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While everyone knows that all wireless carriers are universally terrible, I've actually had a fairly noneventful (read: good) experience with T-Mobile over the

While everyone knows that all wireless carriers are universally terrible, I've actually had a fairly noneventful (read: good) experience with T-Mobile over the last decade. I've never observed evidence of traffic shaping or any other shady business (like capturing NXDOMAIN DNS responses and directing you to a sponsored search page). I've also never observed significant performance degradation from congestion-based prioritization after exceeding the alloted 50 GB or whatever of monthly "normal-priority" data usage.

jlund-molfese 4y ago
I have too, mostly… But apart from all the data breaches, I was also able to verify T-Mobile doing this (arbitrary blocking of texts containing innocuous URLs) on my plan. Although they seem to have fixed it now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29744347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29744347
canes123456 4y ago
Many of their plans downscale video, or at least they used to
- artogahr 4y ago
  This is interesting, I don't see how this is possible from a technical sense
  - dylan604 4y ago
    If it is an HLS or DASH type of video stream, they could just query the playlist for a smaller video size and throttle that connection so that you're only served the smaller encode vs the full frame highest quality. Pretty simple thing to do really
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Identify (by IP or traffic shape) video traffic, then throttle the stream to the desired bitrate. The viewer's player will usually silently adapt.
  - ikiris 4y ago
    its trivial with a simple rate limit.
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    Netflix should have it own set of AS. And after that it's quite simple, routers can do throttle for decades.
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
  On my older plan, they downscale video from some providers to 720, but don’t include that video in my data count. I can opt out, but then any streaming goes against my high speed data limit. I think it’s actually a pretty fair trade off.
- lopkeny12ko 4y ago
  I've never experienced this. How would this even work for encrypted (HTTPS) streams? Even if this were technically feasible, it sounds like a massive infrastructure investment with little to no value. T-Mobile would need to have enough compute and network horsepower to DPI all outbound traffic, intercept every video stream, detect if it's over some resolution threshold, and re-encode it at a lower resolution or bit rate, all in real time.
  - sodality2 4y ago
    Throttle video CDN ISP/ASN's
  - dghlsakjg 4y ago
    It is in collaboration with certain video providers. YouTube over mobile for me is downscaled to 720p. In exchange, that doesn’t get counted in my high speed allotment of data. I can opt out, but then my data can get deprioritized over a certain threshold.
  - kalleboo 4y ago
    "Downscale" is not quite the right term to use, they just throttle the video CDNs so the streaming platform chooses a lower bandwidth version
survirtual 4y ago
Yeah, except they leak customer data regularly and have offshored tons of customer service to India -- including onboarding. When I tried to sign up, they didn't know what an esim was and wanted my SSN, along with other data that could easily be used to steal my identity. I don't want to spend my days arguing with people, definitely not about the existence of esim; but I did that day. It went all the way up their customer service management chain. T-Mobile is also completely hit or miss with service. If you are in a location where it works, fine. Good luck if you travel. If you can tolerate T-Mobile, Google Fi is better in almost every way security wise -- and I am very anti-google services these days. It uses the T-Mobile network. As for me? ATT has provided the best service of any carrier while traveling, so I will use them. When I need security, I flip on my VPN.
- hypothesis 4y ago
  > If you can tolerate T-Mobile, Google Fi is better in almost every way security wise -- and I am very anti-google services these days. It uses the T-Mobile network. Be careful there, because T-Mobile rot spreads to any downstream MNVO. Sim-jacking is still possible and data breach is happening above Google Fi level. There were articles about that IIRC.
- quanticle 4y ago
  ATT has provided the best service of any carrier while traveling, so I will use them. Really? My experience with AT&T while traveling has been pretty awful. In the US, in rural areas, Verizon is better. And outside the US, Google Fi gives you international data roaming as part of the base package. One of the reasons I switched to Google Fi is because it's so much better when traveling.
  - jen20 4y ago
    I used Google Fi for a while, and while I'd love to use them as a primary carrier again, I can't until they choose to support add-on SIMs for watches. As a Google Fi and YoutubeTV customer, I cannot wait until I no longer have to give AT&T any money at all.
overstay8930 4y ago
T-Mobile objectively has the best network if you have good reception. They locally peer, you're getting your own IPv6 address, and their interconnections are excellent (except with AT&T as AT&T refuses to peer and they use Zayo which will take you across the US). AT&T by far has the worst network, even if you have great service. They NAT millions of devices behind a single /64 network, you're usually routed to IXs very far away from you, and they do the most packet manipulation out of all the carriers. Verizon is better, but they can do some wacky stuff if you aren't in New England or California.
Spooky23 4y ago
It’s more due to incompetence than any magnanimity. T-Mobile has a pretty shitty network, with way more local outages and general fuckupitude than the other carriers. Their focus is speed and density. The other two have much more advanced network management, which as a customer is both good and bad.

