T-Mobile unlimited data is not so unlimited

T-Mobile has announced its ‘unlimited plan’, an interesting option for heavy users of data plans on smartphones. The problem is, it’s not really unlimited:

The new T-Mobile One plan will come with unlimited mobile hotspot data, letting subscribers use their phone to connect a computer or other device to the network, but at 2G speeds. Speaking on the conference call this morning, T-Mobile executives said a premium option will be available with a higher-speed hotspot. Update: T-Mobile says the premium hotspot option will cost $15/month extra for 5GB of high-speed data.

Forget about ditching your current DSL/Fiber/Cable connection at home: the dream of paying just one data plan is just that, a dream. In Spain and other European countries unified (“convergent”) plans are quite popular, and they seem to be the way to go on the foreseeable future.

They make sense for the carriers and the users , who keep getting hungry about their mobile data needs. Nice bait for those carriers too, that nonetheless provide packages that at least in developed countries solve our needs easily.

 

Javier Pastor is a technology journalist that has been writing about tech since 1999. He started writing for PC Actual in Spain, the leading printed magazine in the country, and in 2006 started to write online. First as the Chief Editor for The Inquirer ES, and after that for MuyComputer until 2013. That year he became senior editor at Xataka, the leading tech news website in Spanish with over 5M uniques/month (Aug'15, comScore). Xataka is part of Weblogs SL, a blog network that gets over 40M uniques/month and that has a wide catalog of publications in Spanish. The Unshut is his new venture and allows him to express his opinions and thoughts on everything touched by technology, and follows what he has been doing at Incognitosis, his personal blog, since 2005.