ruling only apples to the 700Mhz band that Verizon is using for LTE. T-Mobile doesn't have any spectrum in the 700Mhz band.

    • Just for LTE because that's the way the spectrum was leased.

  • by kawabago ( 551139 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @01:59PM (#41084763)
    Assuming some mechanism of bandwidth rationing is necessary, I'm not convinced it is, providers should become more flexible. An unlimited data plan that has a small monthly maintenance fee of maybe $5 then a small per gigabyte charge that results in the average user paying about the same would be attractive. That way people would really only pay for what they use and get a break when they take time off. I might buy a plan like that.
    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      They essentially did that, except the monthly maintenance fee might not be exactly what you'd call small, but it covers most people entirely.

      What they, and the wired data providers, should be required to do is either a) charge a fair per GB rate, regardless of how much you use, or b) if it's too cheap to meter just have a truly unlimited flat rate. Any combination of the two, including caps and unreasonable per GB overage charges is abusive.

    • by Mitreya ( 579078 )

      That way people would really only pay for what they use and get a break when they take time off. I might buy a plan like that.

      You are assuming that their goal is to save you money. It is not. Their goal is to make as much money as they can while doing as little work as they can
      It is a feature, not a bug, that people generally pay for more than they use (i.e. under the bandwidth cap) or are charged exorbitant over-use fees (over the bandwidth cap). Actually, minute plans work the same way - you'd have to work very hard to use exactly what you bought.
      Any other outcome means that you pay more per minute/per MB (either through f

  • I'm confused. How much is Sprint's plan supposed to cost? Because I have an unlimited "premium" data plan on a 450 minute line and I only shell out around $85-$90 a month, after taxes and what not. I have no idea where this other 20 bucks is supposed to be coming from. $110 is around how much one would expect to pay for around a GB of data on the new shared plans with one cell phone, from what I understand.
  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2012 @02:51PM (#41085581)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I don't remember Unlimited plans getting discontinued. I've had one since i joined them about 2.5 years ago. I guess they were throttling speeds after a certain point recently, and now they're not? So they went from Unlimited to "Unlimited" and back again?

    Also, i've been tethering devices to my phone for the entire time as well. Of course that's because i got an unlocked Nexus phone so T-Mobile never got the chance to disable the option, but they certainly don't seem to be doing anything on the networking
  • Offering unlimited data plans is kinda absurd. It's a terrible way to allocate a limited resource. It means that the majority of customers, who use rather little bandwidth, pay a ton extra to subsidize the few people who cause most of the burden on the network. Prices should be related to the cost of the services/goods provided, and when the connection between the two is severed, you end up with everything from dropped calls in NYC to Soviet bread queues.

    I look forward to the day when there's a simple per-G

    • Your argument of the majority of customers subsidizing the power-users is flawed. It makes the assumption that an "unlimited" plan is the only plan being offered - this is false in most cases. T-Mobile offers a capped data plan in addition to unlimited. Also, there's no way to price Unlimited plans in such a way that proportionately reflects their usage compared to tiered plans - how much should they be, infinity dollars?

      Now Sprint, on the other hand, has an all-or-none unlimited data package. That s
      • by jensend ( 71114 )

        Even when tiered plans exist, they are not proportionately cheaper. If somebody else uses 200 GB and I use 50MB my service is not 1/4000 the price. So low-bandwidth users are still subsidizing the high-bandwidth ones.

        Also, there's no way to price Unlimited plans in such a way that proportionately reflects their usage compared to tiered plans - how much should they be, infinity dollars?

        Sure, if the users actually use infinite bandwidth :) People should be charged for what they use. Your claim that this is i

  • About a year and a half ago, their signal was great around my house. Then around the time the AT&T merger was announced it became completely unreliable and has been since. They keep alternating between admitting the problem, saying it's been fixed (when it hasn't), and saying there's no problem at all. It's quite frustrating and as much as I love TMo it's going to be hard for me to stay with them when my contract is up unless they get their act together.

Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who wrote the book or even what book.

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