T-Mobile CEO Vows To Hunt Down 'Thieves' And 'Clever Hackers' That 'Abuse' Company's Unlimited Data Plans
from the unlimited-is-limited dept
For more than a decade now wireless carriers have struggled with this rather simple definition:unlimited, adjectiveWhile carriers have long insisted they offer "unlimited" data, they go to great lengths to avoid offering said advertised product when the gluttonous masses inevitably come calling to partake in the all-you-can-eat buffet. Countless companies have had their wrists slapped for the failure to disclose that their "unlimited" plans are in fact quite limited. Verizon settled a lawsuit from NY's AG back in 2007 for advertising capped and throttled services as unlimited. When Verizon and AT&T later ditched all unlimited plans, they both still waged a quiet war on unlimited users, again throttling or otherwise restricting their data consumption.
1. not limited; unrestricted; unconfined: unlimited trade.
2. boundless; infinite; vast: the unlimited skies.
3. without any qualification or exception; unconditional.
In recent years T-Mobile has taken advantage of this shift and marketed itself as one of the last companies that truly embraces unlimited data. Well, sort of. If you sign up for an unlimited T-Mobile smartphone plan, T-Mobile's website will quietly inform you that by "unlimited" T-Mobile actually means 21 GB, after which (provided you're on a congested tower), you'll have your speeds "de-prioritized" for the remainder of your billing cycle. Customers that sign up for unlimited data are also greeted with this notice, usually down below the advertisement:
For a while now, T-Mobile customers that install third-party ROMs have been able to skirt the 7GB tethering throttling limit. This has, apparently, greatly annoyed T-mobile CEO John Legere, who has taken to the company's blog to declare he's now hunting down data "thieves" for the benefit of all mankind:
"...These violators are going out of their way with all kinds of workarounds to steal more LTE tethered data. They’re downloading apps that hide their tether usage, rooting their phones, writing code to mask their activity, etc. They are “hacking” the system to swipe high speed tethered data. These aren't naive amateurs; they are clever hackers who are willfully stealing for their own selfish gain."According to Legere these "clever hackers" only comprise around 1/100 of a percent of the company's 59 million customers, and a few of them have been eating as much as two terabytes a month of data. So why is T-Mobile making so much noise about a small number of customers it could easily shove to metered plans privately? T-Mobile's trying to get out ahead of media criticism for imposing limits on "unlimited" data, and to avoid the FCC's net neutrality and transparency rules by clearly stating intent (even if the T-Mobile FAQ on the issue doesn't really offer technical specifics).
It should be noted that every ISP on the planet has to deal with a small subset of extremely heavy users. This is nothing new, and if T-Mobile had said nothing, people probably wouldn't have given a damn. But after insulting his userbase, Legere proceeds with false bravado to pretend that the perfectly ordinary practice of protecting the network from gluttons somehow makes T-Mobile an industry leader:
These abusers will probably try to distract everyone by waving their arms about throttling data. Make no mistake about it – this is not the same issue. Don’t be duped by their sideshow. We are going after every thief, and I am starting with the 3,000 users who know exactly what they are doing...I won't let a few thieves ruin things for anyone else. We’re going to lead from the front on this, just like we always do. Count on it!Good job I guess? To be clear: outside of its wishy-washy net neutrality stance I like T-Mobile, and think the company has done some great things to nudge the industry forward (like killing subsidies and reducing overseas roaming costs). I also think these allotments are more than fair for the price being paid, and T-Mobile has every right to police its network, since two terabytes of mobile consumption is gluttonous by any standard. That said, acting like it's the pinnacle of "clever hacking" and villainy to modify a device you own to get a service advertised as unlimited is a tad specious and theatrical. And Legere's decision to subsequently bicker with users on Twitter for the rest of the day wasn't the "uncarrier's" finest PR hour:
@LEVST3R as I said the abusers will try to confuse the issue and this is one of the ways..nice try
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) August 31, 2015
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Filed Under: john legere, streaming, tethering, unlimited
Companies: t-mobile
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*looks at NSA, DOJ, CIA, Govt in general*
I think T-Mobile is actually being very nice and gentle to the dictionary.
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lol
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Or those who buy an non-carrier branded phone.
Is it really that difficult to track how much data is associated with a particular SIM? The OS should be irrelevant.
