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mhhf1ve
mhhf1ve
4/8/2017 1:03:38 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Will the lessons circle back to the US?
Depending on what device you use, I think you can monitor your own usage so that you're not "surprised" when you hit 95% of your data cap. I know Verizon warns its users when they hit 50% of their data cap.... But warnings and caps are all pretty annoying.... and zero rating is a really annoying way for the carriers to try to make it seem like they're being nicer.

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srufolo1
srufolo1
4/7/2017 6:33:20 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Will the lessons circle back to the US?
@mhhf1ve Oh, thanks for those links you sent about Cricket. Now I understand the relationship between them and AT&T. Right, they have a maximum data speed of 8 Mbps, according to the info you sent me. That would be fine with me. AT&T suddenly springs it on me every month that I've used up 95 percent of my data. Can't they warn me a little sooner? The throttling back of data by them makes my connection useless. I can't even get onto my email. Then I have to wait sometimes for a full two weeks to get up to speed, so to speak. I end up running over to Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks to work. When did this whole throttle back thing start? Since when did any company care that they had to charge an extra gazillion dollars for going over the data allotment?

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mhhf1ve
mhhf1ve
4/7/2017 1:56:05 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Will the lessons circle back to the US?
> "What about T-Mobile's potential 'cheating'"

Well, I don't think the FCC is positioning itself to protect consumers too agressively. And I can't imagine any other agency like the FTC is going to buck the current pro-business trend, either.

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Joe Stanganelli
Joe Stanganelli
4/7/2017 1:36:46 PM
User Rank
Author
Re: Will the lessons circle back to the US?
@mhh: ...and all of them are outside...but not too deep in the suburbs...or too close to too many urban buildings.

(What about T-Mobile's potential "cheating" insofar as advertising its providing of 4G unless...?)  ;)

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mhhf1ve
mhhf1ve
4/7/2017 1:27:59 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Will the lessons circle back to the US?
T-mobile publicly ranted about "cheaters" abusing its unlimited data plans. I think they've since plugged the holes? 

https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news-and-blogs/stopping-network-abusers.htm

"However, 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. It's a small group – 1/100 of a percent of our 59 million customers – but some of them are using as much as 2 terabytes (2,000GB!) of data in a month."

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mhhf1ve
mhhf1ve
4/7/2017 12:47:14 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Will the lessons circle back to the US?
@srufolo1 - Ah. That's the "it depends on how you define unlimited" trick that every carrier pulls. All of them say that they have an "unlimited" data plan.. but the trick is that they have fine print -- which says that if you exceed some amount of data (eg 22GB or 28GB per month) then you won't get cut off, but they will throttle your data speeds, slowing them to the point that you basically won't be able to do anything other than check for text emails.

Hmm. I see Cricket Wireless *just recently* changed their policy to add the "throttle data cap" trick. They previously didn't have a throttle data cap -- but they simply had a maximum data speed that was a bit slower than the leading mobile operators.

https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20161107071637/https://www.cricketwireless.com/support/articles/phone-technology/customer/unlimited-data.html

https://www.cricketwireless.com/support/articles/phone-technology/customer/unlimited-data.html

Cricket was acquired by AT&T in 2013. Before that, it was a MVNO using Sprint's network.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_Wireless

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srufolo1
srufolo1
4/6/2017 5:39:06 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Will the lessons circle back to the US?
@mhhf1ve  Someone mentioned to me a company called Cricket offers unlimited data. I had never heard of them before. She said they use AT&T's towers, but none of what she said made sense to me.

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mhhf1ve
mhhf1ve
4/6/2017 9:22:42 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Will the lessons circle back to the US?
I don't think any mobile providers offer a "no data cap" plan. T-mobile started cracking down on users who figured out how to circumvent their data cap. I haven't heard of too many ppl getting away with it recently but maybe ther are still a few sly hackers outwitting the system.

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srufolo1
srufolo1
4/6/2017 1:03:46 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Kwese Takes New Approach
@afwriter I've had the cable company pro-rate what I owed when they cut me off for nonpayment then turned the service back on. Also, I think we rely too much on credit cards here, but that's the major form of payment for anything from online purchases to bill payments. Other countries like Africa rely less heavily on credit cards and seem to be doing fine getting what they want.

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afwriter
afwriter
4/6/2017 12:42:52 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Kwese Takes New Approach
I am not sure if that payment structure would work all that well in the U.S. but having the option is always nice. I have always found it a little annoying that if your water or electricity go out you don't have to pay for them, but if your cable or internet go out for a week for whatever reason you are still responsible for the whole bill.

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