T-Mobile is going after subscribers that "steal" tethering data

[Capaill]

Lots of providers claim to offer Unlimited service. Over here, Sky Broadband claims to be unlimited. But they also have Fair Usage Limits so it's only unlimited for the first X GBs and then you are blocked or throttled. It's all a marketing ploy. It only seems unlimited to the vast majority of users who will never reach the fair usage limits.

If some subscribers have to "hack" their phones or install apps that mask their data usage, then they clearly know that they are breaking the terms of their contract and they cannot be defended. What I don't understand is how they think they can get away with it. The operator keeps records of all data usage (quantity, not content) and will know how much each subscriber has used and will very easily find those who are breaching the limits. All operators have Revenue Assurance teams whose job it is to look for these kinds of revenue leakage.

 

[agb81]

33GB(big b) wouldn't even cover the size of a hefty dual-layer Blu-Ray movie. And you find 33Gb excessive? Wow, better delete NetFlix HD off your phone, hurry.

Do you work for a cellular company?

Do I work for a cellular company? No, I OWN vzw, att and t-mo, so please stop wasting my precious bandwidth.

Now that you got the answer you were looking for, let's do some math.

According to netflix, you need a 6 Mb to stream full hd video, so 0.6 MB x 60 secs x 60 mins = 2160 megabytes per hour.

Now, 33.3 GB of data divided by 2.1 GB you consume hourly on netflix equals to 15.85 hours of video.

I'd find it very tiresome to watch 16 hours of video a day on a cellphone. And I don't know if we already have cellphones with 5.1 dolby sound and 4k resolution screens so the bandwidth consumption grows... but that's just me.

The reason they are throttling tethering is because they don't want those lines to become the house router instead of using a land line. And if you don't get the implications of providing broadband internet for several thousands of people through cellular data, well, I can't help you with that.