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It shouldn't be. I am not sure what type of app they are using to hide their traffic usage, but it seems like the SIM is pretty unique and not easy to change, so if you are talking to the cell tower and they are recording your SIM Card Number, it should be pretty easy for them to determine how much you are using.
I am more than a little concerned about this. I don't tether my phone...I have a separate data device for connecting to my computer (which I am usually far under the maximum allotted bandwidth each month for,) but I have a non-carrier branded, rooted, and open-source ROM'd phone, partly because I don't like the nanny-monitoring software nor the "you bought your phone but we won't allow you to actually use it the way you want," aspect of this release. According to my phone, I use about 2-4 GB a month, so I am not one of those 2TB a month users, but I am very concerned when they start lumping non-official ROMs and unbranded phones into the "bad-guy" list.
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Remeber the Ubuntu Edge, which would have let users plug in a keyboard and monitor to use the phone as a full PC? It was a cool idea but phone plans seem predicated on the idea that you can't do anything very useful (i.e. data-hungry) on your phone.
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If they want to keep me as a customer, they'd better not consider me a "bad guy" for buying a phone without their brand, locks, and lack of support.
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So instead it is the phone that throttles the connection after a certain amount, not the carrier.
The carrier provides an unlimited connection. Using that unlimited connection with an unlimiting phone is abuse. Because the connection is unlimited, not the usage.
If this does not make perfect sense to you, you probably need to go back to marketing school. Or get a lobotomy, but I seem to remember that the latter is a prerequisite for the former.
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Except that this isn't even close to true. The one time my phone did go above 5GB (on the 5GB plan,) the phone dropped to 2G (40 kb/s) even though I was using a rooted phone running an open-source version of Android.
The phone did not throttle the connection, T-Mobile did.
Try again?
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T-Mobile cannot see which devices the data end up being used on, since all data go through the phone first, and T-Mobile can't see beyond that point.
With Internet neutrality, that shouldn't be a problem, because data are data, and it shouldn't matter what you use them for. However, T-Mobile has taken the risk of basing its prices not on cost but on what is marketable: unlimited data sounds nice. If you pay a fixed price for unlimited data, at some point your usage might be so high that it costs T-Mobile more than the fixed price you pay. T-Mobile gambled on this never happening, because in practice it is nearly impossible to use so much on a phone. I believe 1 GB costs tens of cents, so you'd have to use maybe 200 GB to cost T-Mobile more than the $80 you pay them for unlimited. However, if you tether your computer to your phone, that can happen.
What T-Mobile should have done is offer limited data at $80, but set a high, attractive cap, let's say 100 GB. Then offer 1 TB for $800, 10 TB for $800. Or just stop using those stupid caps and simply charge the cost price plus a nice profit per GB, so e.g. 50 cents per GB, no matter how much you use. If you use more, you pay more.
One other thing to consider is that the cost of data usage is highly variable; one GB is much more expensive than another. When the network is not congested, the cost per GB for T-Mobile is low. What costs them the most is keeping the throughput at an acceptable level, the capacity of data per second. Building new towers, new cables, new interconexions, and maintaining it all, that sort of thing.
So it would make the most sense to charge a fee per GB dependent on how congested the tower is that you're using at the moment; if you use data at night or at places where there is plenty of capacity, your usage won't cost them much extra over what they have to pay anyway to maintain the system. But that would make your bills very complicated. So perhaps you should be paying a fixed monthly amount for maintaining the system plus a small amount per GB used.
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What caps can do is convince people to keep their cable subscription, because the cap limits their ability to switch all their viewing to online sources, and that is something that many ISPs have an interest in achieving.
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It isn't that T-Mobile doesn't like it. It's that the contract to which the parties agreed said Unlimited Data on your mobile device and a certain amount for your tethered devices. I know this quite well, having recently updated my account with them. It's quite explicit in this.
Actually, you can. There are headers in the data stream which can indicate the device type, OS, browser, and so forth. The apps and "hacks" in question explicitly modify that header information in order to obfuscate that it's actually a desktop (or laptop, but essentially non-mobile) form of data request.
