Slashdot Mirror
T-Mobile Brings Back Unlimited Data For All (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader shares a CNET report: T-Mobile is eliminating data plans for new customers -- and for current ones who opt in. The company is getting rid of all its wireless data plans and instead offering new customers one unlimited plan, T-Mobile said Thursday. Under the new plan, everyone will get unlimited talk, text and high-speed 4G LTE data. The company has also changed prices for unlimited. The first line will be $70 a month, the second line will cost $50 a month and additional lines will be $20 a month for up to eight lines with auto-pay turned on. The price is $5 more a month without auto-pay. For a family of four, the new plans will cost $40 a month per person. While this plan will benefit those looking for unlimited, it will cost more for people who have been subscribed to the lowest data plans. The current plan starts at $50 for 2GB of data per month. This means individual customers on its new plans will pay $20 more a month. But the new price is lower than the cost of unlimited right now. Today, T-Mobile customers who want unlimited pay $95 a month for an individual line.
Compare T-Mobile plans including the new ones at Wirefly to see the difference.
Compare T-Mobile plans including the new ones at Wirefly to see the difference.
LOL you never use more than 2GB of data.
I guess it would be free if you didn't use any at all, but that's hardly a typical use case.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I'm on T-Mobile unlimited, and I use 5-15 GB of data/month, and never get throttled. The fine print actually says " Customers who use more than 26GB of data in a bill cycle will have their data usage de-prioritized compared to other customers for that bill cycle at locations and times when competing network demands occur, resulting in relatively slower speeds."
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
That's still unlimited.
You have a 1Gbit pipe. You have 10 users each using 250Gbit--that's like 2.5Gbit. The network's going to get slow.
Well it turns out you use a hell of a lot more than everyone else. You know what happens? Those other 9 guys get bumped up in the queue. When packets are waiting, you're assigned a priority of 30 and they get a priority of 20; and every time a packet goes through, the next-in-line goes, and everyone else gets their priority knocked down a peg. So those guys's packets will step in front of yours repeatedly, until you float up to the top and get to use the line.
If the network's not flooded, you get full speed.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Unlimited everything just $50 a month for the first line, additional lines are less. Had it for years, still has it.
Sprint and Verizon fall back onto CDMA, which means phones for these networks will be useless outside the US unless on an LTE network.
It's 'mostly unlimited'. It's fast-as-you-can-go up to 26GB. After that, they won't actually throttle you, but they'll deprioritize you - not "2G speed", just "other people get to cut the line, so if you're on a busy tower, you're the first to get slowed down, but if you're on a tower with plenty of unused bandwidth, you won't notice a difference". Also, I'm wagering their 14GB tethering limit is still in place.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/t...
I liberally use however much data/text/minutes I want on Ting (same networks as T-Mobile) and my bill is never more than $30. Honestly these unlimited plans seem like massive overkill; especially for T-Mobile because they already give you the data for YouTube and several music streaming services for free. What are people doing on their phones and tablets that's using several GB per month?
I drive a truck for a living so on my 10 hour breaks, I usually watch a movie or a show or two. It all adds up quickly.
They're handling it in multiple ways, many of which will not be popular amongst Slashdotters.
1. Tethering is throttled to 64kbps. You can buy "High speed data" for tethering at 5G for $15. This is a monthly add-on.
2. Binge-on is permanently switched on. You can switch it off for $25 per month.
3. T-Mobile has agreements with most of the streaming audio suppliers (Google Play Music, Rhapsody, etc) which presumably restricts how much bandwidth those can use too.
Essentially this is the logical extension of Binge On - they've throttled everything that might cause a problem, some usefully (no problem with 480p video), some terribly (is there any point in tethering at those speeds), and so there's no real reason to track the rest of your data usage.
Finally:
4. If you still manage to be a heavy user, they will "de-prioritize" you at peak periods. You'll still get full service at 3am in the morning, it's just if you use your device when lots of other people are, their devices will be given priority.
No problems with that. Seems fair to me.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.