John Legere, the dynamic CEO of T-Mobile, expressed his desire to eliminate customers that steal data from the carrier through an open letter that was published on the official website of the Un-carrier.
Legere wrote that, beginning Aug. 31, T-Mobile will be targeting the about 3,000 users that are knowingly stealing more than their share of LTE tethered data.
Customers that sign up for T-Mobile unlimited 4G LTE data plan receive a fixed amount of data that they can use for tethering at no extra charge, for instances when broadband Internet access is not available or inconvenient. Once customers reach the limit for tethering data, the speeds slow down, and if the customer would need more data, they can purchase add-ons.
Unlimited 4G LTE data abusers, however, implement different workarounds to effectively steal data such as downloading apps which hide tethered data usage, rooting their smartphones, writing codes to hide their activities, and so on.
According to Legere, some members of the small group of users that he terms as "clever hackers" steal as much as 2TB of data per month.
"I'm not sure what they are doing with it - stealing wireless access for their entire business, powering a small cloud service, providing broadband to a small city, mining for bitcoin -- but I really don't care!" Legere wrote.
The mission against these unlimited 4G LTE data abusers is driven by the fact that T-Mobile has worked to provide 290 million Americans with the fastest 4G LTE speeds possible, and so the company will not allow a handful of users to jeopardize the user experience of other subscribers under the carrier's network.
On the company's support page, T-Mobile uploaded an FAQ section on how to stop network abusers, where the company said that it has developed technology that could detect users that are violating the terms and conditions of the carrier's unlimited 4G LTE data plans.
After issuing discovered violators, T-Mobile will be cutting off the Unlimited 4G LTE data plan for the smartphones of the abusers and move them to a limited data plan.
T-Mobile noted that the changes will only affect T-Mobile subscribers on postpaid plans, as those on prepaid or MetroPCS plans can use up as much data as they want as long as they still have the capacity to do so.
