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FCC Gets T-Mobile to Make Throttling Practices Clearer

According to an FCC announcement (pdf), T-Mobile and the FCC have struck an agreement that will involve T-Mobile making the company's throttling practices clearer. As in stands, T-Mobile doesn't charge overages -- but instead throttles capped users at 64 kbps or 128 kbps for the remainder of their billing cycle once they cross their usage limit. Earlier this year, T-Mobile announced they'd be exempting speedtests from their usage caps, resulting in throttled users not being able to actually see they were throttled.

Click for full size
The move resulted in consumer groups like Public Knowledge complaining that the company was being misleading, and that by exempting speed tests from caps, users weren't able to get an accurate picture of the state of their connection.

The FCC appears to have agreed, stating in their announcement this practice has resulted in general confusion among customers. As a result, the FCC states that T-Mobile has agreed to do the following within the next 60 days:

quote:
•Send customers a text message once they hit their monthly high-speed data allotment linking to a speed test that customers can use to determine their actual reduced speed;

•Provide a button on customer smartphones linking to a speed test that will show actual reduced speeds;

• Modify the text messages it currently sends to customers once they hit their monthly high-speed data allotment to make it clear that certain speed tests may show network speeds, rather than their reduced speed. The modified texts also will provide more information about the speeds that will be available after customers exceed their data cap; and

• Modify its website disclosures to better explain T-Mobile’s policies regarding speed test

applications and where consumers can get accurate speed information.
“The FCC is committed to ensuring that broadband providers are transparent to consumers. I’m grateful T-Mobile has worked with the FCC to ensure that its customers are better informed about the speeds they are experiencing,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a statement. “Consumers need this information to fully understand what they are getting with their broadband service.”
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winsyrstrife
River City Bounce
Premium Member
join:2002-04-30
Brooklyn, NY

winsyrstrife

Premium Member

Hopefully a lesson learned

While T-Mobile deserves credit for effectively shaking up the wireless industry as of late, they also are not free from any wrongdoing. Curious, do other companies also have this level of transparency regarding their caps?

As an aside, I couldn't figure out what to do with 2GB on my phone, now it's 5GB...
bigballer
join:2014-09-25

bigballer

Member

Re: Hopefully a lesson learned

Didn't tmobile publically admit they whitelisted speedtest, rootmetrics, and sensorly to be more "accurate?"

And isn't it in the TOS that they throttle you back down to "2G speeds" which yes, is a bit vague on defining the speeds.

64 or 128 kbps is a huge difference. One can stream do basic GPS, email, web browsing, the other can't.
me1212
join:2008-11-20
Lees Summit, MO

me1212

Member

Re: Hopefully a lesson learned

I'd say even 64 is enough for email and maybe google maps if you don't mind wating.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

1 recommendation

whfsdude to winsyrstrife

Premium Member

to winsyrstrife
said by winsyrstrife:

While T-Mobile deserves credit for effectively shaking up the wireless industry as of late, they also are not free from any wrongdoing.

I don't see what the big deal is with T-Mobile's throttling. The throttling was only happening on the company's capped plans when you exceeded your cap. T-Mobile always sends you a text message letting you know you were throttled and you could add more data, or upgrade to unlimited.

Unlimited is not throttled. Source: I do between 100G/200G a month on my cell.

fonzbear2000
Premium Member
join:2005-08-09
Saint Paul, MN

fonzbear2000

Premium Member

Re: Hopefully a lesson learned

said by whfsdude:

said by winsyrstrife:

While T-Mobile deserves credit for effectively shaking up the wireless industry as of late, they also are not free from any wrongdoing.

I don't see what the big deal is with T-Mobile's throttling. The throttling was only happening on the company's capped plans when you exceeded your cap. T-Mobile always sends you a text message letting you know you were throttled and you could add more data, or upgrade to unlimited.

Unlimited is not throttled. Source: I do between 100G/200G a month on my cell.

The problem isn't the throttling itself. The problem is that T-Mobile was blocking speed tests once a user got throttled. That's what the article is about and that's what Winsyrstrife considers to be wrongdoing.

Tokidoki
Premium Member
join:2002-08-26
South Richmond Hill, NY

Tokidoki

Premium Member

Re: Hopefully a lesson learned

said by winsyrstrife:

The problem isn't the throttling itself. The problem is that T-Mobile was blocking speed tests once a user got throttled. That's what the article is about and that's what Winsyrstrife considers to be wrongdoing.

I don't quite get this. From what I can tell, T-Mobile was NOT blocking speed tests. It's just speed tests couldn't give you your exact connection speed because the tests weren't throttled. People couldn't tell exactly if they we're running at 64/128 kbps.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA to whfsdude

Premium Member

to whfsdude
WHAT?!?!? 200GB?!? On a cell phone????

