Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
I don’t need to tell you that what T-Mobile US has done over the past three or so years has been nothing short of amazing. To have gone from what was basically a year of doing nothing while AT&T fought with regulators over an acquisition to striking fear in the hearts of all one tweet at a time has been awesome to watch.
A lot of this momentum has come from the carrier’s “Un-carrier” strategy, which CEO John Legere has used as the backbone of T-Mobile US’ attack on the market and has become the company’s mantra. Basically, it’s to do what the others are not doing. Sort of a punk rock thing, but without the mosh pit.
With this success has come some growing pains, as T-Mobile US has stomped its way past rival Sprint into the No. 3 spot on the domestic market stage. Sure, T-Mobile US remains about half the size of more traditional brands like AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, but punk rock was never meant to be for the masses.
A few months back, I used this column to question whether it was time for T-Mobile US to grow up as its runaway success had propelled the carrier from a distant No. 4 in the national market to a charging No. 3. No longer could the carrier be seen as something outside the mainstream when it had become one of the larger cogs of the machine.
However, as often happens, some success is just enough to take the edge off a punk attitude. That phenomenon seemed to rear its head this past week when Legere took to a blog post and Periscope social media channel (since removed) to basically yell at some kids to get off his lawn. The un-carrier calling out some un-customers.
(I have to say it’s a bit weird reading Legere’s blog post on the subject and not having the added enhancement of his more colorful language that appears to be reserved for audio and video clips. Not to go off on a tangent, but Legere’s public language skills have definitely evolved since he was named CEO at T-Mobile US.
I mean, nearly 5 minutes and not one f-bomb! Sure, his boss is sitting right there, but Legere didn’t even sneak in a “TV14” word.)
Where was I?
Legere specifically singled out a fraction of 1% of its customer base that were “hacking” the system to bypass T-Mobile US’ tethering limit on unlimited data plans to the tune of as much as 2 terabytes per month. Some might view these “hacks” as sort of a punk rock move by customers to get what they sort of signed up for: unlimited data.
You see, while T-Mobile US’ unlimited data service may be described as “unlimited,” in the funny way mobile operators market their services it’s more limited than unlimited. Now, 2 TB is a lot of data, though probably still a bit shy of unlimited, and from Legere’s comments it seems like a pretty small percentage of that already small percentage have consumed such an amount.
But, that’s where the fine print comes in. While customers on unlimited data plans can access as much data as they want from their smartphone, they can’t use that smartphone to access as much data as they want.
In the fine print, which Legere has indicated he is not a fan of, T-Mobile US notes that unlimited LTE customers who use more than 21 gigabytes of data in one monthly billing period from their smartphone will have their data usage “de-prioritized” to those customers staying below that threshold or others that stay below their bucketed threshold in areas of congestion. They still get unlimited, just not unlimited LTE.
And, for those who like to share that LTE data with some of their other devices, the carrier limits unlimited customers to 7 GB of tethered data access.
To those with deep knowledge of how mobile networks work, this all makes sense. For those customers too busy running around on old-man Legere’s front lawn, that knowledge level is in question.
The whole tethering issue has been a sore point for mobile operators for some time. On one side, people may feel that if they are signing up for an unlimited LTE data plan, they should have access to an unlimited amount of LTE data regardless of how they chose to use it.
Carriers, though, realize the marketing gold of “unlimited” as well as the gold required to support customers who start connecting all of their devices to their network using but one connection. Result? Wireless carriers like gold!
This week’s actions would seem to ding the un-carrier nature of T-Mobile US, at least publicly. Legere seemed to indicate that T-Mobile US knows who the un-customers are, so why not just go at them directly instead of taking the fight publicly? The move seems to be more of a warning to all customers to not get carried away with their data usage, and even perhaps might prevent some customers from using the full amount of data they purchased.
Don’t get me wrong: I love T-Mobile US and I love John Legere. They have provided a great story and provided plenty of content for stories we have written, so I have to honestly say I am on board with the circus. But, it’s a bit disheartening to see T-Mobile US’ shield of doing what’s right for consumers lose a bit of luster with this week’s actions.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. Here is a quick, but satisfying extra:
• Keeping on the T-Mobile US tip, while Legere began the week nearly acting his age, he ended the week acting more like the man this industry has come to love in taking to Twitter in order to mock a logo change by Verizon Communications. The change saw Verizon simplify the look of its name and rearrange the size and location of the check mark in its logo.
Nothing too dramatic, especially after watching Google make a similar change, but it was enough for Legere, who placed that check mark next to the ways he thinks Verizon is doing things wrong.
Some might think that the points highlighted by Legere could also be used to describe T-Mobile US, but that’s beside the point. The main point of the move is to show that T-Mobile US remains an entity not willing to let any chance for some social media criticism of rivals pass it by.
Though, I admit the two sides of T-Mobile US shown this week did remind me of the punk rock music scene in that those musicians who really embraced the mantra of punk would encourage and embrace the anarchy at their concerts, while those simply looking for a marketing hook would scream anarchy while being protected behind a line of security at the foot of the stage.
Not sure exactly where T-Mobile US falls on this line, but let’s hope it remains on the side of fans.
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