T-Mobile restricting data speeds

[c-m]

I signed up with T-mobile on 7th July to take advantage of their "Truly Unlimited" offer.

 

This was a £25.54 per month contract for what was described in the terms and conditions as truly unlimited internet with no fair use policy.

 

Upon receiving my phone I discovered that my data speed was limited to 0.35Mbps. A quick internet search revealed that this was a common problem with T-mobile. I checked the terms and conditions of the contract to ensure that there was no talk of 3G only (i.e not HSDPA) or talk of speed restrictions. There wasn't.

 

I called T-mobile and told them about my problem, yet they maintain that all was fine with my account. Eventually after a week, 6 phone calls, two e-mails and 10 twitter messages, they turned on "Web n Walk+" immediately my data rate shot up to 1.8Mbps (T-mobile restrict W&W+ to 2Mbps)

 

I was happy with this as it meant the data rate was fast enough for everything I wanted to do with the phone. However a month later I was charged £5 for this service. I complained and got the charge removed and my line rental paid for that month as gesture of goodwill.

 

I then went on holiday and my return discovered that my data speed was limited to 0.04Mbps. I complained again, engaged in a 20+ message twitter conversation and emailed the executive office.

 

After which my speed increased to 0.9Mbps, I was told that there were mast problems in my area, hence why it was lower than it had been previously.

 

To test this I left my area and visited a T-mobile mast 20miles away, yet suffered the same speed. I again spoke with the executive office and submitted a raft of speed data evidence, in addition to evidence from other t-mobile users who were getting better speeds.

 

The executive office have no come back and basically said, my speed is restricted to 1Mbps unless I give up my 'unlimited' internet and accept a 500mb fair use policy, as well as pay £5 for a booster.

 

Obviously I refused. I believe that 'truly unlimited' was a mis-represented. It is not 'unlimited' as there is a limit on my speed. Also no other mobile operator caps data speed as far as i've found out, and finally, these speed caps are omitted from the terms.

 

I have written to them via e-mail and my e-mail have been past their legal team, so i'll wait for their reply, but it looks like this could be going further.

 

It seems the ASA agree with my that "truly unlimited" was mis-leading:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a343960/t-mobile-banned-from-making-truly-unlimited-internet-claim.html

 

[Tardvark]

interested in seeing how this goes

 

My contract with T-Mobile ended in September, stupidly instead of going with the The One Plan from Three, I decided to stick with T-Mobile since they were offering the "unlimited internet" So my new shiny phone arrives (HTC Sensation) and pretty much immediately I notice the internet feels much slower than before, previously I had 1gb data allowance and though I never ran speedtest my download speeds were around 700kb/s, now I'm capped at around 44kb/s

 

I read the details of the deal pretty well and nowhere did I see I would be capped.. Very frustrating, I can see the mast from my window too and get 1.2mb/s with my HSPA+ dongle and around 700kb/s with a standard dongle..

[watchinginvestigation2011]

If you can prove it which seems you can and it is not in terms and conditions, then you should ask for permanent resolution as they managed first time as in speed up with no fee to you for length of contract or a full cancellation of contract and refund of any monies paid so far.

 

Both of you should email watchdog

[locutus]

Here is T-Mobiles complaints code of practice. If you follow that, you should get some joy (or at least get through to someone who has more knowledge than some of the people on the phones!)

 

Let us know how they reply.

[c-m]

Well i've been in e-mail and telephone conversations with the executive office, so i'm not sure how that fits in with their complaints procedure, at all.

 

I have stated my case to them and it has been passed to their legal department.

 

I have asked for truly unlimited internet i.e no FUP, no speed restrictions etc.. or that they terminate my contract with no penalty fees.

 

My next step is a LBA, then court I think.

 

I believe my claim is strong, since in the t&c i signed up to, there was no mention of restricted speeds, or 3G (which is limited to 0.35Mbps). I was therefore right to believe that I would get full HSDPA speeds, as i would on any other network.

 

It's only in the 'fair use policy' they list 3G speeds. My plan has no 'fair use policy'

[watchinginvestigation2011]

Best of luck with it and please update as your issue could affect many others xx

[c-m]

Got the following reply:

 

After referring your email to our legal department, I can confirm that we do not claim that the speeds are unlimited.

 

The ?unlimited? term is used in regards to the volume rather than speed. It is impossible for us to offer ?unlimited speeds? given network capacity and also coverage issues.

 

In this instance there is no evidence supporting misrepresentation as the service you have offers unlimited usage.

 

Thank you again for your patience.

 

I think she missed the point. I want unrestricted speeds. i.e no artificial speed cap like I can get on all other networks.

 

I have now requested a CISAS reference number so that I might take this further.

[locutus]

Have you tried the SIM in a different handset or dongle AND a different T-Mobile SIM in your handset? Some hardware is not as good as another, so it would be good to eliminate that as a cause.

[c-m]

Yeah, i've tried it in a ZTE blade. Also i've been next to various masts around and out of my city. There's no difference.

 

The executive office told me that the 'Truly Unlimited' package is limited to 1Mbps. To get 2Mbps, i'd have to give up my 'no fair use policy' and pay an extra £5 a month. Thant's just not on.

 

The ASA have told T-mobile to pull their ads, as they fell short of 'Truly unlimited'. Since it was those (now banned ads) that induced me into the contract, I feel I have a case.

