Not a happy bunny?
T-Mobile has annoyed many of its customers by quietly announcing it will cap data usage at 500MB/month and has now defended its move on the basis that it will affect a ‘minority' of consumers.
HEXUS has received clarification from T-Mobile on a couple of points. Firstly, that current customers WILL be affected by the new cap and secondly that the cap will apply to customers irrespective of whether their contract gave them 1GB or 3GB/month of data before- that's an 80 percent cut for some customers.
The 500MB data cap will kick in from 1 February and T-Mobile has started to tell its customers about the changes to its Fair Usage Policies.
A T-Mobile spokesperson said: "These restrictions will affect both new and existing customers, and will ensure an improved quality of service for all of our mobile internet users."
The company tried to defend its move and said: "As the average mobile internet customer uses only 200MB of data each month, this will only affect a small minority of users, whom we have begun notifying."
T-Mobile's spokesperson said that the company will not charge customers extra for exceeding the data limit and people who do will still be able to access email and web but won't be able to download anything.
However, it seems that high-use customers who do a lot of downloading will lose out under the cap. T-Mobile said: "Customers who have a need for higher volumes of data will be encouraged to take up a separate mobile broadband plan.
"We are confident that these changes will result in a better experience for all of our customers who use internet on their phone," the spokesperson added.
HEXUS also asked the T-Mobile why it has taken the unpopular decision to cap data when Everything Everywhere is promoting how much better things are for customers since Orange and T-Mobile joined up...but there is no news yet.
T-Mobile customers on various forums have been mulling over whether they can escape from their current contracts because of the changes and threats to contact Ofcom are common.
Ofcom told The Register that it is ‘examining' the situation. Note- not ‘investigating'.
It is expected that T-Mobile will issue advice about contracts in due course but probable that ‘material detriment' arguments will play a part in customer negotiations, with many people speculating that heavy users will possibly be the only consumers able to quit their contracts early because of the data cap changes.
