Question

Tmobile home internet bleeding data?

  • 26 September 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 131 views

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since after 9 months of being on waiting list unlimited TMobile internet is still not available, they convinced me to try the 100 GB a month plan. Anyone else finding they are being lied to about the data being used?? It said I went through 100 GB in under a week and I was only watching shows on Netflix and Crunchyroll, only 1 device connected, no additional downloads... and according to T-Mobile texts from the time it texted me I was at 95% to the time it texted me I used 100% data was only 20 minutes.. there is no way I watched 5 gigs worth of movie/show in 20 minutes, even HD 4k takes about 1 hours per GB used... and then I go to the data usage section on T-Mobile it says I used all 100 GB, but further down the page it shows only 96 GB was used.. and now that I'm using low speed, it's even slower then low speed tethering from my phone.. (TMobile internet low speed is 2G .. TMobile phone tethering low speed is 3G ... 3 G you can still watch Netflix and amazon video, 2G you can't even get passed the log in page)


5 replies

Userlevel 4
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I’m a fairly moderate (certainly not heavy) user, and I can easily blow thru way more than 100 gig in a week.  I was on the 200 gig Internet Lite plan, and it was a real challenge to stay within that limit.  Basically, I would watch OTA as much as I could, and when using YouTube TV, I would set resolution to 480p.  You have less control over Netflix, so I would us that only very sparingly. 

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But I haven't changed my usage habits.. for a while I would pay for 20 GB of high speed tethering through my phone and would use that up in around a week watching Crunchyroll, yet using T-Mobile internet I use 10 GB up in about 3 hours .. so somewhere it's bleeding my internet usage at a rate of at least 3x higher then it should be 

Userlevel 3
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@ChefZiggy, have you tried checking your TMO account?  https://www.t-mobile.com/usage/details

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@ChefZiggy, have you tried checking your TMO account?  https://www.t-mobile.com/usage/details

Yes I did and even that wasn't accurate, it said I had used 100 GB, but in the data usage section it showed only 96 used at the time.. (and this was me checking 4 days after it said I reached my 100 GB limit...) but 4K HD movies and shows only use up about 1 GB an hour of data, but if TMobile has me burning through 5 GB + in under an hour, with only the one device connected and no other downloads happening, there is something very wrong going on.. 

Userlevel 4
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I cannot explain why your phone usage is so low compared to TMHI for similar viewing habits, unless your phone is passing video data at 480p rather than Hi Def (that’s the way my AT&T phone plan works). 

For data usage reference, here are the approximate data requirements for various YouTube TV resolutions: 480p: 560 MB/hr, 720p@60Hz: 1.9 GB/hr, 1080p@60Hz: 3 GB/hr, 4K: 16 GB/hr. 

So it seems to me that watching standard HiDef (1080p@60Hz) is not that far from what you're experiencing, and if you are watching 4K  you would be way higher.

Back when I was under the Internet Lite plan (200 gig), I was pretty careful about watching my data usage and came to the conclusion that the YouTube TV bitrate requirements shown above were pretty accurate.  Also, I have another home where I have AT&T fiber and when I travel there my usage habits are pretty much the same, and my data usage reported by AT&T is on-par with what TM reports.

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