[locutus]

I agree. So are you thinking of asking CISAS to hold them to their "truly unlimited" or do you want them to end your minimum term and allow you to leave without penalty as they are not giving you what was promised?

 

Personally, I have little faith in CISAS. I question how "independent" they are when they are funded by the mobile industry. I also read some of their literature a while ago, and it seemed that they didn't side with the consumer very often. Now, CISAS is not binding to a court, but it would defiantly mentioned to the judge. If you want to take it to court, I'd personally prefer that step over CISAS. Just a little food for thought

[c-m]

I have offered T-mobile both options.

 

a) Remove my speed cap

 

Or

 

b) Set aside the contract. A misrepresentation would allow the remedy of rescission (in which case, i'd hand the phone back)

 

I don't want to go to CISAS particularly, but thought that the court might look unfavorably on me if i didn't go their first, and T-mobile's lawyers would certainly be asking the court why didn't I go to CISAS.

 

I agree with you, but i'm not sure I can argue in court that I CISAS are untrustworthy.

 

As this is a matter of contract law (and not a simple telecom dispute), I suppose I could argue that it is a matter for the courts and not CISAS.

 

It's tricky one.

[c-m]

Well, after receiving my reply, T-mobile made me an offer in full and final settlement.

 

I replied (without prejudice), but have now accepted their offer, and will not take my complaint any further.

 

Basically, they say they added a booster to my account, that this remain on the account for the duration of my contract at no extra charge. I am now able to get speeds of 4Mbps, and even saw 5Mbps in one my tests. Upload speeds are over 1Mbps, which is faster than both my home and office broadband connections.

 

I'm curious as to which booster they added though as regular web and walk+ is limited to 2Mbps.

[locutus]

Nice result.

[Tardvark]

Good to hear you got it sorted, I'm not sure I can be doing with getting the run around for weeks trying to get them to offer the same thing.

 

I've come across an issue with my phone that is caused by this cap btw

 

It's crippled my phone so badly in some situations it's ridiculous, say I'm downloading a large file from the marketplace once it starts downloading and I exit the market I can't get back in to cancel the download or do anything else which uses the internet, since the cap is so severe.. So I can no longer sync/back up apps etc with google, otherwise when I restore from a backup, on first boot when it syncs and starts downloading everything again, I can't get into the market to cancel anything, so I'm sat waiting for hours while it downloads several 50mb themes and other random crap. Only solution is for me to not use sync or uninstall everything I don't want to redownload then re-sync before flashing a new rom/restoring.. I wouldn't mind so much if they had capped it at around 100kb/s so it didn't hamper the basic functionality of the marketplace, I assume they've capped it so severely so people don't take advantage of the unlimited data by tethering and using it as their main connection but this is just a step to far imo.

[MaxxPower]

This could certainly do with more publication around the wider internet. I suspect many T-Mobile customers on this offer will be unaware of this.

 

Out of curiosity, how were you testing your speed? Were you using the speedtest website or app?

[Mo3_e]

I inquired today with T Mobile customer services about tethering. I would like to do this very infrequently whilst away from my regular wifi connection.*

 

I was told this is possible with the addition of a booster but would incur a monthly fee of £5.10.

 

I was ok with this until I inquired further and found out that this monthly fee did not include any extra data allowance and was simply a charge for the option to tether.*

 

This is exorbitant and excessive and furthermore unjustified.*

 

With every other booster they offer, the fee is justified with the addition of extra allowances and I find this fair and acceptable.*

 

However with the tethering booster there isn't any extra data allowance given.*

 

I would like to know how T mobile can justify charging a customer a reoccurring fee for tethering their existing data allowance.*

 

As I understand it, there is no cost to Tmobile when I tether my connection to a laptop. Whether I use the my data allowance on my phone or my laptop should be up to me because so long as I adhere to the fair usage policy, T mobile should not financially be disadvantaged in any way nor have their bandwidth strained anymore than normal.*

 

What I would judge to be fair is for T mobile to charge a one of connection fee to set up tethering and scrap the monthly fee, or if they insist on charging a monthly fee, to provide an added data allowance of say an extra 1gb per month.*

 

Otherwise this booster is simply a form of *extortion. I am being forced to pay an additional fee to use an allowance of data that forms a price plan that I already pay a monthly fee for. I shouldn't have to pay twice to use the same allowance.*This is wrong.*

 

This would be comparable to my home broadband provider charging me an additional monthly fee if I wanted to share my broadband connection with a device other than my main P.C.*

 

It's simply unacceptable and unjustified.*

 

Does anybody think there is ground here for a complaint to Ofcom?*

[c-m]

I used the speedtest.net app to test the speed. I can now get up to 6Mb downstream and just over 2Mb upstream.

 

To the last poster - That ASA forced T-mobile to remove their unlimited ads, stating that there misleading. With that in mind, you might be able to argue that it was the ad that led you into the contract. A misrepresentation is remedied by the act of rescission.

 

Of course, you could only claim this, it you are on an unlimited data contract, and signed up either online, or in store where the ads were present.

 

It does clearly state in the terms that tethering and video calling is excluded. I think mobile firms see these as ways to make an extra buck. 3 are doing the right thing by allowing tethering on their all you can eat plans.