Ten Lies T-Mobile Told Me About My Data Plan

reifman (786887) writes "Last June, my post "Yes, You Can Spend $750 in International Data Roaming in One Minute on AT&T" was slashdotted and this led to T-Mobile CEO John Legere tweeting 'how crappy @ATT is' and welcoming me to the fold. Unfortunately, now it's TMobile that's having trouble tracking data; it seems to be related to the rollout of their new DataStash promotion. Just like AT&T, they're blaming the customer. Here are the ten lies T-Mobile told me about my data usage today."

Comments

heres another lie.

[nimbius]

Your data plan doesnt take into account advertisements which are basically subsidized at your expense. It doesnt count the silent data collection performed by most apps, or silent updates performed in the background. root your phone, install http://fdroid.org/ and download adaway to null-route advertising servers and reclaim some of your data plan

Re:heres another lie.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why use an iPhone in the first place?

Re:heres another lie.

[LordLimecat]

Your data plan doesnt take into account advertisements which are basically subsidized at your expense. It doesnt count the silent data collection performed by most apps, or silent updates performed in the background.

Those updates offer you the option to defer them till Wifi.

More to the point, most geeks object vocally when carriers try to look at what you're doing. T-Mobile doesnt. They provide a pipe. What sites you visit, how big their ads are, and what apps you download-- none of that is their problem. If you use their pipe, they count the data.

Its worth noting though that they dont charge overages, you just lose LTE access when you cross your limit. Oh no, cry me a river. Maybe you want to look at deferring those updates till wifi, or quit watching youtube over LTE, or (gasp) upgrade your plan. T-Mobile's plan is so much better than any other carrier, its laughable, and here you are complaining that theyre not DPI'ing you to detect what the ads are.

Re: heres another lie.

[Sable Drakon]

Settings>Data Usage>(Insert Offending App Here)>Restrict Background Data checkbox. Tick that box on, and the app won't be able to use cellular data.

Re:heres another lie.

[chihowa]

Just in case it wasn't clear from the post above, you lose LTE/3G but still retain EDGE access. Email, light web browsing, maps, and the like still work fine on EDGE, just more slowly. I've rarely gone over, but only dropping my speed when I do is just about the best reaction to an overage that I've seen.

Re:heres another lie.

[LordLimecat]

But they nickel and dime you for everything else. Even with their top plan where everything was supposedly included, a friend sent me text messages from his T-Mobile service, and I never got them. It turned out that for the privilege of sending or receiving SMS to or from other countries, you have to pay T-Mobile $10 extra per month, despite it not costing them anything extra, and even when the people in the other end are also on T-Mobile. Pure money grabbing.

I am not aware of this being true. I recently travelled through 3 countries in the mid east and asia, and had web and texting for free. The only thing that would have cost money was voice. This required no special plan or notification to T-Mobile.

Here's one

[drinkypoo]

T-Mobile Visual Voicemail used to work over the internets. But now you have to be on cellular data to use it. When T-Mobile made the change, they cited "security" as their reason. But even AT&T's VVM app works on unfriendly networks. Android includes ipsec, so if they really cared about security they could encrypt the VVM communications, but they don't. What they care about is money, and for prepaid customers, checking voicemail costs $1-3 depending on plan, since you pay for days on which you use your device.

The lie is that it has to be this way, which is what they will tell you if you complain. But it didn't used to be this way...

Re:Here's one

[wolrahnaes]

Two words for you:

Google Voice

Not only does it give you great voicemail but you get the option of a second number on which you can filter and forward calls to your heart's content, plus free texting, and you can access it all from your computer, tablet, whatever. For the anti-Google crowd there are a number of other providers offering similar services, any VoIP provider is technically capable of doing it.

Carrier voicemail is a pile of crap across the board, I haven't used it since I got a smartphone.

Article bad web page design

[MrL0G1C]

Light grey text on a white background FFS, how can anyone think this is a good idea?

Re:Article bad web page design

[reboot246]

You've been modded off topic, and I probably will be, too, for agreeing with your post.

When I tried to read his list of lies, I gave up after the first sentence. I'm 62 years old and I don't see as well as I did back when I was Superman. A curse and a pox on web sites that use such low contrasting schemes. The article may have been interesting, but I'll never know what he intended to say because I simply can't read it without getting eyestrain and a massive headache.

