T-Mobile G1 Announced and the Data Throughput Slowdown (Updated)
September 23, 2008 – 9:23 am
T-Mobile and Google announced the Android based G1 today. The phone seems very usable yet, the bolded print in the above picture makes me shake my head. The text reads, “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.” Again, we see the term unlimited has underpinnings (link to terms of service) that are not beneficial to the consumer.
Update: It looks as though T-Mobile has listened to the complaints and removed the 1 GB limit. I applaud T-Mobile as long as they stick to their most recent statement.
2 Responses to “T-Mobile G1 Announced and the Data Throughput Slowdown (Updated)”
From my experiecnce with t-mobile you might be hard pressed to do 1gig…ha. it could take you a while, unless you are in the optimal 3g coverage. It sucks that they put this limit. Thanks for pointing out the small print. That could deter many converts.
By Victor Caballero on Sep 23, 2008
50 kbps is still fast enough to bring up webpages quick. The thing is that for the majority of people, 1gb in a month will be enough, and they will be able to get their 1gb at better download speeds without power users downloading torrentporn over 3g all month. The electromagnetic spectrum has physical limitations and that means there’s only so much bandwidth to go around.
What might have been better though is to only limit bandwidth during peak hours.
The cost savings for this might have contributed to their cheaper 25/month data plan, which is going to save hundreds over the cost of the iphone 3g over the 2 years.
By Bryan on Sep 23, 2008