T-Mobile starts targeting 3,000 LTE tethered data 'thieves'

In an open letter, T-Mobile chief executive John Legere warns the 3,000 users stealing LTE tethered data that the company will go after them beginning August 31.

The open letter in the T-mobile website is the first official word that confirmed a memo that leaked recently, stating that the company would take actions starting August 17 against those who use their LTE data for pee-to-peer networking and torrents.

In Legere's Twitter, it is obvious that he is upset with those abusing the site's services. He tweeted, "Customer experience is my top priority & that means eliminating anyone who abuses our network."

In the open letter, Legere said he is taking aim at a particular group of individuals who are stealing data from T-Mobile. If their actions are not corrected, it could have negative effect on the user experience of the honest T-Mobile customers. This will not happen in his watch, said Legere.

T-Mobile said in a detailed FAQ that it came up with a technology that can detect if customers are using workarounds to mark their unlawful activities. It also said that users who do not heed the warnings about breaking terms and conditions will be transferred to a tiered plan. This means, those who violate the rules can still use T-Mobile services, but will be transferred to the network's entry-level limited 4G LTE data plan.

This issue is all about customer with unlimited 4G LTE smartphone plans who figured out a way to take more than what was allotted to them. Legere accuses these "thieves" as downloading apps that can camouflage their tether usage, writing cods to cover their activities, and rooting their phones.

Only a fraction of T-mobile's 59 million customers are suspected with the stealing. It may be a small percentage, but it has a big impact on the network. Some of the suspects even use up to 2 terabytes of data in just one month.