Month: April 2021

Enlarge / T-Mobile's 5G home Internet gateway. (credit: T-Mobile)

T-Mobile yesterday launched a $60-per-month 5G home Internet service, saying that it will generally provide download speeds of 50 to 100Mbps and upload speeds of 10 to 25Mbps.

The $60 monthly price includes everything, T-Mobile said, promising, "No added taxes or fees. No equipment fees. No contracts. No surprises or exploding bills." The service has no data cap, but T-Mobile's home Internet customers will get slower speeds than mobile customers in times of congestion.

"During congestion, Home Internet customers may notice speeds lower than other customers due to data prioritization," T-Mobile said in a footnote in the announcement. T-Mobile says this should be rare. In its Open Internet disclosure, T-Mobile said that home Internet "customers receive the same network prioritization as Heavy Data Users, but should be less likely to experience congestion because the equipment is stationary and available in limited areas." ("Heavy Data Users" are mobile customers who face potential slowdowns because they exceed a specific limit, which is 50GB per month on most T-Mobile plans. The 50GB threshold is not used for 5G home Internet, but the home service may be slowed down relative to mobile speeds when the network is congested even if a home customer hasn't used much data that month.)

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Thomas Trutschel)

In a new set of guidelines posted Wednesday, livestreaming company Twitch said that it will start enforcing its policies against "hateful conduct and harassment [for actions] that occur off Twitch services." That means such conduct "directed at members of the Twitch community [on]... social media, other online services, or even offline" can result in Twitch bans or other consequences on the platform.

The focus of the new off-service conduct policy is on off-Twitch offenses that "pose a substantial safety risk to the Twitch community [and have] the greatest potential to harm our community," Twitch said. Those include terrorism, threats of violence, membership in hate groups, and sexual offenses, as listed by the policy.

Twitch says it will engage "a highly-regarded third-party investigative partner" to investigate such claims of off-Twitch conduct and act in cases where evidence is available and can be verified, such as through links, screenshots, or video that has been "confirmed by our third party investigator as authentic." If that law firm finds a "preponderance of evidence," then the situation will be forwarded to a law enforcement response team to "manage sensitive, confidential investigations and partner with law enforcement."