[–] [deleted] 7 points 13 points (+20|-7) ago 

[Deleted]

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[–] JohnDaRipp3r ago 

LOL, i agree with you bro. They are the ones getting angry for users buying into their false advertising. Two middle fingers for you T-Mobile!

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[–] zackogenic ago 

What about straight talk? Seems cheaper than Pageplus, 5gb of LTE for $45/month

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[–] tehconz ago 

Thing is, they're pretty clear that "unlimited" only refers to data consumed on the phone itself, there's a separate and specific limit for tethering. People are using technical means to evade that limit, so it's no different from hacking your cable modem to get on a higher tier or removing a filter to get TV channels you're not subscribed to.

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[–] shirtlords ago 

Ahhh... you haven't actually looked into that last option have you?

[–] [deleted] ago 

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[–] EChondo 12 points 24 points (+36|-12) ago 

Yeah sorry everyone else, gonna side with T-Mobile here. T-Mobile is going after people who are abusing their mobile plans by going around the 7GB tethering limit. I'm on T-Mobile and go over 21GB on my phone regularly, nothing has happened to me nor has anyone contacted me.

You have unlimited mobile data, but you don't have unlimited tethering data. If they allowed unlimited tethering then what's the point in having home Internet when you can just tether your network to your phone? There's limits and restrictions for a reason.

Also it's not like T-Mobile has ever hidden this, it says there is a limit on tethering and that unlimited is only on smartphone's when you look at their plans: http://i.imgur.com/Z08Tocx.jpg

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[–] laserguidedpolarbear 1 point -1 points (+0|-1) ago 

From T-Mobile's perspective, there is zero difference between a packet that is delivered to a phone, and a packet that is delivered to a tethered device through a phone. There is no additional cost to them, there is no impact to their network, there is no reason to differentiate between data in these scenarios at all.

This is like electric companies telling you that you have a cap on how many batteries you can charge with the electricity they deliver to your home. Once you have delivered the electrons, it makes no difference to the provider what happens to them.

This is an artificial distinction created solely to serve greed.

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[–] Drenki 2 points 0 points (+2|-2) ago  (edited ago)

Tethering is essentially like doing all of your activity on your phone (browsing, downloading files, chat, voip calls, etc), but then immediately copying that information over to a computer via USB, wifi, bluetooth, etc.

Differentiating tethering from regular phone use is just bullshit marketing from corporations trying to suck as much money as they can from you.

Data doesn't even COST them anything. Not on its own at least. ISPs charge each other for peering fees. Those fees are determined by the 95th percentile of traffic.

Let's say T-Mobile had an arrangement with a peer (the ISP they connect to in order for their subscribers traffic to reach the rest of the internet) at 95th percentile of 100mbps (yes, unrealistically low, this is just an example). Traffic could flow at 95mbps and they would never hit an overage. As long as their customers pay their bills, there's no problem. If total traffic was at 5mbps, they'd make a pretty good profit. Obviously they want that case.

So how do they address the problem? Well, they just keep that link running at 95mbps. Subscribers would be locked into a certain transfer rate (95mbps / total number of active subscribers).

Problem solved, no overages, T-Mobile makes money, subscribers never hit a data cap. Everyone is happy.

But companies are greedy. They want to screw you over as hard as they can. So what do they do?

Like I said, ISPs like T-Mobile, and the companies they peer to, negotiate prices based on link speeds (Mbps).

But T-Mobile and other customer-facing ISPs (AT&T, Comcast, &c) charge customers by amount of data.

If they charged each customer based off link speed, all of this shit would go away.

What's even worse is that with peering agreements, if company A sends 100mbps of traffice to company B and company B sends the same RATE of traffic back, then they don't charge each other anything.

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[–] on_the_nightshift ago 

You are misinformed about mobile carrier peering agreements. Not all agreements are simply for link/port speed and only billed on the difference in traffic between the two ends. Most mobile carrier traffic doesn't traverse peering connections, but connections to tier 1 ISPs, where they are billed per MB/GB. As eyeball networks, somewhere in the neighborhood of 90%+ of their traffic is from the internet toward the subscriber, which is why they don't use the kind of direct peering you are talking about for the vast majority of their traffic. This doesn't even mention the cost of getting the data to the customer from the ISP across the WAN to the carrier's MTSO, then across the backhaul to the cellsite, and finally across the wireless spectrum to the phone. Bandwidth in the wireless spectrum is limited and extremely expensive to purchase and deploy.

Put simply, the amount of data used by customers DOES cost the mobile carrier money, and the costs are pretty huge if they have a large customer base. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see data on mobile networks come down in price, but it isn't going to for a while, and that isn't simply due to greed.

Source: I am a network engineer for a mobile carrier (not TMo) who works on this stuff every day..

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[–] Totenglocke 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Why do they care what is using the data? If I'm paying them for unlimited data, why is it OK to use it to play Netflix for a month straight on my phone, but not on my laptop tethered to my phone?

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[–] Eosh 3 points 1 point (+4|-3) ago 

Thank you for posting this instead of mindlessly parroting how T Mobile is crap and all the other expected rhetoric.

Disclaimer I do not have T Mobile, I have verizon and I hate it.

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[–] Sosacms 1 point -1 points (+0|-1) ago 

Hey, I love T-Mobile and been a customer across the country for 16 years. But data is data, if they sell me unlimited data I can download/purge all day long if I wanted to. That's on them for selling me unlimited.

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[–] EChondo 4 points -1 points (+3|-4) ago  (edited ago)

You're welcome! Honestly I've been in some heated "discussions" with some other people on another forum I frequent, it's just ridiculous what other people are saying. This is nothing new and this restriction is not hidden in any way, shape, or form. It's very clearly outlined on their plans page, but for some reason people are now shitting on T-Mobile as if this is some 180 they are doing or they're turning into Hitler.

Personally I hate that tethering has a limit, but there is a limit and there's nothing I can do about it and if T-Mobile catches people going around that limit then I fully support T-Mobile terminating their service.

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