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. :confused: 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. :eek:

[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?! :eek:

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. :p

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) (http://www.easycalculation.com/bandwidth-calculator.php)

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?

[Manacit]

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) (http://www.easycalculation.com/bandwidth-calculator.php)

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?

That's assuming that you are constantly downloading at the Maximum speed of the network. If you did 11 hours of torrenting that maxed the connection out, you would reach 10GB. Loading webpages (which are quite small), that you read before you load another one, or even youtube videos, would make it very hard to hit a 10G cap.

I know someone in NZ who has a 10GB/mo cap for his home connection at a broadband speed, and he manages to stay under it, even with multiple people in the household.

[jendi1991]

I like to watch movies online but i recently got the 10GB cap from 3G... Will it affect my movie watching?? How much does it take to watch a full movie online anyway?

[HTC]

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) (http://www.easycalculation.com/bandwidth-calculator.php)

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?

your conversion is right... sorta. but your logic is wrong.

everytime you use the internet, you dont constantly stream 2mbps every second you read a website. every page you load is probably only a few hundred kb (and thats with pretty image heavy pages) then it stops. it doesn't need to constantly update itself every other second sending data back and forth. Can you imagine if the web was designed this way? web servers would eat up so much bandwidth.. they would all need supercomputers just to host a website.

[johnnewhouse]

what on earth are you doing with your phones to think you will ever get near a 10gb limit??
are you that guy from the movie 'the terminal' and you actually live in the airport? i know planes are delayed now and again but i just cant see you being there long enough. :eek:

i just got back from the US (Dallas and Phoenix, road trip) and almost every night, i was in a different hotel/motel, and every time they had wi-fi freely available (i wont stay at a hotel that charges extra for data). almost every bar/restaurant had free wi-fi as well.

if my phone data plan was my only access to the internet then i would go above 10gb a month.
i do obtain large files from the web (my net usage was about 80GB when i last checked in the summer), but why would anyone choose to spend 6 hours downloading something via their phone, when it would take less than 1 at home, at work, in a hotel or in a bar?

now i will get back to watching the 3 NFL games i am currently streaming :D

[GODMODE]

Cable companies are also capping, so, there is really no more such thing as unlimited.

[johnkzin]

Cable companies are also capping, so, there is really no more such thing as unlimited.

There's still fiber and DSL based ISPs.

And, whether they all jump off the same cliff like lemmings or not, caps are stupid. That was shown to be a faulty model in the mid 90's, and it will continue to be a faulty model.

The model that works is speed limiting. Sell customers the speed you can afford to provide them, at a price that is sustainable. The fact that the HSPA protocol might be capable of 7.2MBps is irrelevant if you don't have the backbone to maintain it for all customers, and aren't charging the rate that makes it profitable.

The intelligent thing to do is sell speeds tiers (instead of protocol tiers, like "web only" vs "total internet"), charge the fair rate for those tiers, and then limit people to the speeds you're selling them. Something like:

$5/mo for 256KBps/128KBps (download/upload)
$10/mo for 512KBps/256KBps
$15/mo for 1MBps/256KBps
$20/mo for 1.5MBps/256KBps
$25/mo for 2MBps/256KBps

With language like: those are maximum rates, in congested areas, remote areas, or depending upon distance from your cell tower, you might get lower throughput.

Those seem to me like reasonable plans. Not "$25/mo where YOU have to manage your bandwidth use ... or we'll cut you off and maybe terminate your contract if you use too much". Nor "$6/mo, but only for some internet access".

For one, managing bandwidth use is the ISPs burden, not mine. If I go over the instantaneously sustainable rate for the ISP, then that's the ISPs fault, not mine. If I use more bandwidth than the ISP can sustain, that's also the ISPs fault, not mine. These are solved problems, and maintaining everything on the ISP's side of the connection is the ISPs burden, not mine.

If comcast wants people to not use more than 800KBps (what their cap works out to), then that's what they should do: set a rate limit of 800KBps. Not threaten their customers with termination if they exceed some gross monthly limit. Same for cell carriers: set a per second rate limit, and quit your whining, ill-founded accusations, and straw-man arguments (about how "you can't possibly use that much doing legal/resonable things in 1 month!" ... BS).

[HTC]

what on earth are you doing with your phones to think you will ever get near a 10gb limit??
are you that guy from the movie 'the terminal' and you actually live in the airport? i know planes are delayed now and again but i just cant see you being there long enough. :eek:

i just got back from the US (Dallas and Phoenix, road trip) and almost every night, i was in a different hotel/motel, and every time they had wi-fi freely available (i wont stay at a hotel that charges extra for data). almost every bar/restaurant had free wi-fi as well.

if my phone data plan was my only access to the internet then i would go above 10gb a month.
i do obtain large files from the web (my net usage was about 80GB when i last checked in the summer), but why would anyone choose to spend 6 hours downloading something via their phone, when it would take less than 1 at home, at work, in a hotel or in a bar?

now i will get back to watching the 3 NFL games i am currently streaming :D

you took the blue pill didn't you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluepill

[johnnewhouse]

you took the blue pill didn't you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluepill


blissful ignorance (blue)

not likely

[Durf]

I don't know who measured 2mb/s for their 3g but I have been in congested(Los Angeles downtown), non congested (the subburbs...San Gabriel Valley), rural(Bishop, Visalia, Mammoth Lakes, Salinas), Non Rural(Monterey,Ventura, San Diego) ... I have been all over this state in the last month and have NEVER seen over .4MB/s using both the dloaded apps from the market and some test sites on the net.
I am actually happy with the speed as all I do is email, occasional Imeem music, and web browsing, but this is not even close to what they claim.
Ohh, and yes, I have 3g enabled and it does switch between 3g and edge.

[Manacit]

I just got my bill for this month, I only used 90MB of data (and I use my phone daily), I doubt i'd ever get to 1gb, 10gb would be even harder.