T-Mobile Going After Tether Abusers

[LeoRex]

Just one such user can ruin the experience for thousands of customers sharing the same tower.

I think that's kind of the aim here. Yes, a couple of users will not impact people nationwide... but they could impact someone sitting across the street. I think you are actually overestimating the average usage... 3G to me sounds really high and I think the real number is closer to 1G... and it is being held unnaturally high since there are quite a few that use a TON of data.

Look, we are not talking about T-Mobile changing their minds here. The heart of the matter is that these users are violating the terms that they agreed to when they signed up. At that point, all bets are off. I mean, sounds like T-Mobile is still going to turn a blind eye for a lot of people, provided they don't abuse the hell out of it. I mean, if someone hides their tether data and pulls down 10G, I suspect they'll slide by.

 

[raino]

I mean, if someone hides their tether data and pulls down 10G, I suspect they'll slide by.

Even if they're masking it? Put another way, is TMO cracking down on these people for tethering too much, for hiding/masking their tethering (regardless of how much they tether) or both? Do the Terms have a "you may not hide your tethering, period" clause?

 

[LeoRex]

Even if they're masking it? Put another way, is TMO cracking down on these people for tethering too much, for hiding/masking their tethering (regardless of how much they tether) or both? Do the Terms have a "you may not hide your tethering, period" clause?

Well, I think it is mostly going after people who are abusing the system... Look at the wording of the announcement. They are saying that they are looking at users with extremely high usage rates, rates so high that is damn near impossible to consume that much data unless you are not just hiding a tethered connection, you are hiding the fact that you are using your phone as a multi-device hotspot.

And I have a feeling that it might be time/cost prohibitive to analyze the usage of every customer to pick out who is skirting the tether limit or not. If they narrow it down... say only looking at users who suck down more than, say, 500GB... that limits the pool quite a bit.