Even increasing the font size in my browser can't compensate for low contrast. Using "Select All" makes for text that is a bit easier to read, but grows tiresome after a while because all the images have been selected, too.

Re:Article bad web page design

[cruff]

A curse and a pox on web sites that use such low contrasting schemes. The article may have been interesting, but I'll never know what he intended to say because I simply can't read it without getting eyestrain and a massive headache.

I agree 150%! I will often close a web site nearly immediately if it has piss poor graphical design. By the way, have you investigated if your browser has the option to turn off page styles? In Firefox selecting the View/Page Style/No Style menu option will turn off the crappy graphic decisions made by the web site author, if you really need to view the site.

Re:Article bad web page design

[Anonymous Coward]

> In Firefox selecting the View/Page Style/No Style menu option will turn off the crappy graphic decisions made by the web site author

I find that killing the style sheet usually just trades bad color scheme for bad layout.

I use the no color add-on which puts a button on the toolbar to toggle a page between color and black-and-white without affecting the layout.

Screw this clickbait

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ten Lies T-Mobile Told Me About My Data Plan

Here are the ten lies they told me during the course of the more than hour long call:

1. The first two reps told me that there was never a bug affecting data usage. Eventually, the supervisor acknowledged that yes there had been (as I’d been told in January) but that it had been fixed.

2. They said maybe it was my fault – that I just didn’t realize how much data the iPhone 6 uses despite having had it on my account since September 2014 with four consecutive months under 3 GB.

3. They told me my phone had slowed because I’d already used my 3 GB plan data and 3.5GB of my 10 GB data stash (which activated at the end of January). But their website showed this was clearly not the case.

What the T-Mobile Website Showed

Perhaps he mistakenly was combining the plan data and data stash usage (3.45 GB) but he continued to repeat that it was 3.5 GB from my data stash. Still later, he told me I had used up 6.5 GB of my data stash.

4. Then, they told me their website usage data was up to 3 days behind. When I told them that the website was already including most all of the data from today (2/20), my call was at noon, he said it was up to 24 hrs behind.
feb220

Data usage on 2/20 from T-Mobile Website during the call

Here’s what it says tonight:

5. Then, they told me that my entire data stash was gone because when I switched plans from Unlimited to 3 GB, I lost my data stash – ignoring my pleas that their January account tech had made the plan switch to fix the bug with billing in January.

6. They told me there might be a problem with my iPhone which they would help me troubleshoot. I told him I was hesitant to begin troubleshooting with someone who was quoting me statistics that didn’t reflect the reality shown on their website.

7. Then, the supervisor told me that perhaps I didn’t need to worry about this because the plan would reset tomorrow on the 21st because it’s a short month, not on the 26th as it always has. Here’s what the website showed:

What The T-Mobile Website Showed

8. Then, the supervisor told me my phone has only been using my DataStash (not my plan data). Again, the website:

9. They told me that my phone has been using up my entire DataStash over the past several months. The DataStash didn’t begin until late January.

10. And perhaps the last lie came at the beginning of the call, a voice said the call would be recorded for quality assurance. The jury’s still out on that one.

Re:Screw this clickbait

[BronsCon]

Let's take it a bit farther, shall we? Assume all 10 are actually lies, they're not about the data plan, at all; they're about the data usage. I'm willing to bet that T-Mobile was completely up-front honest about the data plan, as their marketing materials are all pretty clearly written and it would take a complete idiot of a sales rep and a complete idiot of a customer to get those details wrong.

How about "Four Misinterpretations of My T-Mobile Data Usage, Repeated to Look Like Ten"?

Maybe you deserve it ?

[obarthelemy]

I'd do much worse than that to someone who writes in light gray over white. You owe me a couple of corneas.

Slow news day

[Chris453]

I also have T-Mobile, use my phone all the time for web browsing/apps, never use wifi, and my data usage for the last 30 days? 1.24 GB. Maybe you are holding your iphone wrong.

Re:Slow news day

[cptdondo]

Exactly. I've had T-Mobile for years, use them internationally all over the world, and never once have I run into this, except in China when my nexus 4 decided to download a new version of Android, over and over and over.

This whole article translates to WAAAAHHHH!!!! I'm a whiner and I didn't get my way so I'm going to throw my mashed peas at the wall!

Grow up and quit whining. Sometimes you run out of your data allotment and all that happens is that TMobile throttles you down to a slower speed so you can't stream porn anymore.

Much ado about absolutely nothing.

