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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

#81

Post by bravura »

CountSessine wrote: post #75
maxerickson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They now have On all plans, during congestion the top 3% of data users (>26GB/mo.) may notice reduced speeds until next bill cycle. Video typically streams on smartphone/tablet at DVD quality (480p). Tethering at Max 3G speeds. in the small print. I wish they would just not say "Unlimited" if there is going to be a disclaimer, but the current situation is at least fairly clear.

I wish they would just not say "Unlimited" if there is going to be a disclaimer, but the current situation is at least fairly clear. Marketing and sales is the root of all evil. I'll go out on a limb here and say that 'unlimited' in the case of data/telecom services should be a controlled and regulated word, much like 'organic' and 'natural' are in food.

I believe it already is regulated.

You can't falsely advertise.

The only reason that "natural" and "organic" are regulated terms is because they are nebulous. But "unlimited data" is not nebulous, it's clear cut.

IANAL

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

#82

Post by jshevek »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #27
toomuchtodo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vio…

> And then T-Mobile's deceptive marketing led everyone to follow suit.

Yes. Legere has a cult following which T-Mobile has leveraged these last few years to distract from some anti-consumer and anti-social maneuvers.

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

#83

Post by maxerickson »

bravura wrote: post #81
CountSessine wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they would just not say "Unlimited" if there is going to be a disclaimer, but the current situation is at least fairly clear. Marketing and sales is the root of all evil. I'll go out on a limb here and say that 'unlimited' in the case of data/telecom services should be a controlled and regulated word, much like 'organic' and 'natural' are in food.

I believe it already is regulated. You can't falsely advertise. The only reason that "natural" and "organic" are regulated terms is because they are nebulous. But "unlimited data" is not nebulous, it's clear cut. IANAL

There's obvious limits.

1 month multiplied by the maximum speed of the technology, the actual capacity of the network, the fact that they throttle heavy users, etc.

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

#84

Post by dboreham »

drbawb wrote: post #61
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely false. If you look at how businesses generally work, they're trying to get a certain amount of revenue in order to balance their budget and make a profit. Then they decide how to get it. Data caps are fantastic . Because it means when they're raising their prices, they're charging the users who most use it, rather than just raising the price for everyone. If you're being asked to pay for overage on…

No. Data caps (and bandwidth limits to some extent) are fundamentally broken. My water company doesn't shut off my water because I took too many long showers this month. My gas company doesn't shut the valve because I had a few extra loads of laundry to run through the dryer. My electric company doesn't kill the lights because I was working on my car and used the 220V in the garage a lot this month. Instead they inst…

Caps are a broken form of metering. For various reasons the market doesn't accept metering as a pricing model for retail connectivity.

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

#85

Post by M_Grey »

DannyBee wrote: post #36
M_Grey wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best treatment that lobbying money can buy.

Not really. The supreme court has repeatedly said there are constitutional limits on punitive damage. In fact, for federal common law, it's about a 1:1 ratio, and for everything else, it's supposed to be "single digit multipliers". See exxon shipping v. baker and following cases. So, of course, agencies keep their fines within precedent because they actually want to be able to defend them in court. Ignorance is bliss…

Ignorance is bliss though, blame lobbying.

Because disagreements must be rooted in ignorance (sarcasm).

How pointlessly rude.

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

#86

Post by SparkyMcUnicorn »

DigitalJack wrote: post #60
amadeusw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Thanks. Glad to read that, but even 7.5 mil to the government seems like a conflict of interest.

Not much different from traffic citations, I guess.

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

#87

Post by jotato »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #70
drbawb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it they're ultimately just doing traffic shaping. If the edge of their network thinks you're downloading a video stream they'll throttle the throughput to ~3.5Mbps. This is approximately equivalent to a 480p stream, so intelligent streaming apps (e.g: Netflix, YouTube, et al.) will notice this and downgrade the quality to avoid buffer stalls. On their new plan "T-Mobile One" this behavior is always on…

3.5Mbps? That's actually quite a lot; you can get solid 720p at that speed. Or watch any twitch stream at max quality.

If I recall, Youtube suggests an upload speed of 2500kb for 720P streams

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

#88

Post by notyourwork »

koolba wrote: post #65
SteveNuts wrote: post #2

It's bullshit that they can offer consumers an option to buy accessories at a discount (which they probably still make a profit on) as a reparation for this. I want direct monetary compensation.

> It's bullshit that they can offer consumers an option to buy accessories at a discount (which they probably still make a profit on) as a reparation for this. If this were a class action, would the lawyers accept getting paid a truckload of iPhone 7 cases?

No they would negotiate all parties included in the class action suit get iPhone cases and T-mobile is responsible for paying all legal fees for attorney representation.

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

#90

Post by marincounty »

gshulegaard wrote: post #49
derekp7 wrote: post #47

Here's the thing, I would much rather have reasonable throttling with unlimited data, then either $10.00 per GB, or worse yet, multiple times that as an overage penalty. Especially with a family plan when the non-bill-payers on the plan don't understand overage fees. So the way I understood it (at least under the plan that I signed up for before "binge-on" was added), T-Mobile would charge $20 (on top of the regular…

> Of course, it would be nice if they spelled out all of this in their advertising and product literature (and if this was still the case with their current plans). Which is ultimately the problem here. They didn't spell this out or make explicit this practice. I agree with you, it makes sense, and I find it acceptable...but they definitely should have made it obvious and well documented.

The MBA's think they are out smarting their customers. Maybe customers will run towards the simple truth?

Although, I'm still shocked when I hear people are still paying $70/month for cell/data coverage.

I only know of one company that attempts to tell the truth, and not bury it in pages of TOS, but I haven't jumped in yet.

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