WOW. This sucks. Makes me want to go to verizon or sprint on pure principle. Who knows, it could be just as bad over there.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
AT&T capping 3G upload speed in NYC (iPhone 4)
- Thread starter milan03
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
WOW. This sucks. Makes me want to go to verizon or sprint on pure principle. Who knows, it could be just as bad over there.
I have no clue who is right. I would think if ATT capped there upload data plan it would be in writing somewhere. Says unlimited DATA so I assume thats up and down. I will say every time I have data issues they say a tower is down. I don't believe it most of the time but What other choice do ya have. I will wait and see what happens during the week.
My experience with Verizon is they don't peak as high as AT&T does, but they're consistent. My speeds stay about the same all day long. Personally to me that's important, because my AT&T iPhone used to go snail slow sometimes but go damn near 4G speeds other times. Sprint was usually a little faster than Verizon.
I just ran a test on my Droid. 1443 down/ 605up with a ping of 137ms.
Edit: Verizon for me always beats AT&T on latency or ping, sometimes on Verizon I get less than 100ms. That in itself makes surfing the web seem faster than AT&T.
Maybe there is a setting for their towers where if it starts to get a certain amount of data load it caps the data so everyone gets a little instead of a few getting all. Would seem reasonable to me and would explain why some areas are experiencing this and others are not.
Until everyone is getting this capped data everywhere I don't think we can definitively say they have "capped" the data.
Until everyone is getting this capped data everywhere I don't think we can definitively say they have "capped" the data.
Go to Settings>General>Usage. At the top of the screen you'll see Battery Percentage. Switch that to "on" and you're all set.
Central Denver.
Mine is pretty much the same on upload. I couldn't get more then 1mbps down though.
Unlimited data up and down means the amount of information you are uploading or downloading is unlimited, not how fast it goes. There is a huge difference.
I spend most of my time in south florida, but spend a fair amount of time in North NJ / NYC -- Every time I come up here, I am very annoyed about how the closer I get to NYC, the more unreliable my phone is, dropped calls, unable to complete calls, slow data / no data.
On July 2 I was in NYC at 36th and 5th, and with 5 bars, was unable to make a phone call, use google maps, or complete a speed test.
In S-FL, service is generally great .... I wonder if perhaps this rate limit will enable the phone to consistently work slowly in manhattan, which may actually be an improvement to occasionally getting very high speeds, and often not working at all....
That said, yes, I think it's very lame to rate limit the phone's upstream seemingly almost nationwide to speeds slower than I used to get on my iPhone 3G.
On July 2 I was in NYC at 36th and 5th, and with 5 bars, was unable to make a phone call, use google maps, or complete a speed test.
In S-FL, service is generally great .... I wonder if perhaps this rate limit will enable the phone to consistently work slowly in manhattan, which may actually be an improvement to occasionally getting very high speeds, and often not working at all....
That said, yes, I think it's very lame to rate limit the phone's upstream seemingly almost nationwide to speeds slower than I used to get on my iPhone 3G.
Go to Settings>General>Usage. At the top of the screen you'll see Battery Percentage. Switch that to "on" and you're all set.
Thanks!!
Go back to page 2 and look at my SpeedTest posting. I don't think people were going nuts and taking pictures and shooting video of fireworks going all the way back to July 1st. Plus, if it were a peak time thing, I would think that a test run at almost 2am in the morning wouldn't show the same effect as one run at 5 in the afternoon, but it does.
This has been a problem for several days now, which to me is more indicative of something serious. It could be something as simple as AT&T using a roaming cap to address saturation issues on parts of their network, or it could be something more nefarious. And the fact that they can't/won't own up to it.....that makes it even more interesting.
I just got off the phone with an AT&T rep from the business side (I get a FAN discount via work, and it hooks us into their business services), and they said it wasn't a tower issue because the one tower near me that was down has been down since May. They also had no idea what might be causing the issue, but opened up a ticket to find out. I'm willing to bet that if I call them up later today I'll get a completely different answer.
Signs that point to an upload cap imposed by AT&T:
- It's happening in quite a few different markets, not related geographically
- It's happening no matter what time I run the test
- It's happening no matter which server I choose for the test
- It's been happening consistently for several days now in my area
- Before the cap, we were getting HSUPA upload speeds of 1600 Kbps
So it has nothing to do with a tower, since it is spanning many markets. And it is most certainly not congestion, since it is happening all day long for several days now.
What DOES seem strange though: if this is a new policy, why didn't it happen in all markets simultaneously since it is probably not difficult for them to make the change? Possibly they are targeting certain markets? Or possibly the memo just hasn't gotten out to all of the markets yet?
Whatever the case, if this becomes policy I will be retuning my iPhone 4 before the 30 days are up. It's sickening to think AT&T has a network that specifically supports HSUPA but instead it chooses to cap their customers at 100 Kbps! And they can get away with it because you still have an Unlimited data limit but that doesn't mean they can't throttle the speed at which you consume it.
This is the first issue I've had with both my iPhone 4 and AT&T. I have no reception issues, no colored screen, no proximity issue, and AT&T has been very good in my area (Quad Cities) up until now. But this issue is most definitely a deal breaker for me.
- It's happening in quite a few different markets, not related geographically
- It's happening no matter what time I run the test
- It's happening no matter which server I choose for the test
- It's been happening consistently for several days now in my area
- Before the cap, we were getting HSUPA upload speeds of 1600 Kbps
So it has nothing to do with a tower, since it is spanning many markets. And it is most certainly not congestion, since it is happening all day long for several days now.
What DOES seem strange though: if this is a new policy, why didn't it happen in all markets simultaneously since it is probably not difficult for them to make the change? Possibly they are targeting certain markets? Or possibly the memo just hasn't gotten out to all of the markets yet?
Whatever the case, if this becomes policy I will be retuning my iPhone 4 before the 30 days are up. It's sickening to think AT&T has a network that specifically supports HSUPA but instead it chooses to cap their customers at 100 Kbps! And they can get away with it because you still have an Unlimited data limit but that doesn't mean they can't throttle the speed at which you consume it.
This is the first issue I've had with both my iPhone 4 and AT&T. I have no reception issues, no colored screen, no proximity issue, and AT&T has been very good in my area (Quad Cities) up until now. But this issue is most definitely a deal breaker for me.
Is their a defining point in upload speeds where edge and 3G are separated. I am not getting much more higher in upload speeds on 3G compared to edge in my tests when I was doing just fine with 1.6 kbps just a few days ago. I'd love to hear AT&T excuse as to why I am being charged for 3G data is that is the case.
Same. My recent ones have been near 50. Not very happy atm:
Hopefully, it is a temporary thing
This seems like a much bugger deal then all of the other issues. It completely ruins the web browsing experience on the phone. Why is this not a front page story?
Orlando, FL
Down 2631 Up 1271
Far better than my 3G ever was.
Tested several times past few days and range has been 2500-3200 Down and 1100-1700 Up.
I saw earlier report that Orlando was not good.
FYI, have relative in Gresham, OR (outside Portland) and the numbers there are far better than mine.
Makes you wonder there is a technical temporary problem in some markets.
Best of luck to all.
Down 2631 Up 1271
Far better than my 3G ever was.
Tested several times past few days and range has been 2500-3200 Down and 1100-1700 Up.
I saw earlier report that Orlando was not good.
FYI, have relative in Gresham, OR (outside Portland) and the numbers there are far better than mine.
Makes you wonder there is a technical temporary problem in some markets.
Best of luck to all.