T-Mobile LTE & Network Discussion V2

[nick]

 

 

I cannot vouch for the veracity of this comment on an article I read, but someone with knowledge of the T-Mobile "unlimited" tethering loophole said that it was data usage disguised as whitelisted speed tests. Maybe data usage can be masked as Music Freedom, too.

Man, that is precious. Calling the network "Data Strong," then violating the spirit of Net Neutrality comes back to bite T-Mobile in the ass.

AJ

I don't think that is what's going on, he did say they want to move offenders off unlimited and to a tiered plan, so if they spoof it as whit listed data use this would not affect them or stop the abuse.


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[WiWavelength]

I don't think that is what's going on, he did say they want to move offenders off unlimited and to a tiered plan, so if they spoof it as whit listed data use this would not affect them or stop the abuse.

 

Again, I cannot speak to the veracity.  But this commenter had experience in online forums where this "unlimited" loophole apparently gets discussed and shared.

 

And my interpretation of Legere's statements is that those who are using inordinate amounts of data -- whether legitimately or fraudulently whitelisted -- will get shut down based on T-Mobile's terms of service.  T-Mobile does have that power to stop the abuse.

 

AJ

[tybo31316]

Unlimited data just needs to go away completely and carriers compete based on price of tiered buckets of data.

 

Sent from my Nexus 6

[WiWavelength]

In my opinion, if people are abusing unlimited smartphone usage by trying to disguise them tethering, they should get shutdown.  I like him moving abusers down to limited plans.  Very fitting.  I'd like Sprint to do the very same thing.

 

I agree.  And we have the thread poll statistics to back that up.  It is sobering to see what proportion of data a small percentage of users devour with no concern for network capacity or fellow users.

 

Honestly, I will take an extreme viewpoint.  I would not mind if the FTC stepped in and said that wireless operators must discontinue "unlimited" data plans because they cannot deliver on them.  Only clearly defined tiered plans from here on out.  Pay for what you use.  Overages, throttling, or hard caps left up to the market.  Some of you will hate me for that -- but that is mostly because you want to use the hell out of "unlimited" data for an unreasonably low price.

 

AJ

[cletus]

So my only question here is: If the worst offender is the 2 TB guy (who obviously is a total asshole) what are the other 3000 offenders at? 1.5 TB? 1 TB? 500 GB? What is the metric they are using here? We saw the same idea out of AT&T and a lot of people I would consider not "abusers" @40-100 GB+ got caught up in throttling and stuff.

 

 

If people are breaking the TOS by spoofing tethering traffic, etc then why bother even making this bombastic press release decrying hackers and data abusers? Just kick them off and or block their service. 

[WiWavelength]

If people are breaking the TOS by spoofing tethering traffic, etc then why bother even making this bombastic press release decrying hackers and data abusers? Just kick them off and or block their service. 

 

It is Legere's modus operandi.  He does not want to be seen as the enforcer, the bad guy.  He wants to be seen as the consumer advocate, the wireless crusader.  This is a preemptive PR move that ties in with the current T-Mobile regime's facade.

 

AJ

[Ascertion]

I cannot vouch for the veracity of this comment on an article I read, but someone with knowledge of the T-Mobile "unlimited" tethering loophole said that it was data usage disguised as whitelisted speed tests.  Maybe data usage can be masked as Music Freedom, too.

 

Man, that is precious.  Calling the network "Data Strong," then violating the spirit of Net Neutrality comes back to bite T-Mobile in the ass.

 

AJ

As someone that's familiar with the process, it eliminates the system check of the native hotspot app, either by overriding the APN, or modifying the framework smali files via reverse Java engineering.  T-Mobile typically only checks user agents but by removing the check for user agent, the user can spoof it as Smartphone usage.

[WiWavelength]

As someone that's familiar with the process, it eliminates the system check of the native hotspot app, either by overriding the APN, or modifying the framework smali files via reverse Java engineering.  T-Mobile typically only checks user agents but by removing the check for user agent, the user can spoof it as Smartphone usage.

 

Thanks for that clear and concise elucidation.

 

And this, children, is why we cannot have nice things, such as "unlimited" data on a wireless network.

 

AJ

[S4GRU]

So my only question here is: If the worst offender is the 2 TB guy (who obviously is a total asshole) what are the other 3000 offenders at? 1.5 TB? 1 TB? 500 GB? What is the metric they are using here? We saw the same idea out of AT&T and a lot of people I would consider not "abusers" @40-100 GB+ got caught up in throttling and stuff.

