10gb Cap on 3G Services!

[andonnguyen]

After I received my G1 today, I was only able to connect to the EDGE data network. I called customer care and after talking to them for a while..

Here is what T-mobile customer care told me:

3G data is throttled back down to EDGE speeds if data usage exceeds 10GB

I'm not sure why they told me that, I was just asking about why I only had edge, but anyways...

=] Yay. So pretty good right?

Anyways, I still haven't connected to the 3G network, but I guess that okay, I'm using my wireless router and i have 4 Bars of signal

 

[freedomflyer]

Yeah, caps are no fun to be sure. But 10GB shouldn't severely limit anyone. You could tether to a laptop and download all sorts of stuff and 10GB a month would do you over quite well.
Hopefully people don't complain about a 10GB cap, that is very, very reasonable.

 

[andonnguyen]

If someone created a bit torrent client for android, I would use that cap in 1 day. lol. You know, to download linux software, and other legal stuff. =]

Yeah, caps are no fun to be sure. But 10GB shouldn't severely limit anyone. You could tether to a laptop and download all sorts of stuff and 10GB a month would do you over quite well.
Hopefully people don't complain about a 10GB cap, that is very, very reasonable.

 

[freedomflyer]

Right, right. Linux software, some sort of mobile Gimp editor, and a couple freeware books and the like. Downloading illegal music, videos, pictures and programs is way out of the scope of this conversation....er....

 

[Renge]

I see what you did there.

Still, 10gb is pretty huge.

 

[freedomflyer]

Heh...yeah, it was a litttlee obvious.

 

[sleebus.jones]

Yeah, 10GB doesn't bother me a bit. If you do hit it, I think you deserve to be capped.

 

[porquepine]

Yeah, caps are no fun to be sure. But 10GB shouldn't severely limit anyone. You could tether to a laptop and download all sorts of stuff and 10GB a month would do you over quite well.
Hopefully people don't complain about a 10GB cap, that is very, very reasonable.

Crap, ok seriously, so you are telling me that 10GB will not effect the use of this phone while traveling? See I know they say it does not tether, but if you can T-mobile and act stupid, they will tell you that it does. So anyway, I know that tethering is one of the most requested software developments to be made, so it is only a matter of time if it does not already.

My concern is, I will use this while traveling. I am the guy you see in the airports tethered to a phone typing away on his laptop! So if I desire to watch CNN clips of news and the such I will not exceed 10GB? No, I will not be sharing or doing bittorents or music downloads, I do however download word, xcel and other files from email and typically enjoy watching some news clips to stay on top of what is going on.....

 

[Siflan]

You can always get Tmo's hotspot at home and just use that.

 

[johnkzin]

I don't like caps, but...

1) 10GB is twice the rest of the market, that's good. If T-Mo keeps themselves at "twice as big a cap as everyone else", that's annoying* but acceptable.

(* that they have a cap at all)

2) If the "when you exceed it, we throttle/banish/relegate you to EDGE" part is true, then that's a lot better than the language about "54kbps" and/or "we might terminate your account".


Still, I would prefer a daily cap (say, 330MB), that resets every day, over a monthly one that resets with your billing cycle.

 

[The Kartman]

Having a cap on an "unlimited" plan is ********, but 10gb is not a bad cap.

 

[mnswamp]

I can see where someone on extended travel might manage to eat up the 10GB cap - if you are pulling down full length movies every day, etc. I can't forsee running into issues unless you are using the phone as your sole source of internet connectivity.
For the most part the solution is to switch over to WiFi any time you are hanging out in a coffeeshop, hotel, etc. Between T-Mo hotspots and other free WiFi locations, you should be able to get a decent to better connection - particularly outside the "major markets". Of course, YMMV

 

[porquepine]

I can see where someone on extended travel might manage to eat up the 10GB cap - if you are pulling down full length movies every day, etc. I can't forsee running into issues unless you are using the phone as your sole source of internet connectivity.
For the most part the solution is to switch over to WiFi any time you are hanging out in a coffeeshop, hotel, etc. Between T-Mo hotspots and other free WiFi locations, you should be able to get a decent to better connection - particularly outside the "major markets". Of course, YMMV

Yes, but in the Airports I would like to use the phone as my main source of internet. The airports typically have the 9.99 Bongio crap. I know that a tething program will come very soon- enough people want it!

but crap, I do not want the cap on Unlimited Services!

