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Thread Number: 80625
/ Tag: Other Home Products or Autos
Question for you tech guys... |
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Post# 1045881 9/24/2019 at 18:54 (1,674 days old) by Ultramatic  (New York City) |
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While I am waiting for a new internet provider, I USB tethered my cell phone to my MAC. It worked reasonably well for the first few days. Then suddenly it because excruciatingly slow. Some pages don't load at all and video playback is unwatchable. Would anyone know what happened? This is what I am running:
Mac running Mojave 10.14.6
Phone: OnePlus 6T
App to allow USB tethering: HoRNDiIS
VPN: NordVPN
Service provider: T-Mobile Unlimited plan
I have tried switching to Mobil Hotspot, but no change. Turned off the VPN, nothing. The cell phone itself is working fine so they are not throttling me.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated. | ||
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Post# 1045884 , Reply# 1 9/24/2019 at 19:15 (1,674 days old) by thomasortega (El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciúncula) |
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You reached you data plan limit. The "unlimited" T-mobile internet is actually limited. They call it unlimited because you won't have the internet "completely suspended" after you reach the limit, however, the speed is reduced to ridiculously low/almost nothing. | ||
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Post# 1045886 , Reply# 2 9/24/2019 at 19:32 (1,674 days old) by LowEfficiency (Iowa) |
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 Yep. It's the "high speed" data that is limited, then it falls back to a slow data rate. If you've been streaming video content, it's quite likely that you burned through your high speed data allowance, and are now throttled for the rest of the month. Be thankful that you're on T-Mobile though. Other carriers would have either cut you off entirely, or charged you a huge amount per GB to continue sucking down the data, leaving you with quite a surprise when the bill came next month.... | ||
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Post# 1045888 , Reply# 3 9/24/2019 at 19:35 (1,674 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City) |
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Post# 1045890 , Reply# 4 9/24/2019 at 19:47 (1,674 days old) by Joe_in_philly (Philadelphia, PA, USA) |
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Post# 1045891 , Reply# 5 9/24/2019 at 19:51 (1,674 days old) by LowEfficiency (Iowa) |
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Post# 1045892 , Reply# 6 9/24/2019 at 20:03 (1,674 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City) |
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Post# 1045901 , Reply# 7 9/25/2019 at 03:04 (1,674 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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" But anyhow, if you are using what T-Mobile considers a “phone or tablet” the data cap is effectively still set at 28GB because after exceeding 26GB, speeds slow way down from throttling. T-Mobile doesn’t specify how slow it’s going to be after 26GB, but from my testing with previous T-Mobile data caps, it’s looking like less than 512kbps. "
www.groovypost.com/howto/... | ||
| Post# 1045913 , Reply# 8 9/25/2019 at 05:14 (1,674 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea)) | ||
less than 512kbps | ||
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Post# 1045945 , Reply# 9 9/25/2019 at 14:17 (1,673 days old) by kb0nes (Burnsville, MN) |
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I've been using T-Mobile since 2 carriers before they were named T-Mobile and I have been personally very pleased, I wouldn't consider another carrier at this point.
My plan has a 2gb monthly data cap, but as I have WiFi setup up most everywhere I spend any time I never come remotely close to being throttled. Several times over the past few months I have hit my limit as I didn't have WiFi setup at my mom's apartment and I was visiting frequently. When throttled the speed is set at about 128kbps. Hilarious that not too many years ago that would been about 4 times faster then my data rate at home! Install the Ookla Speed Test app on your phone and try it from the browser of your tethered device to check your performance. The cell provider does provide amazing bandwidth when at full speed, but I could NEVER live with cellular data as my only source. | ||
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Post# 1045960 , Reply# 10 9/25/2019 at 17:33 (1,673 days old) by MattL (Flushing, MI) |
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I too have T Mo and could not be happier. I'm on a family plan and if I stay under 2G/mo my bill is $20, over it goes to $25 for as much as I want. Hard to beat that deal. | ||
| Post# 1046048 , Reply# 12 9/26/2019 at 17:55 (1,672 days old) by whatsername (Denver, CO) | ||
I too have T-Mobile and am pretty happy with it. I can tether at no additional charge while AT&T used to charge me like crazy for this feature. I have a 6 GB plan where I can roll over up to 20 GB at a time, which I only ever dip into when I’m traveling. Finally many music and video streaming apps don’t count against your usage on T-Mobile so my actual usage stays pretty low! Switching from AT&T was night and day, I feel valued as a customer and like the company sees the importance of using innovation to set themselves apart.