The key is that these customers have agreed to use the data one way, unlimited on the mobile devices and with certain reasonable limits on tethering, yet don't do so. Not only don't they do so, but they are using apps which attempt to circumvent the carrier's reasonable attempts to discern which type of data it happens to be. Mobile data is not, or should not be, a substitute for a landline based Internet service at home. That many choose to use it in this way in direct contravention of the terms of use to which they agreed isn't T-Mobile's fault.
I will concede that the language the CEO used to describe the behavior is hyperbolic, at best. That's how he is, though, so I don't see it as all that big an issue when you get down to it.
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At your second point, it is the carrier's problem that it is trying to effect price differentiation. Just as with geo blocks. If the cost of 2TB of mobile data is too high for the carrier, which it very well may be, then they should limit the total data used, not try some trick and tell people how to use their data.
For privacy, anyone might use a VPN on his phone. Then a carrier has no idea what the user agent is, whether you tether through the phone or load the web page directly on your phone.
What it comes down to is that big companies attempting price differentiation and exposing themselves to risks that way (overuse) should stop complaining and offer prices that are based on true cost, not marketing silliness. And they should try to patch up their mistakes by violating Internet neutrality.
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Where is he going to end?
That sounds rather ominous.
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Mother Goose knew.
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Between headline and last paragraph, you agree with T-mobile and like the company too.
I guess it's just the word "unlimited' that drives you bonkers. Seems characteristic of TD writers. Masnick had same problem with MTA "unlimited" ticket actually meaning only 90 rides:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100713/15411510198.shtml
I think it's because you've become geezers without noticing. "In my day, unlimited meant UNLIMITED! And we liked it!" You certainly repeat the theme often. I suppose next you'll start on "all you can eat buffets" doesn't mean you can set up a cot by it and go back "unlimited" times, so it's actually false advertising. And you're going to set up a cot by one and PROVE it!
Sheesh. Nowadays, the real cranks, instead of writing a letter to local newspaper which promptly goes into the circular file, have a web-site and rant endlessly about things that don't matter. You could have used that time warning us again that the Russians are "filling the internet with toxic disinformation"!
Slow page load? Not seeing comments the fanboys censored?
Get the full text and none of the ads with the new Techdirt Lite!
https://www.techdirt.com/?_format=lite
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Re: Between headline and last paragraph, you agree with T-mobile and like the company too.
You described yourself to a T! Congratulations!
PS: I read the article and I wasn't puzzled. Take your nannying somewhere else, lady.
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Re: Between headline and last paragraph, you agree with T-mobile and like the company too.
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Re: Between headline and last paragraph, you agree with T-mobile and like the company too.
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UNLIMITED DATA DOES NOT MEAN UNLIMITED SPEED!
What you claim is a defense by the carries is actually a valid response.
T-Mobile, by the way, makes it very clear you can have all the data you want, but if your 4G/LTE speed is used to grab the plentiful allocation, you will be slowed down but you will still have access to the data.
There's nothing nefarious about this. It's clear. Customers understand it. Customers accept it.
As far as I'm concerned, I see no problem with T-Mobile going after these users, because chances are, they're the bots we all hate sending out spam texts everyone gets.
If a few "customers" come along and take more than they're alloted, it ruins it for the rest of us.
Because, unlike broadband, LTE does have a limited throughput and I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't want a spinning icon as my phone is trying to send and receive data because "customers", by your definition, can work around and tether all the LTE speed for themselves.
This article boasts a ridiculous attitude, and the opening definition of "unlimited" was a kick below the belt not only in its tone, but based on the perception "speed = data".
Guess who's going to get the negative feedback based on the article? Psst: it's not T-Mobile.
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Your data is unlimited except when you are on a congested tower and consume more than 21 gigabytes of cellular data per month at which point you'll be de-prioritized and oh did we also mention that if you use the device as a modem an entirely different set of rules apply at which point you are limited to 7 gigabytes of data before being deprioritzed unless you install a custom ROM at which point ignore this last bit.
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I have no problem with T-Mobile going after them either, as I think the article makes clear.
My problem is in marketing a limited product as unlimited (speed versus data consumption is irrelevant) and in Legere's specific approach in announcing what otherwise wouldn't have been that big of a deal.
The false bravado that they're being an industry leader by cracking down on heavy users is frankly just kind of stupid. Every ISP in existence is playing this cat and mouse game daily without a blog post patting themselves on the back for it.
