Mobile is going after people that hack their phones to get unlimited

“It’s a small group – 1/100 of a percent of our 59 million customers – but some of them are using as much as 2 terabytes (2,000GB!) of data in a month”.

The unlimited data plan comes with 7GB of data for tethering and unlimited reduced-speed tethering after that, with the option to pay for more high-speed tethering data as needed. If customers find they need more hotspot data, they can purchase a larger plan through T-Mobile. Simple. As Legere states, a fixed amount of data is allocated to unlimited users in when they tether for those emergency situations, but with these apps, the amount of data consumed is hidden so essentially these users can tether as much as they want, sort of like finding a loophole in the system.

The people being targeted are using sneaky means to grab more tethered data, such as “downloading apps that hide their tether usage, rooting their phones, writing code to mask their activity”, Legere said. John Legere always says that he’s all about “removing customer pain points”, and now he’s doing it again by going after customers that are abusing the unlimited plan so that they can no longer “compromise the network experience” for other T-Mo customers.

T-Mobile prepaid and MetroPCS customers are not affected at this time. The company is now going after what it calls “network abusers”, which are T-Mobile users who are taking advantage of the company’s network and its unlimited 4G LTE data plan. T-Mobile hopes that they will “stop on their own so they can keep their current plan”, but, in case that does not happen, they will be moved to an “entry-level” limited data plan. John Legere is coming after you.

“We are going after every thief”, said Legere. In an FAQ outlining the carrier’s policy, T-Mobile said it now has technology that can detect these tethering-data abusers.

T-Mobile is gearing up to take action against the rogue tetherers, who apparently make up less than 0.01 percent of its total subscriber base. “Don’t be duped by their sideshow”, he said.

The company attempted to head off accusations that the company was engaging in throttling, or slowing down the speed at which data is delivered to customers.

“I’m not in this business to play data cop, but we started this wireless revolution to change the industry for good and to fight for consumers”, Legere concluded. “I won’t let a few thieves ruin things for anyone else”.