 

 

If people are breaking the TOS by spoofing tethering traffic, etc then why bother even making this bombastic press release decrying hackers and data abusers? Just kick them off and or block their service. 

 

It's not limited to 3,000 users.  In their FAQ's they say they are going after everyone who subverts their Smartphone Unlimited only.  They are violating their TOS by doing so, and they will all be stopped and thrown off unlimited.  Customers who exceed the hotspot allotment but try to mask it as smartphone usage will be stopped.  Whether they are exceeding the first few MB's or 2 TB's.

 

The bombastic press release is because Legere wants to control the narrative and get the media on his side from the beginning.  While the tech media is largely Tmo sympathetic, Legere doesn't want the data abusers setting forth the narrative that gets played in the media.  If Tmo said nothing and instituted this quietly, then abusers would start contacting the media showing them screenshots of how Tmo is not honoring unlimited and slamming them into other plans.  The abusers could look like victims, if they played it right.  It's not like they are going to say they use 2 TB's.  And abusers are crafty sons of bitches.  Look at what they get away with.  Don't under estimate them.

 

Legere is going on the offensive, because it will be much more successful than going on the defensive after it blows up publicly.  He's being smart and understanding his enemy.

[Ascertion]

. And abusers are crafty sons of bitches. Look at what they get away with. Don't under estimate them.

Using 2TB isn't really a good way to stay under the radar. The ones doing that stand out like a sore thumb. Haha

 

 

Sent from my M8

[jamisonshaw125]

Seriously. How is 7 gb of mobile hotspot not enough. I would love to have maybe even 3, or 5. Just for emergency situations. But that probably won't ever be offered to me until I get off this legacy plan. But whatever.

 

2 terabytes its a ridiculous amount of data. When I had Comcast I would monitor my internet usage. At most we would use around 300 gb a month. That is between every single device in the house being on wifi, movies, hulu, netflix, youtube, and web browsing, and all guests using wifi as well. I will not believe that anybody approaching that much is only using their smart phone to watch netflix. No, they are tethering illegally, and there is no doubt about it. Hell. We binge watched all of Dexter for about a month straight and still didn't even reach that much.

[Arysyn]

At this point, perhaps John Legere ought to consult me for some rate planning advice as to working on the transition away from unlimited data plans. I've thought it all over and I believe I have a very good solution for him.

 

Anyways, I'm not surprised he's making a media spectacle over this, rather than just sending the warnings to the particular customers then hoping to have the issue resolved. Instead, it seems to have created a divide over at TmoNews :

 

http://www.tmonews.com/2015/08/john-legere-vows-to-go-after-t-mobile-network-abusers-on-unlimited-4g-lte-data-plan/

[cletus]

Seriously. How is 7 gb of mobile hotspot not enough. I would love to have maybe even 3, or 5. Just for emergency situations. But that probably won't ever be offered to me until I get off this legacy plan. But whatever.

 

2 terabytes its a ridiculous amount of data. When I had Comcast I would monitor my internet usage. At most we would use around 300 gb a month. That is between every single device in the house being on wifi, movies, hulu, netflix, youtube, and web browsing, and all guests using wifi as well. I will not believe that anybody approaching that much is only using their smart phone to watch netflix. No, they are tethering illegally, and there is no doubt about it. Hell. We binge watched all of Dexter for about a month straight and still didn't even reach that much.

It all depends on what you watch, really. Watching certain things like Twitch.tv or HBOGo streaming are not nearly as efficient as Netflix is. Even watching very high quality Youtube videos can draw a ton of data. My home internet can use a terabyte between my wife and I. Twitch.tv seems to be the worst offender based on what I have seen. Watching for 1 hour a day can easily pull multiple gigs if I watch a tournament with 2 streams for example. I also pulled over almost 2 TB when I had to reinstall my steam library./edit: This is even easier as my home computer supports 4k resolution streaming.

 

To get above 1 TB I would somewhat agree with anyone who says that you need to be torrenting or running a server even a PLEX for family churns data fast. The exception would be a college house where among 5 guys we easily hit 2 TB even years ago.

