Tech & Biz

Android and T-Mobile: Real Unlimited Data (Updated)

by Jordan Yerman | September 24, 2008 at 06:54 am

619 views | 1 Recommendation | 1 comment

Update: EAAs, rejoice! T-Mobile has removed the contentious proviso from their usage agreement, thereby consigning the earlier part of this story to the dustbin of breathless telecom rants.

After much criticism across the Web, the fourth-largest U.S. carrier removed the soft cap wording from its monthly data plans Wednesday.

"We removed the 1 GB soft limit from our policy statement, and we are confident that T-Mobile G1 customers will enjoy the high speed of data access over our 3G network," T-Mobile said in a statement. "The specific terms for our new data plans are still being reviewed and once they are final we will be certain to share this broadly with current customers and potential new customers."

If you're an early Android Adopter (EAA?), and you take T-Mobile up on its $25 unlimited-data plan, get ready to be choked, both figuratively and literally.

While they don't actually cut you off after one gigabyte of data traffic, they choke your speed down to 50kbps, which is slower than dial-up. So, while you're paying for unlimited data, anything beyond the initial 1GB will be delivered with purgatorial sluggishness. No word on whether HTC's G1 handset has been tested for getting thrown against walls, floors or ceilings.

Reports has dug through the fine print of the user agreement and noticed something rather interesting. While the marketing materials scream out about a $25 "unlimited" data plan, the fine print notes that if you go over 1Gig per month, the rest of your data traffic that month may be slowed down to a piddling 50kbps.

The operatinve word in the contract is "may"- I'd love to find out if any users actually experience this.

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Mikey6

at 10:26 on March 9th, 2009

I've found T-Mobile's unlimited data plan to be fine for domestic use, but if you're like me and do a fair bit of traveling i would advise not taking any Android phones overseas.

It appears that some applications on the G1 will ping for a connection regardless of any inactivity settings you change, this can lead to a quite costly bill once you land back home.