yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[HD2 General] d0ug:
Aught to be able to login to your account at my.t-mobile.com and check usage to see the MB transferred.

Now does anyone know when you hit this threshold 5gb 10gb, whatever it is. does t mobile cut off your data completely or just throttle you? I've no problems with throttling down to edge, hell even gprs speeds would still let you send/recieve email, albeit slow as hell. but who cares the phone can do that in the background. it would suck for a heavy web browser though, but common if you're using that much data in a month i think you could use a little time out

I just hope t mobile doesn't follow the likes of what ATT and O2 just recently announced with the iphone4. no more unlimited data, u buy a fixed bucket of 1GB and every GB over that is $10 more. or if t mobile does go this route I hope those of us on current unlimited plans can stay grandfathered on them.

im on a $20 unlimited VPN plan that includes 200mms msgs. this 200mms is perfect for me, as most of the pics i send out are via email or twitter. ive never gone over that 200mms limit in the more than 2 or so years that ive had that plan, then I have a $10 unlimited txt addon. saves me the $5 of doing the unlimited txt/mms plan, and the smaller 1000 txt/mms bucket wouldn't work for me, as i easily go over 1000 txt in a month
[HD2 General] crisisinthecity:
My friend who's on AT&T with an iphone said that anyone that had unlimited data already is grandfathered in. Anyone who signs up now can't get the unlimited data... Not saying it's fact, but I can't imagine screwing over long time customers by removing their unlimited data...
[HD2 General] d0ug:
Yeah but you know ATT is gona get ya when you want to upgrade to the iphone4 or setup new service for an ipad. Sorry your old data plan is not compatible. Just like TMO was forcing all is us into the $30 data plan to get the HD2 at upgrade pricing. I paid outright for my HD2 to keep my grandfathered data. over the course of 2 years the cheaper data plan will cover what i paid extra to buy it outright, and then after that i start saving money. im also still contract free, since I've been off contract with TMO for something like 2 years now.
[HD2 General] sirphunkee:
Yeah, that's what I was thinking about, I just didn't know if he'd confirmed that the point they throttled him started at 10GB of use, or if he just assumed that was the point it happened based on what he had read about the cap.

I remember reading that the tmo terms state that going over the cap (which I thought was at 5-6GB) would result in throttling as opposed to a hard cutoff...but no extra charges unlike AT&T ;)

Even with fairly regular daily useage (casual surfing, mostly during my bus commute) I've never gone over 1.2GB in a month.
[HD2 General] dy2k:
I couldn't search on Tmobile's website about how much data I've used. But calculating I downloaded about 6 dvds 1.5GB+ each it should have sum to 10 gb. I couldn't use that much data on my cellphone alone of course ^^. I wanted to see for myself if there was really a 10 gb cap.

Speeds I am getting now are edge even when its on the 3g network.

They didn't warm me about getting to the 10 GB cap with messages only when i passed it. I don't see any charges for passing the 10GB cap either so we will see in a couple of days.
[HD2 General] sirphunkee:
Yeah come to think of it I can only see my data usage totals after a billing cycle has closed out, not in the middle of one...but I've never tried calling them up to ask either.

Well that's fabulous news then, if they really wait 'till 10GB before throttling you! Just one more reason I'm glad I ended up with Tmo when I left AT&T 2 1/2 years ago :D
[HD2 General] dy2k:
Tmobile Terms and Conditions - June 28,2008

It says a 5GB cap yet I've read they changed it to 10GB so its all good ^^
[HD2 General] sirphunkee:
Yup, that's the one I remember reading...here's the important passage for anybody who doesn't feel like digging through all the fine print:
[HD2 General] crisisinthecity:
Anyone even getting close to 10GB is obviously downloading lots of porn. Ha.
[HD2 General] d0ug:
Weird I can see my usage, and I have 2 billing days on my cycle, its been a light month for me, only 293mb used. maybe i should do something about that the next 2 days lol

To see this i am logged into my tmobile, click manage, then choose account use. shows minutes uses, txt messages, and data
[HD2 General] sirphunkee:
Thanks d0ug, I had gotten almost that far...I was just looking on the overview tab there (which doesn't show data totals), not the one for my individual line (I have a fam plan). I'd post what mine is now, but it's so rediculously low this month that I might get laughed right out of xda :p
[HD2 General] d0ug:
lol, i got my HD 2 about a week before the billing cycle reset, with my old MDA i was averaging about 30-60mb a month. mainly email. In about a week i racked up 1.1gb of usage when i got the HD2, the newness has kinda worn off now i guess, so its back down to a more reasonable level

