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T-Mobile Scraps Google Phone Usage Cap

Yesterday, as reporters, bloggers and analysts poured over the fine print underlying the new T-Mobile G1, it came to light that the carrier planned to impose a data handicap of one gigabyte per month -- which is to say, T-Mobile would make your phone cripplingly slow if your data usage exceeded 1 GB in a month. "This made zero sense," said Silicon Alley Insider's Peter Kafka, because a 1 GB cap immediately renders the G1 a "less useful" smartphone.

It's one thing to charge true bandwidth hogs extra, but it's quite another thing to impose tariffs on users for wanting to watch a few videos and download a few music albums in addition to checking their email and using mapping applications. This makes even less sense when you consider that the Google-powered G1 is trying to court the early adopter crowd, Kafka says.

However, shortly after coming under heavy fire in the media, T-Mobile relented on the usage cap. From the company's statement: "We removed the 1GB soft limit from our policy statement, and...The specific terms for our new data plans are still being reviewed and once they are final we will be certain to share this broadly with current customers and potential new customers." Kafka surmises that the carrier, having learned its lesson, will now leave everyone but the most over the top bandwidth hogs alone.

Read the whole story at Silicon Alley Insider »

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