[richy]

Firstly, we all seem to agree Legere is the worlds greatest asshat, but this seems somewhat sensible no? To have any chance at offering unlimited smartphone for the next few years they need to ensure it is just that being used. They deprioratized the heaviest users (and published the level, which is rare) and now they are clamping down on people using it as an isp which seems to be a regular occurrence. My work patterns changed so I use less now than I did. My worst was 50 GB in a month iirc, currently about 10GB. The better half gets closer to 90 GB now mostly due to the half pints watching netflix in the car and her watching it at work (she has one of those jobs where theres literally nothing to do a lot of the time but she has to be there). We have never been contacted about our usage. I think she noticed the deprioratization recently on a trip to Oahu but otherwise nothing. We do use tethering now and again but not much and always using the phones hotspot feature so it gets recorded properly.   

 

The next few years will be very interesting, there cant be rampant abuse of any network, they have projections for usage when they offer products. Going beyond that will make the products less sustainable. Cracking down on asshats who run their entire home off a tethered lte connection deserve getting booted, they may just be worse asshats than Legere.  

 

I agree Legere is definately trying to ensure this doesn't look bad for tmo butif they stick to people who are deliberately breaking the rules and impacting the network then that seems fair but I could be wrong

[JosefTor]

I don't get why there is any hate on Tmobile for this... This is a good move and one that clearly trumps Sprint. You can argue that Sprint has never throttled users and for that I'd say I don't care. Sprint has stated an absurd plan in the past to limit the top 5 or so percent and gave 5 gbps as a number. I don't even use 5 a month typically but I agree that up to 100 gbps should easily be allowed as long as it does not subvert Sprint's terms and service. Oh wait... Tethering isn't allowed on Sprint unless you pay more... ???? this is clearly a win for consumers and net neutrality does not come into the argument.

[S4GRU]

I don't get why there is any hate on Tmobile for this... This is a good move and one that clearly trumps Sprint. You can argue that Sprint has never throttled users and for that I'd say I don't care. Sprint has stated an absurd plan in the past to limit the top 5 or so percent and gave 5 gbps as a number. I don't even use 5 a month typically but I agree that up to 100 gbps should easily be allowed as long as it does not subvert Sprint's terms and service. Oh wait... Tethering isn't allowed on Sprint unless you pay more... ???? this is clearly a win for consumers and net neutrality does not come into the argument.

You do realize that Tmo has the same prioritization policy that Sprint has that you are criticizing. Tmo is not doing away with it. Tmo will still throttle heavy smartphone users on a busy site if they are in the top eschelon of users. Just like Sprint.

 

Tmo's new crack down is not on smartphone users but hotspot users trying to bypass hotspot limits. Smartphone deprioritization marches on unabated.

 

Using Tapatalk on Nexus 6

[Fraydog]

The real John Legere, the one that came from Global Crossing and AT&T, can be seen here. This is all very shrewd on his part. Smart use of political capital. I honestly wish Sprint would start with a similar offensive. If anything, that's another opportunity to get a 25 GB limit on non-prioritized LTE at this point. 

[nick]

Seriously. How is 7 gb of mobile hotspot not enough. I would love to have maybe even 3, or 5. Just for emergency situations. But that probably won't ever be offered to me until I get off this legacy plan. But whatever.

 

2 terabytes its a ridiculous amount of data. When I had Comcast I would monitor my internet usage. At most we would use around 300 gb a month. That is between every single device in the house being on wifi, movies, hulu, netflix, youtube, and web browsing, and all guests using wifi as well. I will not believe that anybody approaching that much is only using their smart phone to watch netflix. No, they are tethering illegally, and there is no doubt about it. Hell. We binge watched all of Dexter for about a month straight and still didn't even reach that much.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/tethering101?src=hash

66 movies a day everyday for a month, I would call that 65 1/2 movies to many....

[Deval]

I don't get why there is any hate on Tmobile for this... This is a good move and one that clearly trumps Sprint. You can argue that Sprint has never throttled users and for that I'd say I don't care. Sprint has stated an absurd plan in the past to limit the top 5 or so percent and gave 5 gbps as a number. I don't even use 5 a month typically but I agree that up to 100 gbps should easily be allowed as long as it does not subvert Sprint's terms and service. Oh wait... Tethering isn't allowed on Sprint unless you pay more... ???? this is clearly a win for consumers and net neutrality does not come into the argument.

 

I used 26GB this month, no throttling here.

 

And tethering is included on the new plans.

