T-Mobile Home Internet users will want to be a little careful about data use from now on
As if it wasn't enough that T-Mobile 5G Home Internet users who signed up for the service after January 17 will have to pay $60 a month for unlimited data -- $10 more than older customers -- the carrier has now quietly enforced a new usage policy for new customers.
Previously, T-Mobile didn't care how recklessly you burned through data. Those days are over now.
T-Mobile told The Mobile Report that while there is no limit on how much data users get, after hitting 1.2TB for any given month, they may experience slowdowns during periods of heavy use as other customers will be prioritized over them. This deprioritization will last until the beginning of the next month.
This is not how things worked before. Although the company did mention that sometimes customers may experience slower speeds during network congestion, an update to terms and conditions made on January 19 warned of "further reduction after 1.2 TB."
While such language does take a little fun out of wasting your entire life in front of screens, that's more because of your data anxiety than anything else, as an average American household uses around 500GB of data every month, so you are highly unlikely to go over 1.2TB.
T-Mobile itself points out that only 10 percent of its customers use more than 1.2TB. Now, that might be a small fraction of users, but not a small number of users. After all, the company has 4 million home internet users, 509,000 of which were acquired in Q2 2023.
This is a fair usage policy, not a data cap. We don’t have a data cap. Customers still get unlimited data even if they use more than 1.2TB in a month (over 2X the average user – less than 10% of our customers). They’ll just be prioritized after other home internet customers for the reminder of the bill cycle, and they may notice slower speeds compared to other home internet customers in times of congestion. This ensures that all of our customers get a great network experience. At the start of the next month, those customers reset to normal prioritization until the next time they hit 1.2TB. - T-Mobile
Also, T-Mobile may enforce a stricter priority limit down the line, so with this recent change, it might be priming its customers for what's to come. The silver lining is that the company is not putting a cap on your usage, which was previously deemed to be the case.
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed: