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T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

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Re: T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

#21

Post by dawnerd »

runeb wrote: post #14
drbawb wrote: post #6

I'm a little saddened to see the direction T-Mobile is headed with their plans. When I switched to Project Fi last year my T-Mobile unlimited plan was $70/mo. That included actual HD video, and LTE tethering. Now the equivalent plan (T-Mobile One+) is $90/mo, and that just gets you "unlimited HD day passes" which you have to remember to toggle every day if you want video that isn't 480p. What's even scarier to me is…

How can T-Mobile dictate what quality video you get?

I asked this same thing and never got a straight answer. You could download a zip file that looked like a video and it would throttle.

In their minds everyone uses adaptive streaming so if they cap "video like files" at 1.5ish Mbps then the quality would bump down.

Re: T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

#22

Post by codemac »

drbawb wrote: post #6

I'm a little saddened to see the direction T-Mobile is headed with their plans. When I switched to Project Fi last year my T-Mobile unlimited plan was $70/mo. That included actual HD video, and LTE tethering. Now the equivalent plan (T-Mobile One+) is $90/mo, and that just gets you "unlimited HD day passes" which you have to remember to toggle every day if you want video that isn't 480p. What's even scarier to me is…

My inability to "script" my phone is really starting to hinder my hacker-ness.

This seems like something you could build into your phone. Every day when you first interact with your phone, have tasker or something else fire off a job that auto-enables your unlimited hd day passes.

Does anyone have good introduction documentation to either: writing scripts for tasker, or writing your own android applications when you know ZERO java?

Re: T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

#23

Post by amadeusw »

DigitalJack wrote: post #11

When the government sues for stuff like that, where does the money go? I mean, it's a punishment to have to pay, sure, but why does the government get the money? Shouldn't the people being screwed be the ones getting that?

> T-Mobile will pay for those benefits through a $35.5 million consumer benefit program, with an additional $7.5 million paid directly to the US Treasury and $5 million in services and equipment provided to American schools.

Re: T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

#24

Post by drbawb »

kyledrake wrote: post #3

I see the word "unlimited" on a lot of hosting providers. Give me access to the dd command and we'll see how long that theory lasts. I honestly find it, always and everywhere, to be deceptive marketing. There is no such thing as unlimited resources.

From what I've seen "unlimited" hosting providers will simply limit you in another dimension, which I think is just fine. For e.g I frequently see bandwidth sold in two tiers: you can have "unlimited" transfer at 100Mbit/s, or metered transfer at 1Gbit/s.

This approach let's the host plan capacity while giving users the illusion of unlimited bandwidth. Meanwhile customers that genuinely need the extra throughput can still get it at a premium.

---

This is essentially what T-Mobile is doing, they're just not being transparent about it. You can have "unlimited" bandwidth at ~3.5Mbit/s (a 480p video stream), or you can pay a premium to saturate your link. They're just choosing to apply the throughput restriction to a specific class of traffic (HD streaming) because (A) it's a large fraction of their total traffic and (B) it's fairly easy to market to customers.

Of course there is no such thing as truly unlimited, but it can certainly be "unlimited" in one dimension. The issue here is that's not how T-Mobile is marketing it, they're marketing their network as "the fastest LTE network"[1] while also saying you have unlimited monthly bandwidth. The latter may be true, but it comes at the expense of throttling the throughput (for some fraction of subscribers); and once you throttle a subscriber you can no longer say you're providing them with access to "the fastest LTE network in America."

[1]: https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news-and-blogs/lte-advanced.ht...

Re: T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

#25

Post by jesusshreds »

drbawb wrote: post #6

I'm a little saddened to see the direction T-Mobile is headed with their plans. When I switched to Project Fi last year my T-Mobile unlimited plan was $70/mo. That included actual HD video, and LTE tethering. Now the equivalent plan (T-Mobile One+) is $90/mo, and that just gets you "unlimited HD day passes" which you have to remember to toggle every day if you want video that isn't 480p. What's even scarier to me is…

I'll just leave this here: https://boingboing.net/2016/09/22/i-have-found-a-secret-tunn...

Re: T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

#26

Post by M_Grey »

davesque wrote: post #17

$48 million seems like a slap on the wrist. T-Mobile made $32 billion in revenue in 2015 and just posted $479 million in profit. I wish I could feel like these fines actually acted as a deterrent.

The best treatment that lobbying money can buy.

Re: T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

#27

Post by ocdtrekkie »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #19
runeb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can T-Mobile dictate what quality video you get?

By not opting out of "BingeOn", they don't count 480p content or below towards your data cap. If you opt out, it counts against your data usage. It encourages users to only use as much data that's necessary to view a streaming video at the maximum quality most mobile devices support (Source IP block is used to determine content zero rating). I'm a realistic T-Mobile user for ~16 years, have no problem with their netw…

Actually, almost everyone got rid of unlimited, and had fair, net neutral data tiers. And then T-Mobile's deceptive marketing led everyone to follow suit. I understand that as a 16 year user, you're inclined to defend them, but this whole current trend was T-Mobile's idea. T-Mobile started zero rating certain types of apps, throttling people's video traffic, etc. "Uncarrier" is a whole new field of net neutrality violates T-Mobile pioneered.

Re: T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

#28

Post by yellowapple »

codemac wrote: post #22
drbawb wrote: post #6

I'm a little saddened to see the direction T-Mobile is headed with their plans. When I switched to Project Fi last year my T-Mobile unlimited plan was $70/mo. That included actual HD video, and LTE tethering. Now the equivalent plan (T-Mobile One+) is $90/mo, and that just gets you "unlimited HD day passes" which you have to remember to toggle every day if you want video that isn't 480p. What's even scarier to me is…

My inability to "script" my phone is really starting to hinder my hacker-ness. This seems like something you could build into your phone. Every day when you first interact with your phone, have tasker or something else fire off a job that auto-enables your unlimited hd day passes. Does anyone have good introduction documentation to either: writing scripts for tasker, or writing your own android applications when you…

> writing your own android applications when you know ZERO java?

Do you know any programming languages? In addition to non-Java JVM-based languages (like Clojure and JRuby), which should work in theory (and in some cases do work in practice, like with Ruboto), there's also stuff like Cordova (though I don't know if Cordova can do what you're looking to do).

Re: T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

#29

Post by Zachery »

kyledrake wrote: post #3

I see the word "unlimited" on a lot of hosting providers. Give me access to the dd command and we'll see how long that theory lasts. I honestly find it, always and everywhere, to be deceptive marketing. There is no such thing as unlimited resources.

Most unlimited plans are outlined in the AUP/TOS. Further so long as you are not impacting other customers in the shared hosting, it is not generally an issue.

That said, I do prefer to know my limits

Re: T-Mobile will pay a $48M fine for throttling ‘unlimited data’ plans

#30

Post by chx »

kyledrake wrote: post #7
chc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but there is such a thing as not placing a limit on the usage of a resource. I don't see it as deceptive if that's actually what they're doing. Sometimes "unlimited" is just a marketing term, other times it seems like a genuine statement of intent from the provider. Obviously I could be a dick and try to prove them wrong, but why?

Because you can't capacity plan when your provider says "unlimited" and then there is actually a limit, except because they don't tell you what it is, you don't know what it is until you hit it. I understand that the word unlimited makes people feel good, but it shouldn't. Nothing is unlimited, ever. Just because they're not telling you what it is doesn't mean it isn't there. Unmetered bandwidth that is capped at a g…

That artificial throttle is not so artificial; they are charging you a lower amount because you are using less resources. The "last mile" is almost always bandwidth constrained, if you use less, then you pay less.
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