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Your entire article is based on this misinformation you're trying to pass to your readers, but I'm not going to fall for your inept understanding of data.
Since you seem to only think points are made by definitions, here's one for "Data":
1. a plural of datum.
2. (used with a plural verb) individual facts, statistics, or items of information.
3. (used with a singular verb) a body of facts; information.
Note the exclusion of anything related to speed, distance, time, warp drives, or anything else you'll read into the actual defined word of "data".
T-Mobile makes two things clear:
-Unlimited data is unlimited data.
-You get 4G/LTE speeds up to [allotment] but will be slowed if the allotment FOR THAT SPEED is crossed.
Your argument will ONLY be valid if:
-There's an additional cost to access the data once allotment is exceeded
-The device stops working completely if the allotment is exceeded
-If the ad specified "Unlimited Access" or "Unlimited Speed" as opposed to "Unlimited Data"
T-Mobile does no such things, as far as I'm aware.
If you want to sit and try to convince your readers the majority of people reading the article are stupid to conflate speed with data, that's your call.
But don't call out a company whose 100% straight forward with its customers who do know the difference between data and speed.
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If I throttle your "unlimited" connection to 10 kbps and then kick you in the crotch, are you still ok if I use the word unlimited? Because technically you're still getting an unlimited connection.
"It's still unlimited because technically data is still flowing regardless of anything else done to the connection" is specious, flimsy reasoning.
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Ok, I won't. As someone who is very, very aware of the difference, I'll still call out the company for being incredibly misleading in their marketing materials.
Because they are.
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More than they are alloted? Please explain how it is clear that "Unlimited" comes with an allotment. When I see unlimited I think of well.... unlimited as in, without limit.
Also, while they are complaining about those evil people tethering, I can tell you that it is quite easy to use these massive quantities of data on a device. I for example currently have a phone with a screen that exceeds 1080p. So I can jump on a video stream in full HD. Oh, and I have a 64 gig card in my phone, so I can easily download any files direct to my phone and then transfer them to the computer. Of course there is also the fun things you can do like hosting a TOR node on your phone....
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Do text messages go out on LTE now? And if it was really spammers, don't you think they would have mentioned that? Everyone hates spammers, so T-Mobile would have jumped at the chance to trumpet that they're going after spammers.
Because, unlike broadband, LTE does have a limited throughput and I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't want a spinning icon as my phone is trying to send and receive data because "customers", by your definition, can work around and tether all the LTE speed for themselves.
Aren't you now getting mixed up between speed and data? What difference does it make if you're getting slow speeds because there are 1000 people using LTE with you who are all under their unlimited data limitation, or if those 1000 people have already downloaded 22 GB that month? T-Mobile has already admitted that this is a tiny minority of their customers, so throttling them will not solve or prevent the problem you describe.
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Re: No it's not
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*limited
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Wonder where these 'hackers' are at?
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buffet
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Re: buffet
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Re: buffet
Oh, yeah, everyone understands that "unlimited" applies only to the person who ordered the buffet. Kind of like everyone with any reading comprehension understands "unlimited" data applies to the device for which it was purchased.
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Ah, yes, but that is not what the word unlimited means. Unlimited means without limits, and when you put limits on something that is unlimited, you shouldn't legally be able to call it unlimited. I know of no buffet that calls it unlimited any more...they call it all-you-can-eat, which implies that "you" is one person.
Kind of like everyone with any reading comprehension understands "unlimited" data applies to the device for which it was purchased.
Anyone with reading comprehension but no basis on reality or the English language. While I agree with you that they are quite clear on what they mean when they say that data only applies to the phone, Karl is quite right in pointing out that "unlimited" does not mean 21 GB limit, and only on the device for which it was purchased (since unlimited means without limits.)
T-Mobile should instead change their offering to "all-you-can-use-on-the-phone" data plan, but even then it isn't correct since if I was to use my phone to stream Netflix for 8 hours a day for 3 days (@ 1GB per hour,) I'd be well into their limits.