I originally just had a single line, but before the tmobile @home service was discontinued I had another line added for @home. Nothing had to change with my plan as far as it being a family plan, so maybe that's why it looks different.
[HD2 General] adamhlj:
:eek: THEY'RE ONTO ME!!!
[HD2 General] heygrl:
This is why we can't have nice things. I'm on track to use like 3GB's this billing cycle, my highest usage yet.
[HD2 General] acessford101:
Not sure if there really is a cap...

Well, i use my phone as my cellular modem roughly 6 days a week 12 pluss hours a day. I use it manly for email back and forth with my office, im a field mgr for an a/c company here in florida. Each day, of 15 hours on the road i will usually spend 12 of it constantly connected with my laptop doing the following;

3-4 hours browsing the web, reading the news or some occational youtube or hulu.

6+ hours streaming music to the truck

Occational downloading of software, rom images for the hd2 or my nexus

Some movie downloads (backups of course)

I have also downloaded one blu-ray copy which was 22.5 gigs total and i still have no speed restriction.

It might be diffrent in certan places but most of all my downloading is in areas that have the hspda+ network and it might not be controlled as much since its not "currently" available in my area yet.:cool::cool::confused::cool::cool:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/844710192.png
[HD2 General] dy2k:
Lucky for you accessford101. Yeah I read some people don't get this 10GB cab. And also people whos had a contract with tmobile prior 2004 don't apply to the 10GB cab because back then there was only really slow internet and it wasn't possible to reach high data usage with it. Hmm well 2 bad for most of us and probably someone finds a way to bypass this cap ^^
[HD2 General] heygrl:
It depends. They JUST started throttling people for going over the 10GB limit that was put in place shortly after the G1 1GB data cap was removed. Business lines are unlimited.
[HD2 General] :
Wow...10gigs? That's ridiculously high lol...thats an entire .3gp...um...video site. :p

Sprint is 5gigs for 3G, AT&T's best now is 2gigs, Verizon is 5 I believe...and T-Mobile is 10...

Sweet.

~Jasecloud4
[HD2 General] acessford101:
Yeah, im not sure about how they actually do the cap. I had actually had tmo technical level 2 on the line the other day regarding my old g1 and some problems with being able to access the network, the network was sending the phone messages every 30 mins or so with texts as if it was the first time the sim card was being used, LOOOng story short it was a faulty sim card. But while on the phone i asked them what was my current data usage on my account and they said there was no way to monitor it.

As a side note, i had red somewhere earlier today that there have been a few people who have no problems with the data cap if they flash their phone with different roms, is it possible that there is something in the rom, or radio rom that identifies the phone with the network other than just the sim card? Some kind of data usage meeter within the os that uploads to tmobile? Just a thought:rolleyes:

Also i remember seeing my phone usuage, (total minutes) still be accurate even after i flashed the rom. I cannot conferm this right now as i disabled sense and cannot turn it back on!! I have no link through the start menu for accessing the settings and all im stuck with is the wonderful today screen. Im able to access the communicatins manager and all my programs but not the darn settings :mad:
[HD2 General] Thegovernor:
i just spoke w t-mobile the woman told me there is no 10gb cap...she also said that she tethers w/ her phone all the time... and there is no cap, so if she tethers w/ her phone and said there is no cap were golden...

just my experience
[HD2 General] d0ug:
Exactly what part of tampa are you in? Im in the townncountry/oldsmar area and ive yet to see 5mbit/s As far as i know HSPA+ isnt on in this area. Though ive noticed a bit of a speed up the last week or so, as i used to average around 800kbps, and ive almost pegged 2mbit/s a few times last week.

At the company I work for I have a tmobile rep stoping by next week to try and push their wares. were currently sprint/nextel at work and likely not going to change because the iden radio is too useful to us. Im definitely going to see what kind of info I can get about the HSPA+ roll out here in Tampa.

In this part of tampa I have to say the upload speeds are better, as most of the time i seem to be averaging about 1.5mbit both ways.

