What just happened? Cheap home internet isn't much use if it slows to a crawl a few days into the month. New York says that's exactly what T-Mobile was offering low-income households, imposing a 50GB monthly cap before slashing download speeds to under 1 Mbps. The carrier has now agreed to remove the restriction after state investigators found it violated the Affordable Broadband Act.
Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced the agreement on November 9. The law requires qualifying households to be offered broadband costing $15 per month with download speeds of at least 25 Mbps, or $20 for at least 200 Mbps. Those prices include taxes and equipment fees.
The agreement covers home broadband delivered over T-Mobile's cellular network, rather than its mobile phone plans. Customers shouldn't expect the settlement to change their handset data allowances.
T-Mobile's $15 fixed wireless plan came with a fairly big catch. According to the signed settlement, customers who used 50GB saw their maximum download speed fall from 25 Mbps to just 600 Kbps, a reduction of 97.6%. State officials estimate a typical customer could burn through the allowance in about four days, which isn't what you'd call a month's worth of usable broadband.
There were other problems, too. Investigators found the discounted plan was restricted to homes eligible for T-Mobile's 5G service. That excluded customers in some 4G areas where the company already sold full-price home internet capable of reaching 25 Mbps.
Finding the cheaper option wasn't straightforward, either. The state says T-Mobile coded its plan information webpage to prevent it from appearing in search engine results. That's an interesting approach to a law that requires providers to make reasonable efforts to advertise their affordable offerings.
Under the settlement, T-Mobile has 120 days to stop deliberately reducing eligible subscribers' speeds below the required minimum and expand the plans across its home internet footprint. Temporary slowdowns caused solely by network congestion remain allowed. The company must also make its plan webpage discoverable through search engines.
T-Mobile neither admitted nor denied the state's findings. It told Ars Technica it was updating the offering to meet New York's requirements while keeping the same price, but didn't explain why it imposed the restrictions.
New York began enforcing the law in January 2025, following years of industry opposition. The Supreme Court had declined to hear the industry's challenge the previous month. Now it's just a case of making sure customers actually receive the service it promises.