jlund-molfese 4y ago

I have too, mostly… But apart from all the data breaches, I was also able to verify T-Mobile doing this (arbitrary blocking of texts containing innocuous URLs) on my plan. Although they seem to have fixed it now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29744347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29744347

canes123456 4y ago

Many of their plans downscale video, or at least they used to

artogahr 4y ago
This is interesting, I don't see how this is possible from a technical sense
- dylan604 4y ago
  If it is an HLS or DASH type of video stream, they could just query the playlist for a smaller video size and throttle that connection so that you're only served the smaller encode vs the full frame highest quality. Pretty simple thing to do really
- pjc50 4y ago
  Identify (by IP or traffic shape) video traffic, then throttle the stream to the desired bitrate. The viewer's player will usually silently adapt.
- ikiris 4y ago
  its trivial with a simple rate limit.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  Netflix should have it own set of AS. And after that it's quite simple, routers can do throttle for decades.
dghlsakjg 4y ago
On my older plan, they downscale video from some providers to 720, but don’t include that video in my data count. I can opt out, but then any streaming goes against my high speed data limit. I think it’s actually a pretty fair trade off.
lopkeny12ko 4y ago
I've never experienced this. How would this even work for encrypted (HTTPS) streams? Even if this were technically feasible, it sounds like a massive infrastructure investment with little to no value. T-Mobile would need to have enough compute and network horsepower to DPI all outbound traffic, intercept every video stream, detect if it's over some resolution threshold, and re-encode it at a lower resolution or bit rate, all in real time.
- sodality2 4y ago
  Throttle video CDN ISP/ASN's
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
  It is in collaboration with certain video providers. YouTube over mobile for me is downscaled to 720p. In exchange, that doesn’t get counted in my high speed allotment of data. I can opt out, but then my data can get deprioritized over a certain threshold.
- kalleboo 4y ago
  "Downscale" is not quite the right term to use, they just throttle the video CDNs so the streaming platform chooses a lower bandwidth version

survirtual 4y ago

Yeah, except they leak customer data regularly and have offshored tons of customer service to India -- including onboarding. When I tried to sign up, they didn't know what an esim was and wanted my SSN, along with other data that could easily be used to steal my identity. I don't want to spend my days arguing with people, definitely not about the existence of esim; but I did that day. It went all the way up their customer service management chain. T-Mobile is also completely hit or miss with service. If you are in a location where it works, fine. Good luck if you travel. If you can tolerate T-Mobile, Google Fi is better in almost every way security wise -- and I am very anti-google services these days. It uses the T-Mobile network. As for me? ATT has provided the best service of any carrier while traveling, so I will use them. When I need security, I flip on my VPN.

hypothesis 4y ago
> If you can tolerate T-Mobile, Google Fi is better in almost every way security wise -- and I am very anti-google services these days. It uses the T-Mobile network. Be careful there, because T-Mobile rot spreads to any downstream MNVO. Sim-jacking is still possible and data breach is happening above Google Fi level. There were articles about that IIRC.
quanticle 4y ago
ATT has provided the best service of any carrier while traveling, so I will use them. Really? My experience with AT&T while traveling has been pretty awful. In the US, in rural areas, Verizon is better. And outside the US, Google Fi gives you international data roaming as part of the base package. One of the reasons I switched to Google Fi is because it's so much better when traveling.
- jen20 4y ago
  I used Google Fi for a while, and while I'd love to use them as a primary carrier again, I can't until they choose to support add-on SIMs for watches. As a Google Fi and YoutubeTV customer, I cannot wait until I no longer have to give AT&T any money at all.

overstay8930 4y ago

T-Mobile objectively has the best network if you have good reception. They locally peer, you're getting your own IPv6 address, and their interconnections are excellent (except with AT&T as AT&T refuses to peer and they use Zayo which will take you across the US). AT&T by far has the worst network, even if you have great service. They NAT millions of devices behind a single /64 network, you're usually routed to IXs very far away from you, and they do the most packet manipulation out of all the carriers. Verizon is better, but they can do some wacky stuff if you aren't in New England or California.

Spooky23 4y ago

It’s more due to incompetence than any magnanimity. T-Mobile has a pretty shitty network, with way more local outages and general fuckupitude than the other carriers. Their focus is speed and density. The other two have much more advanced network management, which as a customer is both good and bad.