T-Mobile: Buy a shiny new Android G1… just don’t use it much.

Here’s a great example of why you should always be sure to read the fine print. On the product page for the highly-anticipated new T-Mobile/Google phone, you will see (if you squint) this note at the bottom: “If your total data usage in any billing cycle is more than 1GB, your data throughput for the remainder of that cycle may be reduced to 50 kbps or less.”

So much for the “unlimited” access plan. Sure, you can still surf the web, download music, or watch YouTube videos as much as you want… but if you do it too much, they’ll cripple your phone so that for the rest of the month you have to do it really slowly.

I remember there was a lot of talk this year about AT&T limiting their “unlimited” data plan to 5GB per month. T-Mobile’s way of dealing with “excessive use” (and their definition of “excessive” is apparently five times smaller than AT&T’s definition) is to put on the brakes. I wonder if users prefer this, or if they’d rather just pay overage fees?

Of course, I guess the “excessive” users could just stick with the iPhone. No wonder T-Mobile put that bit in fine print.


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