[T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-T989] phoenixbennu:
Truth Beyond all the Confusion

So there has been a lot, a I mean A LOT, of misinformation, guessing, and just plain wrong information about this.

First off. For those wanting to close the thread. Seriously? As someone sle posted before, this info is even available on tmos site

http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-3091

I wanted to answer a few concerns and clear up a few things to make sure people are not running around with bad info. Understand that I know more about these systems than most people do, but there are some secrets I will not give out, and some secrets I can't legally give out. The information I give here is permitted within my legal abilities, and the same thing I would tell anyone I talked to when operating on a professional level.

Roaming Issues:

Someone mentioned that this little "trick" doesnt work when roaming. Of course it doesnt. TMO 4G only works on tmo towers regardless of throttle or not.

200 mb plan:

Some people keep trying to say that there are 200mb plans still in existence that will not charge overage. DO NOT BELIEVE THIS. Tmobile revamped these old plans and THEY WILL CHARGE OVERAGE. The overage is capped, and it may not be a big thing to some, BUT IT WILL BE CHARGED regardless of using this trick or not.

Power Cycling:

Someone posted that power cycling a phone (turning it off and then on) can help the trick work. This is because when you cycle a phone, and depending on the phone you may also have to remove the battery, you are resetting a few things in the phone. Primarily resetting the registry information and thereby causing your phone to re-register.

sim Cards:

In some related posts I see people trying to argue that you do not need to change your sim card and are being lied to by people telling you to change your sim card. First off, a sim card change is FREE at a tmobile corporate store when needed for troubleshooting purposes (call and ask customer service about it and they can make sure you dont pay for it) but at stores like walmart, third party stores, etc sim cards can cost.

New sim cards ARE DIFFERENT AND UPGRADED from older sims. The old 2G sims had registration limits, the newer UICC ("3G") sim cards do not have such limits. The newer sim cards (labeled with tm9177 on them) are essentially the same as the UICC sim cards, with only one major difference...the ability to use the newer version of wifi calling

Phone Type:

Maybe not a big deal to most, but be sure your phone is capable of the speeds you are looking for. Also, keep in mind that people stating that the internet2 apn is still in use. Of course it is, but not in many phones. It is used by a very small margin of people who havent upgraded in like 4 years. Not to mention that it is ABSOLUTELY possible for tmobile to discontinue the apn without causing a riot (as one person put it) because the apns on your phone can be change from tmobile's systems.

arousing suspicion:

Really? This "trick" is so broadly known that there have even been internal documentation done in training guides for care, tech, retention, retail, and other reps. This trick is known by TMO, and has been known for a long time. It was one of the main reasons that tmobile went to the newer apns in the first place.

commercials, research, ads as only informative source:

All these people saying "the commercial said so, so I believe it" and "who reads contracts anyways".....you guys deserve to be hurt by this. How dumb do you really have to be to use advertising as your primary, and sometimes only, source of information. Tmobile gives you all the legal information as required by the FCC and in the ways required by the FCC (they even determine font size, duration of message displayed on screen, etc in the FCC), and I know that people activating accounts get MULTIPLE MULTIPLE MULTIPLE options, methods, reminders, and means to read and understand and question anything in the terms and conditions. There are even parts of the terms and conditions you can opt out of and you are given about a month to do so. If you complain about something because you feel you didnt have to read the terms and conditions then you dont have the right to complain.

As for it being false advertising. Its not. Its American advertising. We only want things to be more blatantly obvious with this so we can basically get advertised to like 5 year olds. Advertising is a hook, not an educational tool.

wireless vs home internet:

some people were saying "tmobile chargex xx.xx for xxGB of internet when my home internet charges xx for more internet"

.... well of course you get more with home internet. Its dedicated, not wireless. they have less equipment to maintain. Its different methods to providing similar services.

Using this loophole is stealing/not stealing:

this debate can rage FOREVER, but the truth is that its not stealing by a legal definition, but is doing something illicit and that can be termed as being wrong depending on your moral compass. So thats a question you have to ask yourself...what do your own morals say? Keep in mind that if you have to justify something then generally its wrong.

Monthly 4G..will it work?

it can. but there is more to it than that. Most of the registration and backend systems for your monthly 4g plans and for yur regular plans are the same. Its mainly just a billing difference. There are other differences, of course, but thats the general idea.

So using a different apn will work the same, but there are a lot of other variables to take into account. Which monthly4g plan, what phone, sim card, etc. Just about the same things for the normal plans.

