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This could be the end of an era, folks. According to this leaked pic TmoNews managed to get their hands on today, it seems starting August 13th, T-Mobile may be shifting away from their unlimited (but throttled) data on their most affordable 200MB plans. Ironically, this is T-Mobile’s most popular plan and it’s because of this that T-Mobile is forced to move to overages to “remain competitive.” I was able to get my whole family onto the Android bandwagon thanks to this plan’s small $10 price tag.
But not all is doom and gloom. I mean, the overages cap out at around $30 dollars and if you’re currently an unlimited user, your plan should remain the same providing you don’t cancel your line. For everyone else, customers who near their 200MB limit will receive a warning from T-Mobile alerting them to upgrade their plan or face extra charges.
Even if this only affects their 200MB plan, it’s still a little scary seeing this shift from T-Mobile’s much touted unlimited data to overages based upon a plan’s popularity. I know most Android users are data hungry but are any of our readers currently on the 200MB plan? Will this change force you to upgrade your plan, or will you take your money and go elsewhere?
[Via TmoNews]
Cell carriers in the US totally suck
T-Mobile- sucky coverage
Sprint – slow data speeds
AT&T – caps, evil, sucky coverage
Verizon – caps, evil, expensive
Before some harlot goes preaching to me about profit, businesses and capitalism here is a preemptive GFY and go die in a fire because no one likes you.
God I couldn’t agree more. But I have to say… the complete idiots that come out of the woodwork to agree with this sort of crap are extremely entertaining. :P
Hahahaha
Seriously? Have you traveled the nation and tested every carrier in every area? How can you blatantly and dogmatically declare that you understand the US cell phone market so perfectly?
Coming from someone that traditionally has NO brand loyalty and has been on every one of those carriers in MY AREA, I can say that Sprint does not have slow data speeds. In MY AREA all the other statements (except “sucky coverage” for AT&T) are correct.
in my area, ny/nj sprint does have slow data speeds
+1 loved Sprint except for the data speeds and signal penetration.
Oh, boo-hoo, I don’t like using my miniature computer everywhere I go, my middle class life totally sucks.
Why don’t you pack your bags and move to Europe or Canada then? Tell us about how awesome Orange (T-Mobile) is, or how Rogers (AT&T) charges you more for less bandwidth although their network is exactly the same as it is here.
The only real place you’re going to find awesome phones, with awesome coverage, and awesome speeds are places like Sweden and Norway on Halebop. Countries which do not have to maintain a customer base of HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of people.
I get it, I really do. Verizon made $6 billion in profits last year. But you bitching about it on the internet isn’t doing anyone any good. Hell, why did I just take 15 minutes to write some reply to you? Because it might inspire you or others to take action if you don’t like the way things are here.
You whining about a whiner, Self defeat.
But I didnt even know tmobile had a plan like that.
nahhh, not whining, just a helpful solution to his problems.
Look, unlimited is going away, I saw this 2 years ago, there is too much money to be made for the carriers, because soon, they will be nothing more than a pipe, which technically they are now, they just do not want to admit it, they are losing their identity as anything more than a pipe and with it, dollars. I’m in this business, have been for 25 years.
i quite like orange myself
You can always start your own cellular service company with 4g speeds and unlimited data and give it away free, since, ya know, you are so against capitalism and all. No one forces you to use these companies, at least not on a personal level.
I’ve considered this, but not as a company which sells wireless services, rather one that produces wireless networking hardware.
The 900mhz, 2400mhz and 5ghz ISM bands are free for the public to use and would be great for creating a coordinated and truely free Nationwide Broadband network.
The devices which make up this network would not be unlike traditional 802.11b/g/n devices but instead of building them with cheap antennae I would produce them to make use of the maximum gain allowed by the FCC.
The devices would have two component networks, a private network which is given bandwidth priority (like wifi). It would be reserved for use by the businesses and homeowners who buy the device. The second component network would be a public network which all owners of these and other compliant devices could access freely.
In order to provide a seamless and secure experience every base station device would have VPN server capabilites on board. When connecting to a public base station, the end device accessing that network can only gain internet access via VPN client connection to their home base station.
To make these base stations smarter, I would like to implement multimode logic into the base station so that it will listen to other base stations and end devices’ noise to coordinate with those other devices. As the devices coordinate they will determine which spectrum overlaps and which devices are at capacity. The base stations will use this information to reconfigure the network to be more efficient by offloading users onto other base stations, adjusting power, finally switching frequencies to accommodate range and load requirements.
