T-Mobile imposes swingeing cuts on fair use data limits

The full text that was sent apparently:

Changes to Mobile Internet fair use policies

T-Mobile is the only operator to give customers the Mobile Internet for a fixed-price. We never charge our customer’s more than they expect for their Mobile Internet in the UK.

Therefore you’ll never need to worry about how many emails you’ve sent, how long you’ve been on-line or the ‘data / GB’s’

Browsing means looking at websites and checking email, but not watching videos, downloading files or playing games. We’ve got a fair use policy but ours means that you’ll always be able to browse the internet, it’s only when you go over the fair use amount that you won’t be able to download, stream and watch video clips.

So Whats Changing? – From 1st February 2011 we will be aligning our fair use policies so our mobile internet service will have fair use of 500MB.

What Does This Mean? – We’ll always let you email and browse the internet and you’ll never pay more than you agree to. We do have a fair use policy but ours is there to make sure we deliver the best service possible to all our customers. This means that you’ll always be able to browse the internet.

So remember our Mobile Broadband and internet on your phone service is best used for browsing which means looking at your favorite websites like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, BBC News and more, checking your email and looking for information, but not watching videos or downloading files.

If you want to download, stream and watch video clips, save that stuff for your home broadband.

I've not had the text either and I'm on a 2 year Unlimited Business Plan.
Unlimited calls, texts and internet.

A quick search on Google found this story here ....

The company announced the change today to its customers, allowing them to move away from the network if they decide that the change in terms and conditions is less than advantageous - and from the response so far on social networking services such as Twitter, it looks like the company might be shedding a few customers over the reduction in allowance.

So it appears that they are allowing disgruntled customers the option to terminate their contracts??

Really a piss take all these companies being allowed to advertise "unlimited" data usage, wtf do we have the office of fair trading for, trading standards etc etc again laws for the people and different laws for big business. Not to much to ask for them to stop these companies using misleading advertising and small print sly contract wording to screw people even more.

You have the government blowing their own trumpets about advancing broadband and technology, mobile and games consoles pushing more and more online services like film and games downloads amounting to huge data usage while ISP's and mobile companies are allowed to impose restrictions which make normal usage of this impossible while being allowed to advertise Unlimited data usage.

Cunts the lot of them, come the revolution they are on the list.

Unlimited 1
Definition: Not limited; having no bounds; boundless; as, an unlimited expanse of ocean.

Unlimited 2
Definition: Undefined; indefinite; not bounded by proper exceptions; as, unlimited terms.

Unlimited 3
Definition: Unconfined; not restrained; unrestricted.

unlimited 4
Definition: that cannot be entirely consumed or used up; "an inexhaustible supply of coal"

unlimited 5
Definition: having no limits in range or scope; "to start with a theory of unlimited freedom is to end up with unlimited despotism"- Philip Rahv; "the limitless reaches of outer space"

Not a bad way for T-Mobile to sing in the new year. Was thinking of switching to them recently from 02. Looks like Orange it is then!

Not a bad way for T-Mobile to sing in the new year. Was thinking of switching to them recently from 02. Looks like Orange it is then!

you do know orange merged with t mobile a while ago

not got the txt yet but i'm pretty sure my limit is 1gig anyway
is this affecting all customers or just those with 3gig limit ?

has anyone tried to cancel?? thinking of giving it a go tonight when i get home.....

I'm a bit concered about this, having just moved to them in November....but there some unsurity as to if it will effect me as I have an "unlimited internet" booster bolt-on on my account, and I have also not had any notification. From looking at a few forums, it seems that people with this booster arent getting any notification, so maybe, touch wood, I will escape.
I have just checked my usage, and from 17th December, my unbilled data usage is 471Mb so far, with 6 days or so to go.

I'm a bit concered about this, having just moved to them in November....but there some unsurity as to if it will effect me as I have an "unlimited internet" booster bolt-on on my account, and I have also not had any notification. From looking at a few forums, it seems that people with this booster arent getting any notification, so maybe, touch wood, I will escape.
I have just checked my usage, and from 17th December, my unbilled data usage is 471Mb so far, with 6 days or so to go.

Hope that's right, I've also got the booster

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

I think the fair use also affects the booster. I read earlier on a post that they are not cancelling customer contacts over this, (think it was a which report, I had a link on facebook). They are going to update tomorrow after hearing back from t-mobile.

seems to many complaints to t-mobile they decide not to bother....

....

T-Mobile performs U-turn on data cap cut

T-Mobile has backtracked on its decision to drastically cut the mobile data use allowances for existing as well as new smartphone customers, following an explosion of public anger at the move.

On Wednesday, the operator said it will now only offer the reduced levels of data to new and upgrading customers, while existing customers will get the 1-3GB they signed up for until their contracts run out.

The U-turn, announced on Wednesday afternoon, came shortly after the consumer group Which? said its legal team were of the opinion that T-Mobile was breaking its own terms and conditions .... by announcing the 'fair use' cap cut less than a month after it will come into force on 1 February. The cut .... which will mean an 83 percent reduction in the amount of data an Android user is supposed to use each month — from 3GB to 500MB — was only announced over the weekend ....

"Which?'s legal team says that by failing to give customers 30 days' notice of such significant changes, T-Mobile is likely to be in breach of its own terms and conditions," Which? said in a blog post .... on Tuesday. "If T-Mobile insists on applying the new fair usage caps to existing customers, we believe it should postpone their implementation until all its customers have had 30 days written notice of the changes and thus ample opportunity to protest."

In a statement .... posted on T-Mobile's customer support site on Wednesday, T-Mobile vice president Lysa Hardy said that existing customers would not be affected after all.

"Following a further review of our policy, these changes will now be introduced from 1 February, to new and upgrading customers only — not existing customers," Hardy wrote. "There will be no change to the data packages for existing customers for the duration of their contract and we apologise for any confusion caused."

T-Mobile does not charge its customers extra for exceeding the fair use limit, but it does throttle the speed of their mobile broadband connections between 4pm and midnight each day for the remainder of the month, once that level has been passed.

Thats brilliant news....respect to T-Mobile for listening to their customers.

Cool.. I spoke to them this morning before the u-turn and they said surfing is fine and if you go over with that sort of usage they wouldn't act but she as much as admitted they are trying to target people who stream.. WTF!! isn't that what a smartphone is supposed to be able to do?
Anyway I signed up about 3 weeks ago so it looks like I am OK if I sit tight.. Orange impose a 500 meg fair usage anyway so it's Hobson's choice..

Alright, folks -- if you've already got a T-Mobile UK account in your back pocket, you can breathe a sigh of relief, because that ugly new data cap doesn't apply to you. It took the operator just a day to realize that putting a hazy "fair use" restriction of just 500MB per month on existing accounts wasn't going over too well with its customer base, so they've conducted a "further review" and decided that they'll instead only be applying the rule to new and upgrading customers as of February 1 only.

....

We wouldn't call this an outright win by any stretch -- the policy is still enormously restrictive, vague, and a pretty clear-cut disadvantage of the competition-reducing Everything Everywhere hookup, and it looks like they'll still end up tagging you as soon as you try to upgrade your plan or your hardware anyway... but we'll take whatever reprieve we can get.

Source ....

Thats brilliant news....respect to T-Mobile for listening to their customers.
no more like whichs? law team.

Surely they're still going to suffer in the long run? I know for a fact I wouldn't get a contract with a phone provider that was offering 500mb a month data allowance.

morale to go with this story, dont go with T-Mobile, im guessing the T stands for 'Twats'