[tommym65]

I don't get why there is any hate on Tmobile for this... This is a good move and one that clearly trumps Sprint. You can argue that Sprint has never throttled users and for that I'd say I don't care. Sprint has stated an absurd plan in the past to limit the top 5 or so percent and gave 5 gbps as a number. I don't even use 5 a month typically but I agree that up to 100 gbps should easily be allowed as long as it does not subvert Sprint's terms and service. Oh wait... Tethering isn't allowed on Sprint unless you pay more... this is clearly a win for consumers and net neutrality does not come into the argument.

 

First, there is no evidence that Sprint has ever throttled the "top 5%".  There was an announcement a year or so ago that Sprint could throttle the largest data users at certain times and on certain sectors if they became congested, but no one has ever reported evidence that Sprint has actually done such throttling.

 

Secondly, tethering is allowed on many non-unlimited plans at no added charge.  For example, I am on Family Share, and any of my lines may tether as much as it wants up to the maximum shared data amount for the account (currently 40 GB).  We are not heavy data users, but this has been useful to me when I travel on business.  The logic of charging for tethering on unlimited accounts is obvious, however, as unlimited tethering would absolutely invite abuse.

[Fraydog]

All T-Mo has to do is call their unlimited plans the Data Strong Smartphone Smorgasbord. BOOM, problem solved.

[NYC126]

This is just a PR stunt by the Joker that runs Tmobile. His precious network is slowing down and getting congested by the minute (of course we knew that because we discussed it many times). He is using a, fake number of of 2TB just like Robert mentioned to go after everyone one that tether over 7gbs.

 

 

The magenta trolls see this guy as the hero against the wireless greedy companies, but when in reality he is just a disguise. Tmobile is just like any carrier, they want to squeeze as much money they can from you.

 

These PR stunts are basically laying the ground work to introduce overages. His excuse will be we tried everything to prevent the data abusers, we tried a 20gbs hard cap on congested sites, and we tried to kick out the people tethering over 2 TB.

[derrph]

This is just a PR stunt by the Joker that runs Tmobile. His precious network is slowing down and getting congested by the minute (of course we knew that because we discussed it many times). He is using a, fake number of of 2TB just like Robert mentioned to go after everyone one that tether over 7gbs.

 

 

The magenta trolls see this guy as the hero against the wireless greedy companies, but when in reality he is just a disguise. Tmobile is just like any carrier, they want to squeeze as much money they can from you.

 

These PR stunts are basically laying the ground work to introduce overages. His excuse will be we tried everything to prevent the data abusers, we tried a 20gbs hard cap on congested sites, and we tried to kick out the people tethering over 2 TB.

Hmmmm I never thought about it like that. Introducing overages...tmobile will catch all kinds of hell from people. They would have to just like you said mask it up and make it sound pretty.

 

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[cletus]

This is just a PR stunt by the Joker that runs Tmobile. His precious network is slowing down and getting congested by the minute (of course we knew that because we discussed it many times). He is using a, fake number of of 2TB just like Robert mentioned to go after everyone one that tether over 7gbs.

 

 

The magenta trolls see this guy as the hero against the wireless greedy companies, but when in reality he is just a disguise. Tmobile is just like any carrier, they want to squeeze as much money they can from you.

 

These PR stunts are basically laying the ground work to introduce overages. His excuse will be we tried everything to prevent the data abusers, we tried a 20gbs hard cap on congested sites, and we tried to kick out the people tethering over 2 TB.

 

 

Hmmmm I never thought about it like that. Introducing overages...tmobile will catch all kinds of hell from people. They would have to just like you said mask it up and make it sound pretty.

 

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I think it is more likely they will use this line of thought to target "network abusers" with no published scale of what level of usage "abuse" is. I expect they will accuse people who use over XX-XXXGB/mo of illegal tethering/APN editing and shut down their service or demand they use less. 

 

I had friends on AT&T unlimited go through the same deal and I wouldn't be very surprised if we see posts on howard forums and elsewhere in the not too distant future going "I received a warning from T-Mobile for using too much data, HALP!?" 

[EvanA]

It's happening (maybe).

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/3j8qgd/looks_like_tmobile_is_starting_to_throttle/

 

Please read the link because the short title does not give the whole story.

 

 

Also, here's the first known instance of the tethering crack down

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/3j8nm1/just_received_this_message_from_tmobile_so_much/

 

AJ will be proud of this post

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/3j7jqr/thank_you_tmobile_for_taking_measures_to_remove/