Boy oh boy have T-Mobile made an arse of themselves over this one. On Monday, they decided to unilaterally slash their customers data allowance down to just 500MB a month, a decision which some users were quick to point out was in breach of their contract.
Faced with a growing storm of outrage from their customers and growing interest from Ofcom and consumer rights groups, T-Mobile have now completely overturned their policy, instead only applying the data cap to new and upgrading customers only and not existing customers.
Here’s the official line from their website.
T-Mobile Statement:
“On Monday 10 January 2011 we announced that, in line with the rest of the industry, T-Mobile would be reducing its Fair Use Policy for data usage to 500MB a month for all mobile phone customers. Following a further review of our policy, these changes will now be introduced from 1 February, to new and upgrading customers only – not existing customers.There will be no change to the data packages for existing customers for the duration of their contract and we apologise for any confusion caused. The revision to the Fair Use Policy is designed to ensure an improved quality of service for all mobile internet users.”
Lysa Hardy, VP, T-Mobile UKInformation on new data policy:From 1 February 2011 new and upgrading customers will be given a monthly 500MB data allowance. There will be no charge for those customers exceeding that limit, and those who do will still be able to access important services such as email and web browsing, however file downloading and streaming services will be restricted. Customers will then have the option to increase their monthly Fair Use Policy to 1GB a month by purchasing a Mobile Broadband Booster. This will ensure an improved quality of service for all of our mobile internet users.
Gold star stupidity
As an exercise in how to piss off your loyal customers, we feel T-Mobile should be awarded a gold star for their truly calamitous efforts here. Well done chaps!
