I preordered the g1 and am excited to get it. If it is a flop I will be bummed out. I was a bit shocked to read about the throttling of the speed after 1gb is reached. I changed the service over the phone and it was explained as unlimited…No mention of a cap. I have been with T-Mobile for 6 years and will certainly ditch the G1 and t-Mobile if the bandwidth slowdown is an issue. I ordered this to get on the web while on the go..if I don’t get a good experience … see ya Google and t-Mobile..

Personally I can understand how Google would let them limit the bandwith; seems it would keep people off google search and can’t be good for PPC sales…

It’s all about “revenue streams”. The carriers in the US are not out to provide good service. The carriers subscribe to the 85% rule. The 85% rule says that you try to keep 85% of your subscribers moderately happy. The remaining 15% are too expensive to deal with. The carriers are also forced to look at profitability. If they can’t turn a profit in 1 year, they won’t be involved. The first year of the contract pays the bills, the 2nd year of the contract is where they profit. They aren’t here to make you happy. Verizon’s marketing team has locked down their handsets because they are convinced that people will subscribe to their $9.99 and 19.99 entertainment packages. They’re convinced that the subscribers will pay $2 each for ringtones. Verizon adds these services with a catchy VZ in front of it, and it’s almost pure profit. But who’s stupid enough to buy that crap long term? You saw how ESPN, Disney, and Amp’d Mobile did. They flopped. No one wants to pay $20 a month for “up-to-the-minute” anything. They want ringtones, but don’t want to pay for them. They don’t want to pay $.50 to send a picture to someone else. They want to bluetooth it to whomever is standing next to them. Verizon spends so much time lab-testing their sets so that no one can get away with anything that they’re slipping behind. I left them because I was tired of their inability to put out the newest WM handsets. Sprint was getting handsets out the door 6 months before Verizon. GSM handsets are nice, you just swap in a SIM because they aren’t locked down to specific networks.

I’m a T-Mobile subscriber and can get the phone for $179. I think it’s because my contract ran out. I would think the higher price for existing customers only applies to those mid-contract. Remember, if you’re mid-contract with another carrier and decide to change over to T-Mobile for the G-1, you’re still going have to pay the $200 early termination fee with your previous carrier. I’m not saying i like this policy, but I think the rationale is to prevent people from getting free/subsidized phones every three months… Am I wrong?

@Gordon

But the implication is that it is the amount you download (user issue) that affects the service rather than the number of users subscribed to the service (operator issue).

While you could argue fair use, scaring customers into not using their devices for fear of charges, throttling or termination is just a means to pile more users onto the network.

Just because it’s the norm in places doesn’t mean it’s right or acceptable and we consumers shouldn’t be silent on the issue. These arguments for caps are the same ones Telecoms companies used to justify metering calls and raking in huge profits as a result.

Well in Australia Optus is under pressure because they’ve put too many people on their 3G network, causing it to fail in parts of Sydney, our biggest city and the one with the most infrastructure. They had the best iphone deals at launch but now many users are having to turn off 3g to make and receive calls.

So it is in the interests of the isp’s to control usage so that the whole system doesn’t colapse under the weight of it’s users. Mind you it’s also their duty to provide an infrastructure that can handle the customers that they sign up to it.

All Australian ISP’s have “fair use” policies. So is isn’t just the US.

Gordon

Even on cellular networks I fail to see the need for a cap, a network’s reliability is determined by concurrent connections not the historical bandwidth usage. Phone operators and ISPs are just using bandwidth as a stick to scare people into limiting their general usage so that they can pile on more users within the same infrastructure.

We need to stop equating bandwidth to a limited, scarce resource. If everyone downloads a movie at the same time their speed decreases but you don’t ever see “oops sorry bandwidth run out, continue download tomorrow when we get our next bandwidth delivery in”. Capacity as in speed is what service should be paid for but as the operators can’t/won’t ensure that they choose the fictional “bandwidth limitations” as a means to charge their customers.

Grrr, I feel sick thinking about this every time.

T-Mobile was telling press folks after the event today that the $179 price was for all existing customers, no qualifications. They will have to back-pedal on this higher price biz pretty fast.

The Price $179 is clearly a marketing thing. But its not a lie. There are people who will get the handset at that prices but not everybody. Its just like when you see a big 70% OFF banner in a window in a mall somewhere. You know that not everything are marked down 70% off though there are some items that are really marked down as advertised.

But the unlimited data plan is clearly a LIE

Why? Because I expect that they actually expect that the meter will drive up bandwidth usage as people realize that they are way under their limit and start doing more of the activities that compete with their content offerings.

Instead I reckon they would rather keep you guessing as to how much you are using and keep you in fear of the dreaded letter.

It could be something like this with T-Mobile. However as an AT&T customer at least I can say it is relatively easy to go to the home page and look at your data usage during the current cycle.

One more thought on the data cap. If T-Mobile is going to enforce then they better provide an easy way for users to see how much data they have used each month so they know whether they are getting close to the limit. I might find the 5GB limit that their competitors are having on their 3G service acceptable, but a 1 GB limit is well south of that.

The surprise in the price comes from the fact that no other price was mentioned other than the $179 price. The right thing would be to clearly state that price was for new customers. I agree that historically carriers have always provided lower prices to new customers, with the idea of attracting them. I think they were being a bit deceptive by not making that clear in any of the press or marketing information distributed today.

Well, I think the cell carriers are starting to draw attention of the government. Wasn’t a senator raising questions about the increasing price of text messaging? I think the carriers are being stupid opening the door to government action. After all, they lost the battle with number portability.

I think the 1 GB cap may also be tied to the desire to not allow tethering. While the G1 won’t support tethering, since Android is based on open source code, most are expecting there will be work arounds. So if you get a hack to tether the G1 you will pretty quickly eat up that 1 GB limit and you will be thrown off 3G.

There does need to be some serious regulation to protect the consumer from ISPs and Cell/Mobile operators. We have no rights and there is little need for the operators to compete as they’ve been allowed to buy each other up and form huge anti-competitive companies (AGAIN!)

Plans should be clearly priced with the phone subsidy noted.

Bring your own phone to the network or complete your contract period then you should get the plan at the unsubsidised rate.

Unlimited should mean exactly that, no if, buts or maybes.

Licenses/franchises should be granted on the basis of providing a level of service that encourages competition and innovation. This would mean that there would have to be uncapped plans at a reasonable rate.

I can only hope that Google, having the cash and incentive, actually put some lobbying money towards getting this kind of thing put into law. I just don’t believe that people and companies aren’t more vocal on this issue.