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536

Premium Member

Re: Hopefully a lesson learned

easy when you tether.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude

Premium Member

Re: Hopefully a lesson learned

said by dvd536:

easy when you tether.

No tethering. Youtube, xfinitytv (~hour of TV on my commute a day), TIDAL (lossless audio streaming).
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA

Premium Member

Re: Hopefully a lesson learned

said by whfsdude:

No tethering. Youtube, xfinitytv (~hour of TV on my commute a day), TIDAL (lossless audio streaming).

Holy crap. How does that add up to that much?

AnonDude
@97.95.152.x

AnonDude to dvd536

Anon

to dvd536
said by dvd536:

easy when you tether.

Sure but you should be using REAL internet. Considering T-Mobile only serves the metro area that shouldn't be an issue.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA to dvd536

Premium Member

to dvd536
You can only tether 5GB on the Unlimited Smartphone data plan on T-Mobile, IIRC.
floydb1982
join:2004-08-25
Kent, WA

floydb1982 to whfsdude

Member

to whfsdude
You could easily hit 100 or 200 gigabytes on hardwired broadband connection. There is no way you could possible eat that much mobile data in an entire month. Your are a complete lier.
mikeluscher159
join:2011-09-04

mikeluscher159

Member

Re: Hopefully a lesson learned

No he's not. If he's in a WideBand area, and downloading stuff nonstop, doing all his Netflix and work through it, 500GB is commonly reached.
applerule
Premium Member
join:2012-12-23
Northeast TN
(Software) pfSense
ARRIS SB6183
Asus RT-N66

applerule to floydb1982

Premium Member

to floydb1982
Click for full size
When I had US Cellular I routinely did over 100GB/mo. I did a lot of tethering and it was my only internet connection, but it is very easily doable. I could have eat a lot more data than that if I tried harder...

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude to floydb1982

Premium Member

to floydb1982
said by floydb1982:

You could easily hit 100 or 200 gigabytes on hardwired broadband connection. There is no way you could possible eat that much mobile data in an entire month. Your are a complete lier.

I'm almost at 100GB and my billing cycle doesn't even end until Dec 5th.

»lh5.googleusercontent.co ··· 9-53.png

I'm in a 10x10 LTE market but the cell density is high so between 30-40mbit/s.

As for bandwidth usage on my wired connection.
RX bytes:11876593332637 (10.8 TiB) TX bytes:2212777825613 (2.0 TiB)

cybah
join:2000-03-09
MA

1 recommendation

cybah to whfsdude

Member

to whfsdude
said by whfsdude:

Unlimited is not throttled. Source: I do between 100G/200G a month on my cell.

And you're the reason why caps exist in the first place. 100G is a lot of data for a cell phone.

. o O (and I wonder why Tmo data is so g-d slow sometimes... idiots like yourself are hogging up all the avaliable bandwidth) O o . .
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA

Premium Member

Re: Hopefully a lesson learned

Yeah, pretty much. If there is more than a tiny minority of data porkers like that on a network, it will cause the network to fall apart. Mobile data just isn't designed for insane loads like that.

amarryat
Verizon FiOS
join:2005-05-02
Marshfield, MA

amarryat

Member

This was done for stupid people

I thought their methods were quite clear.

CodeeCB
Premium Member
join:2001-10-01
Minneapolis, MN

CodeeCB

Premium Member

Re: This was done for stupid people

I also thought it was quite clear already. Some people need their hand held tho and to be spoon fed.

buddahbless
join:2005-03-21
Premium

buddahbless

Member

Re: This was done for stupid people

Agreed it has always been clearly laid out in plain site "reduced to 2G speeds"

However that part about the speed test I do agree with there should be no exemption for speed test show me what Im actually getting period.

amarryat
Verizon FiOS
join:2005-05-02
Marshfield, MA

amarryat

Member

Re: This was done for stupid people

said by buddahbless:

Agreed it has always been clearly laid out in plain site "reduced to 2G speeds"

However that part about the speed test I do agree with there should be no exemption for speed test show me what Im actually getting period.

That's how it originally worked, and T-Mobile changed it so that it would accurately reflect the quality of their network, ie. throttled user data wouldn't skew the results downward. When that change was made, it wasn't done secretly as I remember reading about it.

I understand your point though. Now that they've agreed to put another button on your phone (which I will immediately remove) so that you can get your actual speed, this "problem" should go away.
Needleinthha
join:2009-11-30
Chandler, AZ

Needleinthha

Member

64 or 128?

I just signed up for tmobile a few months ago and havent used enough data to be throttled yet...curious, are some accounts throttled to 64kbps and some 128kbps? Or are they just using those as ballpark examples? Does anyone know what kind of actual speeds i should expect once i got my monthly LTE allowance?

buddahbless
join:2005-03-21
Premium

buddahbless

Member

Re: 64 or 128?

