T-Mobile will throttle users exploiting tethering workarounds
Under the leadership of its always-entertaining CEO John Legere, T-Mobile has undercut its competitors, rebranded as an "Uncarrier," and generally painted itself as a champion of the people. Not so today. Legere has penned an open letter highlighting users that are getting around the company's tethering limits. Apparently, this "small group" of customers use "as much as two terabytes of data per month," and this makes John Legere very sad.
The issue stems from the company's "unlimited data" policies, which allow customers to download or stream whatever they like on their smartphones. When it comes to tethering, though, the plans are limited. Enterprising users have taken to using apps, rooting devices, and generally doing everything they can to hide the fact they're tethering, avoid the aforementioned limits, and "steal" data. Legere posits that, with 2TB per month, the users could be "stealing wireless access for their entire business, powering a small cloud service, providing broadband to a small city, mining for bitcoin -- but I really don't care!"
T-Mobile is gearing up to take action against the rogue tetherers, who apparently make up less than 0.01 percent of its total subscriber base. Legere's letter is a pretty transparent way to try and prevent negative headlines and articles about T-Mobile throttling data. By painting these users as thieves and hackers, it's clear he hopes to mitigate any damage the throttling policy will have on T-Mobile's "Uncarrier" reputation. The great throttling of 2015 will begin today, with "3,000 users who know exactly what they are doing" being the first to get hit.
"We started this wireless revolution to change the industry for good and to fight for consumers," Legere ends his open letter. "I won't let a few thieves ruin things for anyone else. We're going to lead from the front on this, just like we always do. Count on it!" Sounds to us like, as T-Mobile grows, it's running into the same problems that the likes of AT&T have been facing for decades.