Data-counting and accountability

[KreAture]

What bugs me with these data-counting plans is how they never have to prove to anyone that their numbers correlate to the real world.
If you sell apples by the lb you have to use a set of scales approved by the government. You have to show that it has been checked and correctly installed.
So, why does this not apply to bits and bytes?

So many users see odd calculations and billings from so many companies that one should think it was obvious by now this isn't fair...

Let's get technical

[arth1]

From TFA:

It also remains a bit frustrating to me that the carriers are allowed to bill you for data amounts without actually having to show you the URL endpoints related to each data packet.

Um, wot? First of all the endpoints are not URLs - presumably he doesn't know the difference between socket addresses and URLs.

But to present a list of each data packet? I don't think this guy has any idea at all of how networking works. Even if his phone operated with an X.25 1500 byte packet size and everything he sent or received were even multiples of that, a 3 GB usage would then mean at least two million lines listing endpoints. In real life usage, much more.

Re:Let's get technical

[dcooper_db9]

No problem for the carrier. They'd just charge him for downloading the report.

Whine, whine, whine

[Art Challenor]

WTF. We have one person's bad experience with a phone carrier as "news". If we're just going to start publishing individual complaints the entire site will be filled with rants about Verizon and AT&T, that's without even starting on Comcast and Time Warner.

Funny, my experience has been completely different

[KingOfBLASH]

I find this article funny because my experience with T-Mobile has been completely different.

I'll admit, I only consider them good because the competition is so bad (and I've had a number of cell carriers), but so far I'm very happy with them:

• I get an unlimited data plan for the cost of a limited data plan on Verizon
• I get LTE in all major metro areas, and it's FAST
• Unlimited really seems to be unlimited. I abuse it (streaming movies for instance) and haven't once seen a slow down. And I check periodically with a speed test app
• Due to a large european network, roaming abroad can be cheaper than other carriers
• While other carriers like Verizon and AT&T have a lot of bad press for tracking of users / selling users data, there's been none from T-Mobile. A cynical person might say this is because they're just better at it, but I feel it's important to reward companies who do the right thing.

The only complaint I have is they disable the personal hotspot on my phone after 5 GB of usage each month. After that I have to pay.

In short: they might not have everything I want, but they are awesome compared to everyone else out there.

Something fishy

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

T-mobile plans do not have contracts. One can leave the network anytime. So there is no real hold over the customers. If they have bought a phone on installment plan, you have to pay off the remainder, but otherwise no real hold. So typically t-mobile customer service is very nice.

I have this issue of Rogers Wireless connecting to my phone across the Niagara River and charge me roaming. For some reason T-mobile is not able to stop it. May be they are owned by the same company or what not. So every time I go to Niagara Falls I can expect roaming charges. They have always been prompt in reversing the charges. It is typically 5$ to 15$. Just call, "say I have never been over the border" and the rep would reverse the chargers.

Looks like the poster got some great publicity due to the earlier post about 750$ a minute roaming charge from AT&T. I think it is possible he was very diligent in checking the usage and fees and managed to get the under paid and uninformed phone reps to say things that he managed leverage into another highly visible "10 lies from T-mobile".

Also T-mobile does not have over usage charges. It just throttles the connection speed. Even the throttled speed is 128 kbps which is good enough for google maps turn by turn navigation.

I usually side with the small guy against the corporation all the time. Now I wonder if I am being gamed by this poster.

Or: Maybe you don't understand the conditions.

[Futurepower(R)]

Often when someone complains about their experiences on Slashdot, someone else post a comment with a superior attitude, saying that he has never had that problem.

Please consider that maybe you don't understand the conditions.

The element of the U.S. culture in which males compete with each other is annoying and defeating.

ThreeUK's "All You Can Eat" plan is the dog's bits

[ihtoit]

they have the most amazing thing going on there. £15 a month and you get so many minutes and so many texts, but the selling point is this, and this is right off the T&C page:

"When we say all you can eat, that's what we mean. We do have a hard cap for domestic and pay as you go customers, but it's a cap you're unlikely to hit even if you saturate your connection 24/7 for a month."

That connection is a 7MBit 3G cellular, and the cap is 1000GB. You CAN hit 1000GB a month but only if you can clear 34GB a DAY. That's a 100% wall-to-wall saturation of your connection with NO interruptions.

I've been on this plan for several years now and NEVER ONCE have I managed to hit the cap. And I'm a heavy tethered torrenter.