Recently the FCC made an announcement that requires T-Mobile make throttling practices more clear. As of right now T-Mobile doesn’t have any overage charges like Verizon, AT&T or Sprint, but throttles users all the way down to 64/128Kbps for the remainder of the billing cycle if they hit their usage limit. Until now it was difficult for T-Mobile customers to know what the reduced speed looked like because T-Mobile exempted popular speedtest sites from getting throttled like traditional websites or video services like YouTube. With the next 60 days T-Mobile must do the following to make their throttling practices more visible to customers:
- Send customers a text message once they hit their monthly high-speed data allotment linking to a speed test that customers can use to determine their actual reduced speed;
- Provide a button on customer smartphones linking to a speed test that will show actual reduced speeds;
- Modify the text messages it currently sends to customers once they hit their monthly high-speed data allotment to make it clear that certain speed tests may show network speeds, rather than their reduced speed. The modified texts also will provide more information about the speeds that will be available after customers exceed their data cap; and
- Modify its website disclosures to better explain T-Mobile’s policies regarding speed test
- applications and where consumers can get accurate speed information.
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