T-Mobile Says It Has 'Not Broadly Blocked' iCloud Private Relay, Blames iOS 15.2 Bug For Errors

T-Mobile has officially acknowledged a bug that has blocked some subscribers from using iCloud Private Relay when connected to cellular networking. In a statement to 9to5Mac, T-Mobile blamed this situation on a bug in iOS 15.2 and said that it has "not broadly blocked" iCloud Private Relay. From the report: It's also important to note that this bug is not only affecting T-Mobile subscribers, as the company says in its statement. Instead, it's a bug that seems to affect iOS 15.2 broadly rather than T-Mobile specifically. The issue is also still present in the latest release of iOS 15.3 beta. The full statement reads: "Overnight our team identified that in the 15.2 iOS release, some device settings default to the feature being toggled off. We have shared this with Apple. This is not specific to T-Mobile. Again though, we have not broadly blocked iCloud Phone Relay."

A solution to the problem that has worked for 9to5Mac in testing is to go to Settings, then choose Cellular, then choose your plan, and ensure that "Limit IP Address Tracking" is enabled. Make sure to complete these steps while WiFi is disabled and you are connected to your cellular network. T-Mobile has, however, acknowledged that are situations in which it is required to block iCloud Private Relay due to technical reasons. Namely, if your account or line has content moderation features or parental controls enabled, you will be unable to use iCloud Private Relay when connected to cellular. [...] A source has also confirmed to 9to5Mac that this also applies to certain legacy plans that include the Netflix on Us perk and have Family Allowances enabled.

Am I reading this right?

[The New Guy 2.0]

"I want to use T-Mo's free services, but I also want to hid the fact I'm on T-Mo!

?!#F

Re:

[Penguinoflight]

I think the controversial aspect here is that carriers like tmobile like to watch the types of traffic being used by network users so that they can make decisions about which content to throttle or otherwise limit. This is especially true after carriers have made special deals with streaming providers to allow "unlimited" watching/listening at the expense of limiting quality "binge on" being limited to 480 quality etc: https://www.t-mobile.com/offer... [t-mobile.com]

They're doing this while also rolling out fixed 5g home

Re:

[The New Guy 2.0]

T-Mobile offers "Netflix on Us", Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu for free on some plans...

T-mobile wants to hostage your data.

[stooo]

T-mobile wants to hostage your data.

The overly specific denial

[TheNameOfNick]

"we have not BROADLY blocked iCloud Phone Relay"

Re:

[Mr_Silver]

"we have not BROADLY blocked iCloud Phone Relay"

The answer as to why they've used the word "broadly" is right there in the summary - if your account or line has content moderation features or parental controls enabled, you will be unable to use iCloud Private Relay when connected to cellular.

If you hide your browsing through Apple then T-Mobile cannot apply content filtering. This should not be surprising.

Grand plan for discrimatory Internet pricing

[Canberra1]

Clearly the Telco is still lobbying for, and holding out hope, for discriminatory pricing, rather than a bog standard bandwidth seller. Maybe they are collecting revenue for reporting VPN and streaming activity. Maybe they are getting referral kickbacks.They call default settings a bug, and content filtering excuses (but do not say if those without, are still being blocked). They use the word technical, where the word policy should be used. When people buy bandwidth, they are NOT buying or agreeing to deep packet inspection and traffic analysis. Hopefully a class action follows, where an ISP cannot deliver. If Apple gets away with this, dreams of value adding based on content - will go down the toilet for all carriers.

Re: Grand plan for discrimatory Internet pricing

[anonymouscoward52236]

Netflix WILL detect Apple's VPN and block it. T-Mobile doesn't need to report them. It's called seeing that 100 Netflix subscribers come from the same IP. Netflix detects VPNs and blocks them automatically.

I hope this is "true"

[alispguru]

... and that T-Mobile is not going to continue to block iCloud Private Relay.

My family has been on a 5-line plan with T-Mobile for many years now.

I have sent a message to T-Mobile customer service saying our accounts will move to Verizon if they persist in this.
My home network is FIOS, so this is not an idle threat - they would love to increase the size of our bundle.