T-Mobile Web n Walk

[Guest rickyburke]

Just read about the Web n Walk tariffs on the official T-Mobile site and it says in the small print that if you use the free internet service for downloading music, file sharing, streaming music or video, they will cut your service and give you a slower connection speed!

Whats that all about??????? i would have thought that the people that needed flat rate internet access were the exact same people that would want to download and stream music and videos.

Edited May 17, 2006 by rickyburke

[Guest tsutton]

First of all, it's not 'free', you're paying for it. ;)

I think what they are trying to do is to reduce the 'heavy downloader' so the service will be fair and available for everyone to use.

Sounds fair.

[Guest chucky.egg]

Yeah, bloody right

I dont want that lots pushing the price up for my "regular" surfing/emails etc

[Guest flodis79]

Yeah, bloody right

I dont want that lots pushing the price up for my "regular" surfing/emails etc

The prohibit the use of messaging over agile etc as well.... That takes

maximum a 100 kb per hour... That's not heavy usage and still they

dont allow it... If you are online without replying any instant messages

maybe you will use 10 kb per hour... ;)

[Guest Tech]

I can say this:

there is no way of checking what the user is transferring unless they "sniff" the packets - which is against the privacy of the user and law! Plus I dont think they would have many employees and time to sniff EVERY user....

Of course they want to cut down the heavy users... but they should have not said "unlimited" in the first place....

Edited May 19, 2006 by Tech

[Guest spacerace]

I can say this:

there is no way of checking what the user is transferring unless they "sniff" the packets - which is against the privacy of the user and law! Plus I dont think they would have many employees and time to sniff EVERY user....

Of course they want to cut down the heavy users... but they should have not said "unlimited" in the first place....

I believe they can look at packet shaping across the network, and filter accordingly. ISPs can do it on regular broadband connections so why not on mobile ones ?

I think the IM restriction is crazy, and smacks more of protecting voice revenue streams than bandwidth preservation...

[Guest kam_]

I believe they can look at packet shaping across the network, and filter accordingly. ISPs can do it on regular broadband connections so why not on mobile ones ?

I think the IM restriction is crazy, and smacks more of protecting voice revenue streams than bandwidth preservation...

I don't think they'll raise an eyebrow if you use MSN, yahoo etc for textual messaging. I think they put in the messaging restriction so avoid grey areas. I think they just go by usage per hour/day/monh, and heavy users probably get a closer look. I've used VoIP over GPRS for 10 mins at a time (actually for testing but anyway) and no one's said anything yet! I've also streamed resco radio for 30 minutes just to see what would happen - no complaints from them yet.

[Guest chucky.egg]

I've used VoIP over GPRS for 10 mins at a time ... I've also streamed resco radio for 30 minutes just to see what would happen - no complaints from them yet.

What were you expecting?

Some call-centre chap from India sitting there reading the data packets as they fly past saying "Hang on, that looks like VoIP to me!" ?

Low use of these things is unlikely to get noticed, but they have warned us all so you've got no grounds to complain if they cut you off.

[Guest spacerace]

What were you expecting?

Some call-centre chap from India sitting there reading the data packets as they fly past saying "Hang on, that looks like VoIP to me!" ?

Low use of these things is unlikely to get noticed, but they have warned us all so you've got no grounds to complain if they cut you off.

Exactly. Plenty of people will probably try it and probably get away with it to a small extent, but the bottom line is they have stated they don't want people to use it, and eventually people will get warnings and be cut off by using it too much. It's the fact that it's been barred as a concept that's annoying.

[Guest xda_gangsta]

Just read about the Web n Walk tariffs on the official T-Mobile site and it says in the small print that if you use the free internet service for downloading music, file sharing, streaming music or video, they will cut your service and give you a slower connection speed!

Whats that all about??????? i would have thought that the people that needed flat rate internet access were the exact same people that would want to download and stream music and videos.

as far as I know no carrier can actually distinguish how you are using your internet, they don't know if ur downloading etc. so dont worry

[Guest spacerace]

as far as I know no carrier can actually distinguish how you are using your internet, they don't know if ur downloading etc. so dont worry

what are you basing that on ? broadband and cable ISPs can certainly detect traffic types, why wouldn't mobile telco's be able to ? especially if they've put some sort of restriction in place - it would be foolish not to be able to enforce it in any way....

[Guest tsutton]

as far as I know no carrier can actually distinguish how you are using your internet, they don't know if ur downloading etc. so dont worry

My ISP, Plusnet breaks down the data on my download stats. It broke down into:

Web

Email

Broadband phonecalls

Gaming

Streaming

PlusNet FTP

Peer-to-peer

Usenet

FTP (non PlusNet)

Other

and it showed me the graph of how many data I used for each of them. If Plusnet can do it, so can everyone.

[Guest phunkynutz]

It is very simple for ANY ISP to analyse your traffic. Each type of traffic uses a different port (e.g. Web pages = Port 80, POP = Port 110). By analysing which ports your traffic is using an ISP can tell what you are using your connection for.

[Guest spacerace]

It is very simple for ANY ISP to analyse your traffic. Each type of traffic uses a different port (e.g. Web pages = Port 80, POP = Port 110). By analysing which ports your traffic is using an ISP can tell what you are using your connection for.

well they get a little more into it than just port monitoring. Skype hops onto port 80 for example to get through many firewalls, so ISPs actually map what data streams look like so they can spot VOIP traffic amongst web traffic for e.g.

As you say though - ISPs CAN determine traffic types pretty easily...

[Guest nevawlkalone]

It is very simple for ANY ISP to analyse your traffic. Each type of traffic uses a different port (e.g. Web pages = Port 80, POP = Port 110). By analysing which ports your traffic is using an ISP can tell what you are using your connection for.

And what your saying is the same port priciple is applied to mobile phone web surfing and MSN etc?