“T-Mobile may be shifting away from their unlimited (but throttled) data on their most affordable 200MB plans”
How are 200MB plans considered unlimited? I’m so confused.
The idea is that the majority of users use less than 200 mb of data a month, so you received full speed data up to the 200 mb mark and are throttled to edge speeds following that.
It sounds crazy but T-Mobile offers 5GB, 2GB and 200MB unlimited plans. LOL Well, 200MB isn’t unlimited anymore =/
Wow so it’s as stupid as I thought. Thanks for clearing that up!
It’s the same way their “simple” plan requires 8 different charge codes…
Wow you will burn through that with their 4g speed in about an hour in netflix
Thats not for Netflix users. It’s for people like my father who like smartphones for the appearance and usability, but don’t “play” with them like us nerdy types do.
Exactly, so this shouldnt affect us.. But if they touch the 5GB or 10GB options hell will break loose!
Well, it looks like the overage cost on the 200MB plan caps out at 5GB anyway, and after that, you’re getting throttled.
Quite honestly, I think that if a provider needs to cap their data plans, this is absolutely the best way to do it: By setting up a usage-based model with a pricing cap, they’re giving users the best of both worlds: lighter users get rewarded with lower prices, but heavier users don’t end up with a $200 bill.
I have a tablet plan on Sprint, which has a 5GB cap. I could have gotten away with a cheaper plan, but the per-MB overage price ends up costing something like $50 a gigabyte… completely out of line with the cost up to that point.
And the odd thing is that Sprint has this “feature” while advertising unlimited data for smartphones. They’re also the only company left that hasn’t moved to a pricing model that puts overages somewhere within line of the per-GB cost of the pre-cap data.
That’s one of the really frustrating parts of the cell phone industry. You get penalized hardcore for going over your usage cap… so we end up buying minutes we don’t need just to prevent any overages.
It’s really making me think about returning my new Photon and going with Virgin Mobile: at least their pricing is consistent, even when you exceed the paid-for minutes in a month (as far as I can tell, you just start a new billing cycle a little sooner.)
hahaha, wheres the roll over data when you need it?
I honestly don’t blame them. T-Mobile is having serious revenue issues. Generally speaking, anyone using the 200MB plan shouldn’t be going over 200MB very often.
Softening you up for the AT&T takeover.
AT&T says they charge $5 a month if you put a pay-as-you-go sim into a smartphone, even if you don’t use their dataplan, T-Mobile hasn’t added this charge to my knowledge yet, if I use wi-fi it’s at a hotspot like a coffee shop, free or sometimes charged per visit internet cafe. or some through their home setup. To me the $5 is an Internet tax, and taxation without representation.
They’re obviously preparing for the ATT merger. Nothing good will come of this.
This isnt a big deal. But they better not touch the 5gb option
I’m still a bit confused. My brother an i are on the tmo’s unlimited data plan for $30 per person with 2 other lines in the family. we’ve had tmo for over like 6 years. so when 8/13 passes, our unlimited plan that we upgraded to is now going to me limited to 200mb a month??? and we STILL have to pay the $30 per month per phone? plz explain:/
No.
This is just for the 200mb a month plan. Your plan is likely the 5GB or 2GB. T-Mobile still best cell phone carrier in USA, dollar for dollar.
yea, i checked today and it said a 5gb limit. hopefully they cant change that
I remember when Three in the UK, 14 months into the contract changed from just cutting me off when I went over to charging me for every megabyte and not giving me any warning texts until I had gone up to £60 of overage, and then about 10 texts came in at once. Luckily they refunded it, but still. At least T-Mobile USA is giving warning, but it’s still I guess really annoying.
Glad im going to Sprint
Whatever makes you feel fuzzy Tom… no one is rewarded; low use is over priced and loyal users who opted for unlimited now get to bend over and pay double if you exceed the amount but even worse the throttle down is total bullshit! one speed, full unlimited access one price…. if the carriers can’t keep their networks up to date to fulfill customers then a class action should come about to sue for fraud… 3g or 3g speed means nothing if the more you use your phone the slower they make it go WTF
Just like Chris I got my whole family to get androids by using the 200mb plan. So will this affect those who already have contracts or just new comers? I am just worried because I dont want them to go over and get charged. Even though it is throttled they can still check email and do minor stuff and then at home just use WIFI.
I think they should just include 1GB of data and unlimited texting with every voice plan and they’ll get all of US switching to them.
I just paid $22.85 for an iPad 2–64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $674 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, CentHub.com
Do you guys think that at&t already taking over tmobile secretly?