Roger Fingas
Beginning on Monday, T-Mobile USA will start taking action against people spoofing the carrier's network to "steal" unlimited tethering data, according to a blog post by CEO John Legere.
The people in question are using apps, rooting, and/or their own code to mask whether they're tethering phones to other devices, Legere said. Only a hundredth of a percent of T-Mobile's customers are allegedly involved, but some of them are claimed to be using up to 2 terabytes of data per month.
Like other major U.S. carriers, T-Mobile provides a small default amount of LTE tethering each month. Once that cap is hit the company throttles backs tethering speeds substantially until the next month, or a person pays for more data.
The crackdown will begin with about 3,000 subscribers "who know exactly what they are doing," Legere stated. An official FAQ notes that the company has developed technology to detect spoofers, and that anyone caught will first be warned and then risk having their smartphone plan downgraded from the unlimited tier to a capped one.
Legere also suggested that the issue is separate from complaints that it and other carriers have been misleading in promising unlimited smartphone data. In practice, U.S. carriers have generally imposed "soft" limits mentioned only in fine print. This June, the Federal Communications Commission levied a $100 million fine against AT&T for failing to adequately inform customers.
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
30 Comments
How much does a terabyte of data really cost a cellular company?
i wish att would let me limited tether my iPhone, since i grandfathered in to original unlimited plan, no tethering at all seems to be a ploy for me to give up the unlimited.
Data is data, right? Sounds like a net-neutrality violation.
[quote name="kent909" url="/t/187953/t-mobile-cracks-down-on-subscribers-stealing-tethered-data#post_2768538"]How much does a terabyte of data really cost a cellular company?[/quote] Across many many people? A lot.
A lot
Think about it. They build a data center that has a bandwidth capacity of some amount, in theory for more data than will be requested. When you exceed your "unlimited amount" a software adjustment is made to throttle your bandwidth. You are still using the same amount it is just being slowed down. I would hazard to say that networking equipment that has then ability to dial in specific bandwidth based on each individual phone number costs a lot more than equipment that would just pass through the data as fast as hardware allowed. So the cost of data goes up not because of the cost to pass it along increases, it costs more because it is being throttled or managed in some way. This is one of the biggest scams perpertrated on consumers. The unlimited plans only make sense if you really get unlimited data and all at the same speed. If that is a business model that cannot be sustainable, then why would you offer it in the first place. I am all for companies making a profit, but why such a convuluted distortion of the truth. Just give a price per gigabyte and be done with it.