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Post# 1046070 , Reply# 13 9/26/2019 at 20:00 (1,672 days old) by LowEfficiency (Iowa) |
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>> less than 512kbps >> Good gawd, your $xxxx phone working like a $xx dialup. Ah, marketing. That's 10x the speed of dial-up. It's not optimal, but that's plenty of data bandwidth to rebook a flight, read your messages, check the game scores, find directions to the nearest hospital, or countless other non-video tasks. And it's infinitely better than being cut off entirely. The unlimited low-speed data is phenomenal for international travel as well. | ||
| Post# 1046086 , Reply# 14 9/27/2019 at 05:31 (1,672 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea)) | ||
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That's 10x the speed of dial-up. | ||
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Post# 1046355 , Reply# 15 9/29/2019 at 23:52 (1,669 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City) |
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Et tu T-Mobile?
I have indeed been throttled back, but only while using Hotspot/tethering. It turns out I have two types of unlimited data plans. And guess what, the hotspot/tethering data cap is set to be much lower than the data cap on the phone. That interesting little detail was buried in the fine print. That explains the very slow speeds on the MAC and the normal performance on the phone. Sneaky a-holes.
But wait there's more! So fine, I agreed to upgrade my unlimited plan to a super-duper unlimited plan. And here is what they pulled. Because I am near my billing cycle, I will be charged the full amount of the upgrade for only 10 days of service. In other words, T-Mobile is ripping me off of 20 days payed service. Sound familiar? This is even more egregious than what Spectrum did.
It's a shame congress does very little to protect us from this corporate thievery. But we all know who's pocket they're in.
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Post# 1046417 , Reply# 16 9/30/2019 at 10:17 (1,668 days old) by LowEfficiency (Iowa) |
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Louis, I think your anger at Spectrum has clouded your view of your T-Mobile situation. I also think you may have had some misunderstandings of your plan, which have only come to light on this first time you've hit your limits.
First, T-Mobile aren't "Sneaky a-holes" for having two independent caps for tethering and phone high-speed data allowances. This is a *feature* that many people look for in a plan, as it gives you a degree of protection from service impacts from one usage spilling over into the other. For example, I used to tether my laptop to my phone when traveling for work. I had a few times where my tethering data usage would spike significantly - Windows downloading a big update, large project files synchronizing, etc., sometimes triggered by a network administrator without me ever being aware of it, or having the ability to stop it. But by having independent caps, I didn't have to worry about these kinds of situations causing any negative effects for my phone usage. At worst, the tethering side would slow down, but my normal phone usage would remain completely unaffected. That's a far better outcome than a single cap, with any overage taking down BOTH sides. Second, T-Mobile isn't ripping you off for 20 days of service. You might be thinking of your contract as an access plan, like cable TV or a gym membership - sign up for 30 days, get 30 days of access to use whenever and however you wish. But for cellular data usage, you're instead paying for a monthly allowance - a set amount of consumable data. In your case, you had already used up your full 30-day allowance in those 20 days, so there would be nothing left to prorate. Changing your plan gives you a new fresh allowance, so of course you would have to pay for that as well. It's sort of like going to a restaurant and ordering a cheeseburger, then after eating that burger entirely, deciding you were hungry enough that you should have bought a double instead. You could go back to the counter and order that double, but there would be no credit given for the single burger you already ate, nor for any portion of the larger burger you couldn't finish before leaving the restaurant. Overages like this used to cost people thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. I know you're upset, but those T-Mobile policies you're angry at probably worked in your favor this time. | ||
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Post# 1046431 , Reply# 17 9/30/2019 at 12:43 (1,668 days old) by Ultramatic (New York City) |
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It's not about Spectrum or even T-Mobile. One is charging you for services not received. The other is charging for a period to access a finite amount of data. If I am paying for 30 days of access, it's 30 days. I choose when and how much data I use within those 30 days. Don't charge me for 30 days and then try to tell me I only have 10 for access.
Nevertheless after a lengthy back and forth with T-Mobile, they agreed to prorate the bill after all by offering a credit. A shame they couldn't do that in the beginning. Would have saved so much time and frustration. This post was last edited 09/30/2019 at 13:42 | ||
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