Its just one of those things that the backend systems that determine if it works or not is not something anyone outside of the company has access to. This means that for the average consumer, the only way to know if it works is to simply test it on a case by case basis. Just cause it works for one person doesnt mean it will work for you and just because it doesnt work for them doesnt mean it wont work for you.

My account app tracking your usage:

The my account app does not track your usage. Simple as that. Freezing, uninstalling, or modifying the app wont make any difference. The app is simply not designed that way and does not have capability to do it. Thats not to say that an application cant be made to accomplish this task, but tmobile already tracks your information with a sufficient system and the idea of spending tons of money implementing a new system to accommodate this app would be ridiculous. They would have to have a system to track from the app, and then systems setup to merge the records between old and new systems, and method setup to double check records to make sure not double billed, etc. Not to mention that the my account app is not installed on all phones, mainly just android, and would have to be setup to differentiate those phones, and also would have to be setup to work with all data plans, and also wouldnt be able to cover phones that have a pay per use data setup without charging extra and would have to be setup to work for phones that dont have data plans on them, etc. Its just more of a mess than a company would want to pay for. Not saying it cant be done, but there is the "why would we pay for that?" factor.

Data Tracking:

Many people are posting things like "I just watched a video/downloaded something/used the web/etc and my data usage still shows what it did an hour ago"

If it doesnt report right, then you might have more going on then this "trick", but in reality all data tracks. Just not all data reports for usage online right away. There is roaming data that can data up to 90 days to report right, and late billables that my not report for a cycle or two. However, in general this stuff takes up to 48 hours to be updated properly. This goes for calls, sms usage, and just about any sort of usage. It can report right away or in two days, and in some cases longer.

Unlimited versus Unlimited:

People argue that unlimited data on tmobile's network really isnt unlimited because of throttling. This again can be a tricky situation, but not because of tmobile...its because of the varying definitions out there. If you go by legal definitions its not an issue and tmobile is 100% honest. Going by sprints advertising is 0% honest. lol. The real thing here is that tmobile is unlimited data, with limited data speeds.....but if you say that tmobile doesnt have "Unlimited" data because of data throttling and the data has to be unhindered to be truly called unlimited....***well then you cant call ANY DATA PLAN UNLIMITED WITH ANY COMPANY OR CARRIER OR SERVICE OR PLAN. Why? because no carrier can give you truly unlimited data speeds. They can only offer you max data seeds. I dont know any company that advertises their data as "Infinity Mbps". When someone sees this please let me know. So if your definition of unlimited data is unlimited and unrestricted data speed, then you must have a problem with every data plan on every service known to exist. wireless or not.******

I understand where you are coming from, but get real for a minute. Every carrier is throttling data. Even home internet connections are doing it. Many home internet carriers are even capping data and charging overage. At least tmobile tries to avoid charging you extra like many other home internet carriers and cell carriers are doing.

Automated Checker:

Many people have this weird thought that tmobile spies are sitting at desks in some secret room, hunched over their computers, checking every account to catch people for weird activity to make sure they are not manipulating the system......how paranoid are people?

Yes, TMO has fraud temas, verification teams, and many other groups that will help prevent bad activity from happening. However, there is no team that sits there and just checked accounts at random like people suggest. There is no automated service either.

What DOES exist is trackable everything. Tmobile, like every other carrier and similar business, tracks EVERYTHING that they want to track. The apns you use, the data you connect to, how many sms and mms and calls and ims and so on that you use. This does not mean that tmobile actively tracks it all. For instance, you wont find record of WHAT an sms said because once that info passes through the system it is erased because tmo doesnt want to hold onto the info for privacy and storage reasons. In other examples: tmo tracks how often you call in, what you call in about, how many of those call in times you spoke with a rep or just the automated system. They also track how many times your accounts are accessed from retail stores, and how many times you have changed your sim, and how many times you have changed plans, and just tons of stuff. Most people should be like "duh, of course they track that stuff"...but I just wanted to point out for some people here and clear things up. Tmobile can track whatever they want. The technology and systems are already in place to do so, and they know just what apn you use and how much data you use (yes they are actively tracking it, which...again....is a reason they have the newer apns)What they do with info (erase it, ignore it, use it, make paper airplanes out of it) is a different story.

Again, this is just general info. info that anyone can get by calling into tmobile and asking a representative.

I hope that I have been able to assist and clarifying some information. There are many little tricks out there, but on this matter I have said what I can and I hope that it was helpful. If any further information can be said I will edit this post.