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I’ve been a loyal T-Mobile customer for over 2.5 years now, as I made the switch from AT&T at that point. Among the big US carriers, T-Mobile was for a long time by far the leader when it came to international data, thanks to their Simple Choice Plan.

How my opinion of T-Mobile has evolved

While I was thrilled with T-Mobile for a couple of years, the reality is that their competitors have largely caught up when it comes to international data, so they don’t have the edge they used to have.

Furthermore, last year they introduced a new $5 Global Pass Plan, which I thought was awesome in theory, but the execution was terrible.

Fortunately T-Mobile recently introduced a new Global Plus Plan, which I’ve signed up for, and have been really happy with. It costs an extra $50 per month per line, which is steep, but comes with lots of perks.

Earn bonus points on phone bills

Essentially this plan gives you unlimited messaging, calling, and high-speed data when roaming in Simple Global countries, as well as 5GB of monthly high-speed international tethering. For my travel plans this is an excellent value, since the international tethering really comes in handy.

That sounds great, but…

T-Mobile says I use too much data abroad

On December 13, 2018, I received the following text message from T-Mobile:

The majority of the recent T-Mobile usage on your line has been roaming internationally. Per our terms and conditions roaming benefits are not intended for extensive use abroad. You can use Wi-Fi to reduce your international usage. See details: t-mo.co/roaming

Then on January 15, 2019, I received the following message:

The majority of the last two months of T-Mobile usage on your line has been roaming internationally. If this line continues to roam extensively abroad over the next month, the use will violate our terms and conditions, and your roaming usage will be blocked on February 26 2019. See details: t-mo.co/roaming

So T-Mobile is threatening to block my international data on February 26, 2019, if I don’t reduce my usage.

Let’s take a closer look at this…

T-Mobile’s restrictions on international data usage

It’s totally understandable that T-Mobile doesn’t intend for this plan to be for those living abroad. However, the plan is very much designed for frequent international travelers. After all, someone who doesn’t travel a lot internationally isn’t going to pay an extra $50 per line per month for a feature like this.

Here’s what the terms & conditions of T-Mobile’s contracts say regarding excessive international data usage:

Unless explicitly permitted by your Rate Plan or Data Plan, you are not permitted to use your Device or the Services in a way that we determine results in more than 50% of your voice and/or data usage being Off-Net (i.e., connected to another provider’s network) for any 2 billing cycles within any 12-month period

So as you can see, T-Mobile doesn’t want you to use more than 50% of your voice and/or data connected to another provider’s network for two billing cycles in a 12-month period.

Fair enough, that’s not unreasonable.

How much T-Mobile data have I been using internationally?

So in fairness, the period from mid-October until mid-December was my busiest international travel period of the year, so T-Mobile isn’t totally off base here. Let me share some details on my usage.

For my billing cycle from October 14 through November 13 I had pretty high usage:

I used a total of 17.14GB of data

Roughly 7.1GB of that was in the US, while roughly 10GB of that was outside the US

I spent 14 days not in the US (this includes time in other countries, as well as time on planes)

For my billing cycle from November 14 through December 13:

I used a total of 6.21GB of data

Roughly 2.9GB of that was in the US, while roughly 3.2GB of that was outside the US

I spent 14 days not in the US (this includes time in other countries, as well as time on planes)

Like I said, these were especially busy periods for international travel, so T-Mobile isn’t in the wrong.

I don’t yet have access to usage details for my latest statement, but I’ve been in the country almost the entire time, so I imagine my overall usage is low, and my international usage is especially low.

For the period from December 14 through January 13, I only spent three days outside the US, so I can’t imagine that’s an issue.

What I don’t understand

So here’s what I don’t understand about T-Mobile’s policy. Even in my busy travel months I haven’t spent more than half of my time abroad. I also don’t think my international usage (in absolute terms) has been unreasonable.

However, indeed T-Mobile’s policy says that you can’t use more than 50% of your voice or data abroad, and I have (accidentally) violated that.

But doesn’t that mean that I need to just use more data in the US? I use fairly little data in the US since I’m typically connected to wifi, so it sounds to me like the solution here isn’t to use less data abroad (which would be inconvenient), but rather to simply use a lot more data in the US? Do I just need to start tethering off my phone in the US for no reason, and download big files to my phone?

That seems silly, but best I can tell, that would solve my problems?

Bottom line

I totally get why T-Mobile wants to limit how much data people use abroad, and indeed I’ve been using too much data abroad, it seems like. I had never looked at my usage details until now.

However, the rule here is based on the percent of data you’re using abroad, and unless I’m missing something, it seems like my issue here is simply that I’m not using enough data in the US.

Has anyone else faced this issue of using too much T-Mobile data abroad? What did you do? Is my understanding of the rules incorrect?