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On the main point of the article, which relates to tethering, it's completely off the mark. Unlimited for a phone, which is clearly what is stated in the T-mobile terms, does NOT mean unlimited for all devices you choose to connect. Taking the word "unlimited" out of the context of the terms in which it's presented is disingenuous and a complete reading comprehension fail.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: buffet
But you are still failing. Unlimited means unlimited, period. You cannot have limits on "unlimited". Change the word, don't get upset when others read the word in the way that everyone else reads it (because it is the way it is defined in the dictionary.)
There is no context to the word "unlimited", otherwise it is the opposite of what it means.
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Re: Re: Re: buffet
And that's why 3 UK can never be accused of false advertising; they don't offer unlimited data, they offer all-you-can-eat data with the 'you' in this case being the SIM card. :)
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I kinda figure that they are going to have more problems lying in marketing than we do in the US. In the EU they tend to enforce the "you can't lie to your customers" aspect that in the US we tend to just call "marketing". Annoying as hell, you have to be really blatant (or not be big enough to hire lawyers) to run afoul of the "you can't lie to your customers" rules.
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Maybe EE should be told that, since they offer 'unlimited' data that's capped at 500MB a month. (-_Q)
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Yes it is.
Yes, it is.
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Re: Yes it is.
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"Eventually"
Sometimes people say wireless phone carriers should be considered as broadband internet competition. Stuff like this should remind us why we can't take that seriously.
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Misleading
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Re: Misleading
Are people breaking similar restrictions by hooking multiple computers to their home connections? I remember in the late '90s my cable ISP had a 3-computer limit, and we ran a dual-NIC PC as a router to get around it (home routers not yet being popular). We had an "illegal" cable TV splitter too. I wouldn't be surprised if many agreements still had these restrictions in place, but I'd be shocked if a cable internet provider were calling its customers thieves for hooking up 4 devices.
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Re: Re: Misleading
If there are limitations to your data use, it's not "unlimited". There are no explanations for using that word other as deliberately misleading marketing-speak. The word has a meaning, and they're using it in exactly the opposite manner. Why not call just call it the 20GB plan and get rid of the stupid tethering restrictions? Unless of course they're just trying to make the plan look better than it really is, which we know is the real truth.
"The article is misleading in that they are going after unlimited data users where they are clearly going after people violating the terms of their agreement."
But why are there even restrictions on tethering? From the carrier's point of view what's the difference between viewing content on my phone as opposed to viewing the same content on my non-cellular iPad via my phone? It's the same data! Instead of getting so aggressive about a terms of service violation they should perhaps realize people think their terms suck.
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This remains a very miffy point of mine.
Frankly, charges for tethering and data caps remain both as cash grabs. Even in the telecom sector it's a matter of cheaply installing more infrastructure, which our lack of competition in the US allows them to not do.
But cellular services would rather fleece the people than provide a real product and see that product used to its fullest potential.
Better to be the biggest man in a small town than just another player the Big Apple.
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That was a bad idea on the places part, and they ended up running out of fish. We ate a ton, but we still were pissed when they told us to stop, because we still had more we could eat.
We were not too mad though, because they apologized for running out of fish, but if they had come to us and called us thieves, that would have been different. Pigs maybe, but not thieves.
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Re: "I won't let a few thieves ruin things for anyone else".
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And there it is...
So there we go, I'm going to take my unlocked phone and go elsewhere... They're clearly all run by a bunch of assholes with no real market sense - so why bother trying to find one I like. I'd rather have better coverage for my dollar.
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To the Local T-Mobile Office's Credit
In regards to users by-passing the carrier imposed data throttle by rooting a phone so as to remove a carrier lock on the SIM, I can understand John Legere's issue. But if Legere wants to resolve this matter in a customer friendly way I think he should embrace unlocked and rooted phones, and then look at other ways to regulate the amount of data usage.
As a network administrator I understand the issue of balancing the needs of the community in relation to the desires of a heavy consuming minority. There are good ways and bad ways of handling this type of situation. I hope T-Mobile chooses the good way.
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Re: To the Local T-Mobile Office's Credit
Rooting your phone doesn't let you do this. It's also not what he's complaining about. He's complaining about people removing the hack T-Mobile put in to prevent you from tethering. Preventing this is so nonsensical both from a logical and technical point of view that even AT&T stopped doing it years ago.
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Re: Re: To the Local T-Mobile Office's Credit
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Stop disrespecting...
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T-Mobile throttling
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t-mobile throttling
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