Fairly recently we were tipped that T-Mobile would begin excluding Ookla’s SpeedTest app from users’ monthly data allowances. The idea is that once users with data caps in place on their accounts exceeded their allowance, that the SpeedTest will still show the true network performance. On the one hand, users might be frustrated that they don’t know precisely what speed they’re limited to. On the other, speed testing apps are there primarily to show what the network performance is really like. Letting one user’s over-use affect that can taint the true network performance stats.

Today, T-Mobile confirmed to Fierce Wireless that speed test apps are – indeed – being whitelisted. In a statement, it stated “The Ookla Speedtest.net application is designed to measure true network speed–not show that a customer has exceeded their high-speed data bucket. Other speed test providers are also whitelisted.”

What that means is that, from now on, any speed test you perform on your device won’t count against your data allowance. If, by some miracle, you were able to use 1GB of data in speed tests alone in a month, it simply wouldn’t show up on your account as a chargeable event. In principle, it’s the same as the way they handle music streaming in its Uncarrier 6.0 program.

Source: Fierce Wireless