In the areas I live I've always been throttled around 119-128kbps and I've jumped back and forth on different Tmobile plans ( and even there MVNO) for almost the last 4-5 years. I believe its really dependent on your location.

On the TMO forum its been whispered around that after the LTE deployment is done (mid 2015) that the throttles will be raised. New reduced speed tiers: prepaid may see 128 kbps, simple choice and family plans may see 256 kbps, and business plans may see 512 kbps. However this is all still speculations.
Needleinthha
join:2009-11-30
Chandler, AZ

Needleinthha

Member

Re: 64 or 128?

Really interesting. Thanks for the info. That would be nice if it was raised to 256k, would be even usable.
AmericanMan
Premium Member
join:2013-12-28
united state

AmericanMan

Premium Member

What about other carriers?

Will other carriers, such as Sprint, be bound by the same rules? Also, what about the MVNOs, such as Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile, many of those have "Unlimited with an asterisk", it'd be nice to know what their throttling goes to.

Anonguy
@68.106.20.x

Anonguy

Anon

Yay.... More Bloatware....

I don't another carrier imposed button on my phone for their speedtest.

Yes I know I can disable/remove it but it shouldn't be there in the first place...

All for the people that can't understand their cap. Lame

toby
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA

toby

Member

Re: Yay.... More Bloatware....

said by Anonguy :

All for the people that can't understand their cap. Lame

Everyone understands different things.

All the people that can't rebuild their car's fuel injection system. Lame.

Anonguy
@68.106.20.x

Anonguy

Anon

Re: Yay.... More Bloatware....

Ya, That is a great comparison.......

They may not be able to rebuild their fuel injection but they understand the Speed Limit and the consequences for going over it...

Kasoah
join:2013-08-20
Merced, CA

Kasoah

Member

yeah,...

and i thought at&t's throttle to .5 mb/s was bad

buddahbless
join:2005-03-21
Premium

buddahbless

Member

Re: yeah,...

TMO might shake it up next year, see my post above.

iNick
Premium Member
join:2012-12-11
Joliet, IL

iNick to Kasoah

Premium Member

to Kasoah
said by Kasoah:

and i thought at&t's throttle to .5 mb/s was bad

Well that after 5GB lol. People that have the option for Unlimited Data on T-Mobile and don't want it because they don't need it? Then I see no point on this really because If they wanted unlimited then they would upgrade to it. T-Mobile just saying "Hey There! We're not AT&T or Verizon, Sprint We don't charge you for going over your 2GB of data you brought " Is this still unlimited sure but depends on how you look at it because most people with the 500Mb/s or 2Gb Plan probably isn't using a lot to begin with.

whfsdude
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Washington, DC

whfsdude to Kasoah

Premium Member

to Kasoah
said by Kasoah:

and i thought at&t's throttle to .5 mb/s was bad

The difference is AT&T throttles on their unlimited plans. T-Mobile only throttles on their capped plans (once you exceed your cap, no overages).

••••••

LightSpan
Premium Member
join:2004-02-18
Lexington, KY

LightSpan

Premium Member

network not up to par in certain areas

They only throttle in certain areas where they don't have fiber to the tower . The rest of the site's are t1's(ds1) fed site's in remote areas that cost them to have fiber run to.
ConstantineM
join:2011-09-02
San Jose, CA

ConstantineM

Member

Data speed FAQs

Karl, the limits they throttle you at are not 64kbps and 128kbps. It's actually 50kbps for older phone plans and 100kbps for older tablets, and 128kbps for newer phones and tablets.

»support.t-mobile.com/doc ··· DOC-2741
quote:
> If you have a plan that was available between November 13, 2010 and March 24, 2013, data speed is reduced to (at most) 50 kbps (comparable to dial-up) when data usage exceeds the Data Speed Reduction Threshold for data features. Mobile Internet and data-only plan customers that reach this threshold have their speed reduced to 100 kbps.

> If you have a plan that was available after March 24, 2013, data speed is reduced to (at most) 128 kbps when data usage exceeds the Data Speed Reduction Threshold for data features, Mobile Internet, and data-only plans.


Great they are finally brought back to face their limits; it was very annoying to be throttled to 50kbps on an older plan -- the connection was basically unusable when throttled at 50kbps, partially thanks to all the websites now carrying megabytes of useless graphics on just about any page.

They should probably increase the throttling speed to 256kbps nowadays, especially when on LTE -- that'll also give the users an incentive to upgrade.
floydb1982
join:2004-08-25
Kent, WA

floydb1982

Member

Well this is pointless

Whats the point of the FCC making T-Mobile tell about it's already known throttling practices. I knew about it when I was paying into it. Everybody knows about it as well. So the FCC is being stupid about this whole already public known throttling. This is not we pay the FCC to do.