Edit:

hmm well i tried an experiment. I normally use the internet3.voicestream.net APN since i have the VPN data plan. I just changed my APN to epc.tmobile.com and just pulled 3.38mbit/s down and .64mbit/s up. so it seems the APN matters as far as speed. internet3 gives faster upstream and epc has faster downstream
[HD2 General] Thegovernor:
HSPA+ is only in NY, NJ, DC as far as i know

in boston we get...

3g

E

G
[HD2 General] d0ug:
tmobile has announced other areas than those on their official twtter page. I wonder if HSPA+ is turned on but not ready for announcement here in tampa, because up until last week i was very lucky to break 1mbit/s usually averaged 600/800 kbps and now im getting these speeds at a time of day that the network is likely pretty congested. I will have to try some tests tonight in the middle of the night.

even before the APN change i just made i was almost pegging 2mbit lastnight which was unheard of the week prior

I know where the tmo cell tower is near my house, think i might go park about 100yards from it tonight when i run the test and see what kind of speed i can pull
[HD2 General] d0ug:
**** yeah! Silly me didn't get the link to link to the image, but i did take a pic with the HD2. 4.13mbit down 1.10mbit up!
[HD2 General] acessford101:
speeddd

At my home in port richey fl, i get 1.5 down max, in tampa close to 275/i4 i get approx 3.0 down, the 5 download that i got was just south of SR54 on dale mabury. Remember, around there theres newer homes, upscale homes going up, probably more of an up coming market with deeper pockets and less chance of overwhelming the network in the start. I test my speed almost daily and i almost always clear my cash and internet history before just to be sure its a fresh download to me. the 5.5 was the fastest i have ever gotten yet. remember thats a test speed, small file, single source, and a server made to upload probably from a solid state drive or just from the ram to help eliminate any bottlenecks.:D:rolleyes::rolleyes:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/844710192.png
[HD2 General] heygrl:
T-Mobile has the burden of either getting fiber to the site if it doesn't have it already or just getting those nasty T1's out in favor of ethernet which will easily support HSPA+. So it will take time before they can say a city has HSPA+
[HD2 General] Thegovernor:
i used to live in tampa, kennedy and manhattan.....i was always at the doll house....lol
[HD2 General] Thegovernor:
also, my speet tests are lame...i think on my connection w tmob it was .45 down and i forget the up....but its still decent fast...
[HD2 General] d0ug:
lol its still there, never been though.
[HD2 General] d0ug:
Ethernet isnt going to work at a cell site, Ethernet can only be run 100meters max. Even using repeaters every 100meters about 500meters is the max.

Their only choices are going to be fiber, or maybe a business class connection on the local cable company. this would be for data only. I would be highly surprised if the voice traffic wasn't going over the existing voice providers network in the area, unless its all basically VOIP now.

Im dont work in the telecom industry, however im guessing even T1 lines havent been used at cell towers in awhile, each T1 can only carry 24 phone calls or 1.54mbit data. Im guessing the average cell site would need several T1's just to carry the voice traffic they get, and T1's aren't cheap.

Considering many cell towers have many providers probably easily providing a couple hundred voice lines equivalent service at each location, whom ever is the local phone monopoly in the area, probably has one of those mini remote central offices/ DSLAM or whatever they're called at each cell site, like those 5-6 foot tall 3-4ft wide white telephone equipment boxes you find near the entrances of many neighborhoods these days

Edit:

I guess DSLAM is the right term, this is what im talking about
[HD2 General] heygrl:
AT&T and T-Mobile is or has used T1's for 3G. Most of T-Mobiles 3G network is operating on 1 T1 line and that's why you can never get any higher than 1Mbps unless they complete the fiber-to-ethernet backhaul link at each 3G cell site giving them the bandwidth for 7.2HSPA and higher(HSPA+). In Jan. they did a network upgrade to 7.2 HSPA but it meant nothing because of the limited backhaul pipe most of the network is operating on.

I didn't say they are running mile long ethernet cables to each site, that's insanity.