 

[drustvold]

While I don't disagree with them putting a cap on their service, the can do whatever they want to do, but don't call it unlimited if there's a cap.

And while 10Gb might seem like a lot for browsing, if thats all you do you'll never hit the cap. But now add YouTube (& other videos), email attachments for work (I routinely send and receive multiple 10mb+ pdfs a day), or maybe you stream audio from a radio station or podcast.

It becomes very easy once you start using the data service a lot.

I dread the day where i have to attempt to upload a large file for work through my phone because i don't have regular internet access.

 

[noderat]

The throttle point on my cable internet is only 5GB so I wouldn't complain too much.

 

[drustvold]

The throttle point on my cable internet is only 5GB so I wouldn't complain too much.

WHAT?!

I do that a day just with normal legit use.

What does your speed throttle down to and who is your provider?

 

[punkzanyj]

Enh, it's basic math. So long as customers are making them money, as long as they come out ahead at the end of the year, I don't think they care if you go over some cap. It's in place probably to gauge what's abuse and what's not. Most people are going to be well under 10GB, and they probably won't say anything to you unless you're at 50GB every month for a couple of months. Then they might have some questions for you. They might throttle you down, or they might just cancel your contract and boot you altogether.


I had netzero, and me and my brother got greedy. We were downloading music all the time, like literally day and night, and after a few months of that, we got a nice little letter from Netzero saying "sorry, we can't keep giving you free internet, it's costing us way too much money." and they cut us off a month after that.

 

[noderat]

3mbps to 1.5mbps after the first 5GB of traffic during peak hours. CableOne sucks, but there isn't shit out here in Idaho.

 

[killer3160]

can someone tell me wat u mean by 10gb cap i'm so lost

 

[noderat]

T-Mobile has a soft throttle point on your data transfer so if you send and receive more than 10GB in a month your data transfer speed will be lowered to a little faster than edge speeds. (At least that's the terms, I've never seen an account reach the 10GB limit yet, even customers who have called in worried were at about 1.5GB after doing a TON of data transfer. You'll probably never notice the data throttle point with normal usage of the G1 unless you're trying REALLY hard to fill up a 16GB memory card with some future mp3 or hires video download/streaming.

 

[killer3160]

so will mine go limit go up faster if i watch lots of youtube vids?

 

[Phases]

Yeah. What they are talking about is your bandwidth usage on their network.

Honestly, you're going to have to be really busy to go through 10 G's over a phone. I wouldn't worry about it unless you're more active than you think you should be.

*disclaimer: I'm not going to pretend like I know what the capabilities of this phone is, as far as eating up bandwidth (with gps stuff, youtube, etc), so you may be able to reach it quicker than I personally expect. But to be realistic - it's a phone and 10 gb's we're talking about here.

Side note, and forgive my ignorance here, but will the G1/Android/T-Mobile have tools for you to monitor your own usage?

 

[drustvold]

I'm sure if anyone hits this cap and you're doing legit, bussniess, entertainment type things all you will have to do is call up CS, tell your story "I recive 10mb PDF's all day from my art department" and they'll uncap you.

This is just in place to prevent people from abusing it, like oh i don't know, hosting a web server via their phone.

And lets note that this cap is for 3G over the air, it shouldn't count if you're connected via wifi.

 

[Scamp]

I got to thinking, given a 3G download rate of around 2mbps, how long would it take to use up 10GB?

Do I stink at converting units, or is this correct?

1 Gigabyte (GB) = 8,000 Megabits (mb)

10 Gigabytes (GB) = 80,000 Megabits (mb)

80,000mb / 2mbps = 40,000 Seconds = 666min = ~11 Hours.

Is that right? You get 11 Hours of Internet use per month (~22min per day) with a 10GB cap?

Is a 2 mbps download speed a resonable value for a G1 on a 3G network?

 

[Scamp]

PS:

Is the UPLOADED data counted as well or is the cap only on Downloads?