T-Mobile’s original plan to cap data usage on the G1 Android phone has been scrapped. There no longer will be a 1 GB data cap, but there’s no telling if T-Mobile won’t impose some other ‘sanction’ on data users.

The statement that T-Mobile sent out Wednesday (according to CNet) announced the cap removal. Earlier, the carrier had hidden the cap in the fine print, saying "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.” It didn’t take long for more meticulous readers, who probably were killing time waiting for the G1 to notice the stipulation.

1 GB seems a rather paltry sum, especially when there are carriers who offer all-you-can-eat plans. Perhaps it was a means of protecting the networks from getting clogged, but really, T-Mobile, scaring away your potential customers isn’t going to help you win over iPhone users.

The full statement (as seen on CNet):

"Our goal, when the T-Mobile G1 becomes available in October, is to provide affordable, high-speed data service allowing customers to experience the full data capabilities of the device and our 3G network. At the same time, we have a responsibility to provide the best network experience for all of our customers so we reserve the right to temporarily reduce data throughput for a small fraction of our customers who have excessive or disproportionate usage that interferes with our network performance or our ability to provide quality service to all of our customers.

We removed the 1GB soft limit from our policy statement, and we are confident that T-Mobile G1 customers will enjoy the high speed of data access over our 3G network. The specific terms for our new data plans are still being reviewed and once they are final we will be certain to share this broadly with current customers and potential new customers."

Though the 1GB soft limit is gone, T-Mobile likely will put some other cap in place. What cap would be acceptable for users? 5GB? For mobile data usage, that might be a reasonable cap as not all 3G users would be likely to use the service to replace their broadband any time soon. 

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 10:52 pm under Cell phones.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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