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[–] Drenki 1 point 6 points (+7|-1) 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.

Is there a cap on how much data you can copy from the phone to your computer over a USB cable? Show me where in their literature they make this absurd claim.

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

MBs doesn't even COST them anything. Not on their own at least. ISPs charge each other peering fees. You send me data at this rate at this price, I send you data at this rate for this price. Those fees are determined by the 95th percentile of traffic. Traffic is a rate, like 10mpbs or 100mpbs

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. Well, maybe things feel slow sometimes, but only if the ISP had shitty infrastructure.

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.

[–] [deleted] 0 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago 

[Deleted]

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[–] MagicHamsta ago  (edited ago)

Agreed. What's the point of "4g blazin fast omgbbq" speeds if I can only use that speed for less than a day in the entire month & get charged for "overages"?

I don't see my gas labeled as "unlimited 500 mph".

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[–] tylahedras ago 

I mean yea, sure, I agree. So I guess I'll show them by switching to... oh. FUCK.

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

I have the 3 GB plan and use wifi almost all the time. How does one steal data when T-mo cap's your data.

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[–] on_the_nightshift ago 

By agreeing to something in your contract, and then violating those terms.

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[–] aileron_ron ago 

I would like to know how to bypass t-mobiles data throttle, When I reach my 3 GB unlimited plan they throttle my service down to like dial up. Please tell us how to get around the data throttleing.

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[–] mr337 2 points 3 points (+5|-2) ago 

Man that tethering data must go through special pipes or some thing.

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[–] Tb0n3 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Yeah. It goes through the cpu pipes and out the wifi pipes.

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[–] MagicHamsta ago 

But those pipes are filled with cats & dank memes. That must be why they need more monies. /s.

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[–] waldojim42 2 points 12 points (+14|-2) ago 

Guess that makes me a thief, or an abusive customer. Don't care. Long time Verizon Wireless customer with unlimited data. And will continue to use my unlimited data until they force me out. I average about 30G/mo, peaking at about 350GB/mo. And frankly, I don't care. I paid for an unlimited plan, not whatever-they-feel-like.

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[–] TopShelfPrivilege 1 point 1 point (+2|-1) ago 

They're complaining about people abusing tethering. It says on the plan pages that ON SMARTPHONE data is unlimited, but tethering is not.

http://i.imgur.com/Z08Tocx.jpg

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[–] waldojim42 ago  (edited ago)

And it states right there in the article, that isn't true either. 21GB is the limit on smartphone. Which leads to the obvious questions: When isn't unlimited unlimited? And why the discrepancy?

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

This sounds an awful lot like a limit.

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

How the mighty have fallen.

Now they're just a Sprint with more device options.

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[–] PM_ME_YOUR_BOOBS2 2 points 6 points (+8|-2) ago 

Man, this sucks I was almost kind of starting to think t mobile might be the underdog carrier that sets everything right with the Internet the chosen one so to speak but it turns out it's just another of our dark lord and masters. Fuck damnit shit god damnit motherfucker and tits.

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[–] TopShelfPrivilege ago 

How does this make them evil? They never tried to hide anything. It's very clearly shown what you're allowed to do. They explicitly state unlimited ON SMARTPHONE data, and 7GB of tethering, which is what T-Mobile is complaining about.

http://i.imgur.com/Z08Tocx.jpg

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[–] PM_ME_YOUR_BOOBS2 ago 

Evil is subjective I guess?

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

Hey now, don't bring tits into this. Tits are wonderful, superb sweaterpuppets and heavenly handpillows.

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[–] PM_ME_YOUR_BOOBS2 1 point 0 points (+1|-1) ago 

Right right, I may have taken things a bit too far.

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[–] MedicalMountainGoat 1 point 4 points (+5|-1) ago 

Corporations are inherently evil by design. The entire point is to maximize profits at any cost.

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[–] Drenki 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago 

A corporation is now, legally, a human without a soul or the ability to be sent to jail or imprisoned.

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[–] PM_ME_YOUR_BOOBS2 ago 

But isn't there supposed to be some prophecy about a good corporation springing up and bringing balance to the economy or something?

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[–] theoldguy 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago 

Because that's what the stockholders who want instant gratification demand. A rational business would plan for the next 20 years, not 20 months, and show a bigger profit in the end.

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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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[–] 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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[–] 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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[–] brandon 2 points 2 points (+4|-2) ago  (edited ago)

It's even better because you can tell the people who did not read the article and are jumping on the "fuck T-Mobile" bandwagon here in the comments. The tethering limit is clearly stated. You can use unlimited data on your phone, 7GB tethered. If you're using an app, ROM, or anything else to bypass that limit, you're breaking the contract and terms of service. They're well within their rights to revoke your access to their network.

Edit : Oh shit, did I hurt fee fees or something? A contract and it's terms are laid out clearly. If you violate those, you can and will be penalized for it. That's how business works everywhere.

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