--- title: "New York law requires 25Mbps for $15; T-Mobile delivered 0.6Mbps after 50GB" description: "The carrier neither admits nor denies, but must scrap the cap, open 4G areas and un-hide its low-income plan page within 120 days" author: "Luis Goa" published: 2026-11-11T20:32:21Z modified: 2026-11-11T23:20:51Z url: https://rews.cc/a/new-york-law-requires-25mbps-for-15-t-mobile-delivered-0-6mb-8b1aab language: en tags: ["telecom", "regulation", "t-mobile", "broadband", "law", "us"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # New York law requires 25Mbps for $15; T-Mobile delivered 0.6Mbps after 50GB *The carrier neither admits nor denies, but must scrap the cap, open 4G areas and un-hide its low-income plan page within 120 days* By Luis Goa · November 11, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/new-york-law-requires-25mbps-for-15-t-mobile-delivered-0-6mb-8b1aab ## In brief - New York’s Affordable Broadband Act requires $15/month plans at 25Mbps or $20/month at 200Mbps for eligible households - T-Mobile cut speeds to up to 600Kbps after a 50GB monthly cap — about four days of typical use, the state says - The carrier also limited the plan to 5G areas and hid the plan page from search engines - The settlement gives T-Mobile 120 days to drop the limits and expand availability; the company neither admits nor denies - A separate October deal covered price hikes on ‘Price Guarantee Plans’ affecting about 252,957 plans, valued at up to $38M 25 megabits per second is the floor New York’s Affordable Broadband Act sets for the $15-a-month home Internet plan that large providers must offer low-income households. After 50 gigabytes of monthly use, T-Mobile’s version of that plan delivered up to 600 kilobits per second — 2.4% of the mandated speed, a 41.7-fold reduction. “After the data cap is reached, the customer’s maximum download speed is reduced from 25 Mbps to 600 Kbps,” the state’s settlement with the company states, [Jon Brodkin reported at Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/11/t-mobile-illegally-imposed-50-gb-cap-on-low-income-home-internet-plan-ny-says/). At the full 25 Mbps, 50GB is about 4.4 hours of continuous downloading; New York’s press release put it in consumer terms: “a typical customer could hit the data cap after about four days of usage.” The ABA never mentions data caps. It requires home Internet providers with at least 20,000 customers to offer income-eligible households either 25 Mbps for $15 a month or 200 Mbps for $20. The state’s theory is functional: a plan that drops to 0.6 Mbps most of the month is not a 25 Mbps plan. The settlement, announced Monday by Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James, covers T-Mobile’s fixed wireless home Internet — cellular service delivered to receivers at a single address — not its mobile plans. T-Mobile must eliminate the speed limits and expand availability within 120 days. It neither admits nor denies the attorney general’s findings. ![A dark clamp squeezes a cream-colored flow containing orange blocks into a thin line leading to a house against a blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/e6b4381f6ce6ae0af690cff26b59c112d34a66e1.webp) ## A cap, a 5G fence and a hidden webpage The slowdown was one of three restrictions the investigation documented. T-Mobile offered ABA plans only at addresses eligible for 5G home Internet, even though it sold full-price plans capable of 25 Mbps in areas where it had only 4G (LTE). The split is material upstate: T-Mobile offers 5G home Internet to roughly 40 percent of homes in rural areas there, and 4G to the rest of its fixed wireless footprint — so the low-income plan excluded the majority of rural addresses it otherwise served. The carrier also coded its ABA webpage with a noindex tag, keeping it out of search engine results. Under the settlement, T-Mobile must offer the plan at every address where it sells residential fixed wireless, drop the noindex tag, and prominently link the ABA page from its standard home Internet listings. Two carve-outs limit what the settlement guarantees. Temporary slowdowns “due solely to network congestion” do not count as violations, and sub-25 Mbps speeds are excused at any address where a full-price customer at the same address couldn’t get 25 Mbps either. Both are reasonable on their face; both also place the measurement burden on the state. Congestion is a carrier-side claim, and post-settlement speeds will be whatever T-Mobile’s network telemetry says they are. ![Three yellow arcs form an umbrella over a small cream house, with a navy handle and scattered raindrops against a teal background.](https://rews.cc/img/d38e6fcff28efa9531e45d28fab0f5acd07f4de2.webp) ## Four years of court fights, eighteen months of investigation The law itself survived a nearly four-year challenge by broadband industry lobby groups, including CTIA, the wireless association that represents T-Mobile. New York began enforcing the ABA in January 2025, a month after the Supreme Court rejected the industry’s case. The T-Mobile probe started in June 2025, when the state Department of Public Service relayed concerns to the attorney general’s office — roughly 18 months from referral to settlement. Compliance has been uneven elsewhere too: cable company Optimum failed to provide the required plan until Ars inquired on behalf of a customer who was rejected twice. T-Mobile’s own statement explains nothing about why it designed the restrictions: “We have a long history of helping customers in New York stay connected through low-cost broadband, and we’re updating our plan to meet the state’s requirements while maintaining the same low price.” Enforcement runs through the attorney general, who can sue on residents’ behalf for restitution and civil penalties of up to $1,000 per violation. The larger threat to the law is federal: the Trump administration asserts that states may not enforce price regulations or net neutrality laws against any ISP taking money from the $42 billion BEAD program — grants not yet distributed, and an authority California disputes, as [California’s BEAD acceptance letter](https://rews.cc/a/california-takes-trump-s-broadband-billions-keeps-its-net-ne-7363f2) made explicit. If that preemption theory holds, the ABA’s $15 plan survives only as long as ISPs decline federal money. ![A yellow balloon suspends a cream-colored judge’s gavel by a dark string above a matching base against a bright blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/52ec186d7679e92d5e1fbddbcda8ea9c324e6b12.webp) ## The second settlement This is T-Mobile’s second New York agreement in a month. From 2017 to 2019 the carrier advertised “Price Guarantee Plans” to 4G customers with the promise to “never change the price you pay,” the attorney general’s office said on 20 October; in 2024 it began raising those prices by approximately $5 per line, hitting New Yorkers enrolled in approximately 252,957 plans. T-Mobile agreed to reimbursement options and a price lock until May 2029, a deal the AG valued at up to $38 million for affected customers, plus a fine of $98,834.75. That fine, against a commitment marketed for years as lifetime, is the kind of number that tells you what a broken promise costs when it’s priced by the state rather than by churn. The number to watch now is what eligible customers in 4G-only areas actually measure at their modems after the 120-day window closes — and whether “congestion” remains the exception or becomes the plan.