T-Mobile leases fiber backhaul in Tampa from Brighthouse. All of the 3G towers in Tampa are probably already fed with fiber because of this. However with a Fiber-to-T1 setup like T-Mobile is running, it's a huge bottle neck.
[HD2 General] d0ug:
Yeah I could have seen it being Brighthouse or Verizon since those would really be the only people with fiber all over the entire Tampa metro area. Im sure there are quite a few other choices around the downtown area where there are some data centers in the buildings down there, and likely several backbone providers.

I find it hard to believe T1's were still being used even back in the EDGE days, I just dont see that even really providing all the voice and data capability that I imagine the average cell tower provides. unless it was multiple T1's They're not cheap though. we have a T1 at the office providing us with 12 lines of voice service and 512kbps upto 1.5mbps of backup internet connectivity depending on the number of voice lines in use. We have a brighthouse business class connection for our day to day internet access. That T1 costs us about $350 a month i think, been awhile since i looked at the bill though.

The T1 was brought in by TW Telecom to route around the mess that is the VZ analog voice lines in our area. As much as we would complain to VZ about the bad splice on the analog lines outside our office after they had sustained damage, they would barely fix them. They would be fixed for a few months till moisture got into the splice and we were back to the scratchy phone service again. Been problem free since we got the T1

One of tmobile's cell sites near where i live is or was getting its backhaul from verizon, it is a tmobile owned tower according to tmobiletowers.com. This tower sits directly next to a sidewalk that i walk often and you can clearly see everything in the fenced off yard, there are 2 sets of equipment with cables running up the tower, one set is most definitely tmobile's because tmobile is written on the equipment, I dont know who the other set of equipment belongs to, but in the far corner of that cell yard is a bunch of verizon equipment and when you look at it it is clearly marked that one side of the equipment is "customer access" basically like the telephone network interface outside your house where one portion is customer access and the other is locked off for VZ access only. When you see the direction the conduits run from that VZ equipment they looked to be running over to the tmobile equipment since they werent well burried and you could see the bend and the direction it was going
[HD2 General] heygrl:
It's just one for most of the network, confirmed by a T-Mobile network engineer that informed us on the HSPA+ upgrades and how it's done. Like I edited my post above to say, I'm sure that most if not all T-Mobile sites in Tampa have fiber running to them.

Are there any other carriers on that tower?

http://www.t-mobile.com/company/Pre...ackhaul Agreements for Six Major U.S. Markets

This is what regular T-Mobile 3G looks like with high traffic, which is why the upgrade to HSPA+ is sorely needed.
[HD2 General] d0ug:
Yes there does appear to be one other carrier at the tower, but like i said if u look closly at the bend of the conduit it looked to be running to the tmo equipment, doesnt look like the conduit was burried more than a few inches under the gravel.

You can see this particular tower here

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tampa,+fl&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=61.928102,107.138672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Tampa,+Hillsborough,+Florida&ll=28.019203,-82.611238&spn=0,0.004292&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=28.019146,-82.611151&panoid=J60ibUrqPPVHSFhgSB1wMg&cbp=12,264.22,,0,1.49

the tmo equipment is the row of equipment between the tower and sidewalk. The VZ equipment is directly across the yard from it against the other fence. The other equipment with wiring running up the tower didnt have any clear marking whom it belonged to. There are 2 sets of antenna on the tower

There is also verizon equipment outside of the cell site yard about 100ft or so away seen here. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tampa,+fl&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=61.928102,107.138672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Tampa,+Hillsborough,+Florida&t=h&layer=c&cbll=28.019451,-82.611625&panoid=FnBlfO4M6z1g6Nxc8d1XmQ&cbp=12,162.19,,0,7.73&ll=28.019337,-82.61145&spn=0,0.004292&z=19
[HD2 General] heygrl:
Well Verizon is on that tower as well.

I don't understand why T-Mobile would get their backhaul from a competitor especially when they've already contracted Bright House

http://www.t-mobiletowers.com/Tower...91256&mlng=-82.6111597&mz=17&tabid=0&mode=new

You can get the elevation & site plan from there
[HD2 General] d0ug:
Interesting, I dont remember tmobiletowers.com having the info of whom all was at a location before. It been awhile since I looked though. May take another look next time i walk past the tower. really only noticed 3 groupings of equipment there, tmo cell equipment, what i now know is VZ's cell equip, and that VZ network interface against the fence, theres also a propane backup power generator labeled tmobile. I actually saw this being delivered about 2 years ago, a flatbed 18wheeler with about a dozen tmobile labeled generators on it.

