T-Mobile to give every user unlimited data | Hacker News Reader

T-Mobile to give every user unlimited data

geekwire.com

27 pointsweston29 comments

All video will be downgraded to 480p unless you pay extra. That is as blatant as a net neutrality violation as they get. It was pretty clear that this was T-Mobile's ultimate end goal when they introduced the Binge On feature that allowed data to circumvent data caps. I'm just sad that we allowed them to get away with this obvious bait and switch tactic to get public approval for anti-net neutrality behavior.

As a very satisfied T-Mobile customer, these changes sound awful to me.

- $70/month, not $50/month. That's a 40% price increase

- Wifi hotspot now costs an additional $15/month, or runs only at 2G speeds

- The existing $50/month plan will no longer be available to new users who are joining T-Mobile.

I don't use a whole bunch of data. ~2GB/month is perfectly sufficient for me. What I really love about my current plan is the cheap price ($50 per month), and the fact that it includes extremely fast wifi hotspot. These are the exact 2 things they have taken away from the plan. Maybe this is a positive development for many customers, but I personally hate it.

If you only use 2GB/month, why not switch to google fi? You'll have better coverage and a lower monthly cost.

does not support iPhone

If you have a limited number of devices, or use a lot of data, Verizon beats out Project Fi -- Fi shines when you have multiple devices (in my case, phone, tablet, laptop) with modems, and don't want to pay a $10/device/mo access fee.

Are you kidding? I have a single smartphone under Verizon for 2 lousy gigs a month, and I'm paying $80/mth. That's after my employer discount.

Maybe you should switch to one of the new plans? Currently it looks like what you describe is $35/mo: http://www.verizonwireless.com/landingpages/verizon-plan/

+$20 per device (plus tax and fees).

I have a Verizon pre-paid plan on an iPhone 6s I purchased outright at the Apple Store.

My plan provides unlimited minutes and texting and 2 GB of data. I get an additional 1 GB because I'm enrolled in the auto-pay program. Including taxes, fees, etc., they charge $49.15 USD to my AmEx monthly (for the advertised $45/mo. plan). My average monthly usage is ~600 MB.

My girlfriend has a very similar plan on AT&T and pays roughly the same amount, though I don't know the exact details of her plan.

So, $15/mo extra for packets to originate from a device other than your phone. Another $25/mo for "HD Video" (That is, if you pay $25, Uncle Legere won't take your TCP connection out back and bust it's knee-caps)

How the hell did we end up in the situation where Verizon is the most sensible carrier with regard to net neutrality (A bit is a bit is a bit, be it from laptop, phone, tablet, netflix, google, or HN).

Too right, this unlimited is a facade for something that is completely limited in arbitrary ways. Mobile data has to come from a specific device doing specific things, i.e not HD video or using a device with a bigger screen and keyboard.

$70/mo for the first line is very expensive. You really have to be using more than 5-6 GB of data every month for this to make sense.

But you still get other things. Video and music streaming is unmetered and you get free roaming in many countries with text and data.

I use MetroPCS. If it's available where you live, you can't beat it. $60/month for truly unlimited, non throttled 4G with unlimited tethering. Speeds are usually 10-15 Mbps. I use hundreds of gigs/month tethered to my laptop.

Since you still have them, do you know why they haven't been fully merged with T-Mobile since they were bought years ago?

Sounds like bullshit where you have to pay extra to stream video at more than 480p. Where are the unlimited data in that.

Would you prefer paying the $30 or $50 / month for 2GB like a few years ago? T-Mobile has consistently demonstrated an appetite for pushing the boundaries of their network and their offerings for customers. I wouldn't be surprised if this (like many other previous up-charges) is phased out after a period of time.

Caveat: I'm a happy T-Mobile customer.

The plan that was $35 for 5gb was pretty good though... twice that for "unlimited" doesn't seem like such a good deal unless you are hitting the limit.

The $30 plan with 5GB data (unlimited, but throttled afterward) and 100 minutes still exists (and I use it) -> https://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/other-prepaid-plans

My first data plan (with AT&T) was $30 a month for unlimited data. The price should not have gone up in eight years of development and innovation.

Although 480p is not too bad (I have that feature enabled) on the phone, isn't it something you can easily get around using VPN?

VPN probably solves this

I'm one of those people that has an old old old AT&T plan with the original unlimited data package. Even if it's limited to 23GB if the area has some congestion, at $80/mo it's still a way better deal for me than most of these plans.

I average 5-7gb/data a month, and almost none of it is music or video. It's all just average use, email, Facebook, iMessage, stuff like that. It's amazing how much data Reddit can soak up.

But none of the newer plans make any sense to me. Just no compelling reason to switch.

How do you use so much data? I am on reddit all the time (about 4 hours a day according to app usage) and only used about 300MB of data per month? Even with Pokemon, Messenger (Viber, WhatsApp and Messenger), Facebook, Email etc, I average around 1-2GB a month.

I have an iPhone 6s. I did notice that my data usage almost doubled from my 5s with no changes in my behavior. I do send & receive more photos now. I use Instagram more.

Looking through data usage per app, stuff adds up.

Urg... I wish TMobile had better coverage where I love. I'm stuck with AT&T which just halved my data plan, but they removed overages do it kinda makes up for it...

What happens if youtube switches even the content servers to HTTPS? How will they be able to cap that? Also in general: If a mp4-file is directly hosted on a webpage which is served over HTTPS: How will they detect this?

They can probably just throttle the bandwidth for connections to certain services like YouTube which will result in the player automatically selecting a lower quality stream.

How do they enforce the tethering 2G cap? A proxy that you could easily configure on the computer? And would evading the video res lock be as easy as using a proxy/VPN of your own?

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