T-Mobile to throttle G1 speed after 1GB a month?
Download more than 1GB of data on your new G1 phone, and T-Mobile might severely restrict your bandwidth.
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET Networks)T-Mobile is warning G1 customers that they could get placed into the slow lane if they use more than 1GB of data in a billing cycle.
Engadget spotted the fine print underneath T-Mobile's G1 page on its Web site trumpeting the arrival of the first phone to run Google's Android software. "If your total data usage in any billing cycle is more than 1GB, your data throughput for the remainder of that cycle may be reduced to 50 kbps or less," the company warned.
Now, that doesn't apply to anything you download or upload over a Wi-Fi connection, and may not be much of an obstacle for some users. But if you're like a few folks inside our office--one of whom has used 187MBs in just the past 24 hours on his iPhone 3G--you're liable to hit that speed bump pretty quick. Downloading almost anything on a 50Kbps connection is going to be extremely frustrating.
T-Mobile might have trouble enforcing this cap, but they appear to be putting it in the contract. It's a confusing move, given the trend among carriers toward all-you-can-eat data plans, but could be a defensive maneuver to protect T-Mobile's young 3G network from being overwhelmed by G1 users.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
I can say that T-Mobile has probably some of the best customer service in the business, but their network coverage and call quality really negates a lot of it. My wife was with Verizon and switched to T-Mobile b/c I had them for such a long time--the switched to AT&T b/c of all the dropped calls she kept getting at her office (inside and outside). Called T-Mobile and they kept telling us they were working on it--3 months later, coverage was no better and it was still showing as dark green on their coverage map.
We've been w/ AT&T since July and have had no issues w/ coverage and only a few dropped calls (2.1 fixed most of them).
3G on T-Mobile is an awesome idea, but if their network coverage/performance is ANY indicator I will pass. I'm happy w/ AT&T right now and have no plans to switch.
I always thought that screwed=ATT
So considering you can't use data-intensive apps like iTunes over 3G (you have to use Wi-Fi), even 1GB/month is generous for the vast majority of customers. In the beginning sure you might use a lot of bandwidth downloading Apps, etc., but month-to-month it's more than adequate.
I mean, there is no such thing as free "unlimited" data. You pay for data one way or another.
I don't their 3G network is going to be overwhelmed. This phone has "loser" written all over it. A big disappointment from Google.
If there is no such thing as unlimited plans then company's should stop selling consumers these falsely advertised plans.
Could it be that some employees are required to report on the blogs that the 1G limit is more than adequate according to the 3G study?
Could there be a free Android phone for the most blog reports?
I was a T-Mobile customer for 6 years, last year their service got very bad in the Portland Oregon Metro area.
I kept getting "call not allowed" messages on the phone, I would pull the battery on the phone, power back up and then would be able to make the call. I decided get another
model of their phone. They sold me a phone with someone else's sim in it, I was getting the voice mail from the other persons sim, I was making calls on that persons sim. I reported it to T-Mobile, they
mailed me a new sim and told me to destroy the sim belonging to the other person. Can you say security risk?
I decided to cancel them and they nailed me with a $200 cancellation fee.
Lets sum up T-Mobile:
Poor Service
Poor Customer Data Security
Excessive Cancellation fees for poor service.
No this isn't a fake company Study, this is a actual ex-T-Mobile customer report.
The Big List: 30 critical issues with Google G1 phone
http://counternotions.com/2008/09/24/g1/
Android while a good idea is already suffering from its partner's whims from the telco to the decidedly unsexy style of the device. While most of us struggled to get used to Apple's keyboard, in the long run I am glad I don't have to put up with overly complex and easy to break like the HTC device and the telco in trying desperately to undercut the iPhone price points is throttling the internet usage that is the whole point of phones in the iPhone era.
Rogers iPhone users don't seem to be using many apps like the rest of us. An Internet Radio Tuner can easily chew through 50MB in an hour or 2 and at that rate a gig in a month is easily exceeded.
T-Mobile, with this out in the open now don't look for an "iPhone" type rush on this plan.
To bad because the phone looks really good.
- by fdunn3 September 25, 2008 3:44 PM PDT
- I wonder if this will be in the european contracts as well?
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(19 Comments)T-Mobile you just turned the intro of the Android HTC Phone into an anti-climax event. No Go.
I'll wait until it becomes unlocked and choose my own carrier.
1GB...ridiculous.