Makes sense with the threat of hurricanes around here, but if we got hit with a hurricane that cell site would likely be under water, its in a zone A maybe zone B flood zone

I found it interesting for how compact the enclosures are, someone's equipment in there is air conditioned, sounded like it was coming from the tmo equipment, but i could clearly make out the sound of a refrigeration compressor running
[HD2 General] Phantoms:
I see T-mobile is now offering par per use web. They sent a flyer with this months bill saying $1.99 per MB (yes MB).

As far as the regular web, I looked under my account from my phone and it says unlimited internet, not capped or 10GB internet.

I'm curious to those that say the cap is in place where they are, does it include T-mobile services such as MobiTV, etc.?
[HD2 General] dy2k:
i am in ny and i haven't heard of the pay per use data plan.But there is a 10gb cap here and i have mobitv
[HD2 General] sirphunkee:
The pay-per-use data plan is part of the new set of prepaid options tmo is rolling out to compete with cricket, boost, etc. It's available nationwide, and the per-MB option is one of the two choices they have for data.
[HD2 General] d0ug:
$1.99 per 1mb is insane! imagine how quickly you could suck even a $100 prepaid card to a 0 balance while on the 3g network! The same price per 100mb would be more reasonable to me. $1.99/100mb would be a little more in line with what ATT is charging per GB of overage on their new data plans. yeah its still double what they're charging, but prepaid services have always cost a bit more, but $1.99/1mb is insanity

I just did the math on it. for 1GB of data transfer, which ATT is charging $30 a month, or $10 for each GB over, would cost you $2037.76!!!!. I only use ATT in these examples because they're the only ones selling their data like that, for now anyways

but hey txt messages are still probably the most expensive method of data transfer on the planet. It would cost $1097 to break up 1mb into 140byte chunks and send it as txt messages at $0.15 a pop
[HD2 General] heygrl:
T-Mobile will add a data plan if your phone "spends" so much. So if your flip phone surfs the net for $10 dollars, you will now have the unlimited package added. Most Android phones can't even get online without Android data provisioning on your account so there is nothing to worry about there.
[HD2 General] d0ug:
Is that the case for prepaid as well? a $10 unlimited internet plan doesn't exist for prepaid users.

Prepaid with reasonable data rates would be great for use in GSM cell modules for remote monitoring stations. weather stations and other scientific uses. but up until now there was no way to get internet data on a prepaid SIM, These data rates though take away the cost savings of trying to use prepaid vs postpaid for something that may only send a mb or so of data a day

We actually use a tmobile prepaid SIM in an irrigation controller where I work. However it does not use GPRS/EDGE/3G data, it uses the old 9600bps CSD data. You wouldn't believe what I had to go though to get CSD enabled on that SIM because most reps hadn't a frigin clue what I was talking about.

CSD Data is basically a modem to modem phone call, so it just eats up the prepaid minutes on the SIM. a modem on the PC with the irrigation controller software calls up the prepaid number, and the CSD modem in the irrigation controller picks up the line and you get a wonderfully slow 9600 BITS per second connection. Was not my choice to use CSD, you can thank Hunter for that. It is also a wonderfully annoying controller that tends to lock up every couple months requiring someone to drive out and power cycle the irrigation controller.

brings back memories of the 1st cell phone I had with tmobile the samsung e105 that supported both CSD data and GPRS, back then CSD data seemed to be faster than GPRS, but it would eat up all your cell minutes to use it.
[HD2 General] heygrl:
Prepaid data is almost non-existant and it's just far too expensive. What I mentioned is for postpay.. prepaid data only works on a few select prepaid phones and it costs .99 an hour + you have to accept the charges through the phone first before you can be raped at roughly $1 an hour, so it's not nearly as cost effective for what you want to use it for. AT&T has GoPhone prepaid data, 100MB for $20 per 30 days. It's way better than what T-Mobile is trying to offer.
[HD2 General] RiffyDivine:
I don't know about you guys but yeah I do run wmTorrent on mine. So now I am glad to know this so I don't go nuts anymore.
[HD2 General] gejenn:
Im currently on a $19.99 unlimited plan,my contract ends this month,so if i upgrade to a new one will my data plan change to the CAP one?