T-Mobile Confirms It Will Now Slow You Down After 50 GB T-Mobile has confirmed that the company is boosting the "deprioritization" threshold for the company's "unlimited" data plans to 50 GB per month. The new 50 GB limit is a notable bump up from the company's previous cap of 32 GB -- which the company has been quick to highlight was already 10 GB or so higher than most of its competitors. When users in congested areas hit this 50 GB threshold, their LTE connections are deprioritized to last generation speeds for the remainder of their billing cycle.

In a blog post by T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray announcing the move, T-Mobile pats itself on the back for being more generous than other big wireless carriers, who have a threshold of 22 GB (AT&T, Verizon) or 23 GB (Sprint). "Verizon and AT&T sit at a meager 22GB, meaning Un-carrier customers can use more than 2x the data before prioritization kicks in," the company proclaims. "Now, 50GB of data usage means a T-Mobile customer is basically the top 1% of data users, and to put it in context, you could stream a full 2 hours of Netflix every single day -- that’s 30 SD movies -- and never even reach that point!" Ray noted that the changes will take effect Wednesday of this week (aka today). In his post, Ray insists that what carriers are doing with unlimited data plans should be called "deprioritization," not "throttling." "Often confused for a “throttle” or “cap,” prioritization is different," the CTO said. "It doesn’t cap how much you can use, and someone would only notice it when TWO things happen: the customer has already consumed a ton of data in the month (50GB) AND they are in an area of the network is that currently experiencing congestion." "When T-Mobile customers who use the most data hit these prioritization points during the month, they get in line behind other customers who have used less data and may experience reduced speeds," the CTO explains. "But this impacts them only very rarely, like when there is a big line, and it resets every month." The The full announcement has a little more detail on the changes.







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Most recommended from 33 comments

moulder3

join:2007-05-21

Boston, MA 30 recommendations moulder3 Member ...a bit misleading Karl: Your title is a bit misleading ("T-Mobile Confirms It Will Now Slow You Down After 50 GB").



Unless something changed, deprioritization simply means that *IF* a tower is congested, you get the short-straw and have data slowed. If no congestion on your tower, you still get normal speeds.

Takuro

join:2016-10-17

Chapel Hill, NC 23 recommendations Takuro Member Deprioritized != Speed Cap When users in congested areas hit this 50 GB threshold, their LTE connections are deprioritized to last generation speeds for the remainder of their billing cycle. variable speeds depending upon how many people are using the tower at that moment, but almost certainly never that slow... For the millionth time, deprioritization is not a specific speed cap. Mentioning "to last generation speeds" is technically inaccurate if implying you'll get throttled down to "3G" rates (which T-Mobile defines as 512Kbps in most legal docs). It'll bedepending upon how many people are using the tower at that moment, but almost certainly never that slow...

Economist

The economy, stupid

Premium Member

join:2015-07-10

united state ·AT&T FTTP

14 recommendations Economist Premium Member While I would love unlimited everything for free... 50GB is more than I could personally use given how much WiFi access there is around here. I am sure there are people who can find uses, but for mobile, I am impressed, especially when compared to what the competition is doing. At every turn from including Netflix with 2 line packages, their new DIGITS setup, to the 50GB stuff, to the insanely awesome international roaming plan, expansive tethering allotments on my plan, all at a fair price, I am VERY happy with T-Mobile.