Developer Claims Three Major Carriers Throttle iPhone and iPad Data Speeds

[Small White Car]

You missed the point ENTIRELY. Sure it's fair if, as you said EVERYONE'S speed was held to a similar standard. Umm.. hello, the article was quite clear- these config files are applied to iPhones ONLY. Android phones are left unfettered, thus creating the UNFAIR to consumers situation.. Make sense?

Trucks, motorcycles, and cars are all held to different rules on the road. Well, that sounds unfair, doesn't it? But so long as all cycles are treated the same as each other and all cars are treated the same as each other then that's fair.

An iPhone is not an Android phone which is not a tablet which is not a laptop. People use each of those in different ways so if they tailor the rules per device type, well, ok.

 

[michaelsviews]

This is really a good idea because the iPhone does use more and that's not fair to us Android or Windows users.

T-Mobile will catch on soon, once more people hop on their network.

Well MATT, maybe you should get rid of your pathetic Android or Windows phone and tell Mommy and Daddy that you need a real smartphone

 

[Alisstar]

Trucks, motorcycles, and cars are all held to different rules on the road. Well, that sounds unfair, doesn't it? But so long as all cycles are treated the same as each other and all cars are treated the same as each other then that's fair.

An iPhone is not an Android phone which is not a tablet which is not a laptop. People use each of those in different ways so if they tailor the rules per device type, well, ok.

I think an argument can be made that even though not all cars are the same, the consumer has a pretty good idea of what they're buying in terms of specs and performance before they make the final decision to purchase. iPhone and Android phones are not the same, but are connecting to the same networks, yet experiencing different speeds. Using your vehicle analogy as an example, I think it's more accurate to say, assuming the throttling is true, that this is more like us buying gas from one gas station, and seeing it performs differently in my car than in your car.

 

[Premium1]

I was wondering why my speeds seemed slower than normal on my Verizon iPhone 5..

 

[kas23]

It is one thing to manage the network. It is a whole another thing to hard cap the speed in a configuration file and then advertise otherwise. Traffic shaping is done on the fly and as needed. These hard caps in the carrier file are a blatant lie from what you are told when you buy it.

Basically one is sensible and dynamic while one is static and in conflict what promised. They told you get the best but in reality you don't. Ever.

Very good post. Throttling via code seems like a very lazy, unintelligent way of managing a network. It's like limiting the speed of a car during the manufacturing process instead of having speed limits. Wait, they already do that. Bad car analogy.

 

[xdxdaustin]

They're complaining about 14.4Mbps on a cellphone connection? Did I understand that correctly? Spoilt, that is what they are.

They're not complaining about the 14.4mb/s, they're complaining about a device they have being artificially handicapped in comparison to what they were told they were buying.

 

[ITGuy]

LTE Cap Depends On Location

Hi, I just read his blog entry and he explains the LTE discrepancies as follows:

"NOTE: The soft throttle does in fact depend on your location. Some areas simply have enough LTE spectrum where it's not noticeable. Also, the soft throttle is simply a data cap on bandwidth which means you are limited to a certain amount of speed or bandwidth on the network. This isn't to be confused with a typical throttle where you receive 2G speeds."

 

[mrbrown]

They do?

Image

Uhhh... You are on Wi-Fi. If you are connected to a external hotspot, that's not the same because the article talks specifically about iPhone carrier bundles.

 

[gotluck]

Uhhh... You are on Wi-Fi. If you are connected to a external hotspot, that's not the same because the article talks specifically about iPhone carrier bundles.

this has been pointed out many times already but the test was done on cellular, look at the icon near 'result detail'.

 

[bretm]

your testing your wifi connection

You wish wifi could get speeds like that! 30mb/sec is about all you'll get out of a cable connection. And only 3mb/sec upload.

That's a cell test. Hence the little cell symbol.

 

[darster]

You wish wifi could get speeds like that! 30mb/sec is about all you'll get out of a cable connection. And only 3mb/sec upload.

That's a cell test. Hence the little cell symbol.

I get 55 to 60 Mbs download and 10 Mbs upload on cable.

 

[The Mad Mule]

Here's the link on how to update. These are the instructions for Verizon.

http://www.itweakios.com/apps/blog/show/26927488-verizon-hacked-carrier-update-for-iphone-and-ipad

Thanks! My download speed went from 2.03 to 7.12.

 

[abhibeckert]

On Telstra 4G in Australia I pretty consistently get 50Mbps upload and somewhere between 15 and 50Mbps download depending on time of day.

Network congestion causes slower downloads but uploads never seem to be congested.

So clearly it's the carrier doing it, not Apple.

 

[MacDav]

Ok, I'll correct you. Higher data speeds does NOT mean more data consumed. For example: if you check your email.. a fast connection may download 50 new emails in one second.. a slow connection may take six seconds. Lol, the data in the emails doesn't somehow get larger because you received it faster.

Yes, but it does mean you have greater potential to download more data. If you're talking about a static size download that's one thing, but were not just limiting the discussion to static size downloads...are we?

 

[darster]

Thanks! My download speed went from 2.03 to 7.12.

When you go into settings, general, about, does it show the carrier version as 14.2 after update?

 

[Blue Fox]

I call ******** on this report. I have consistently received OVER 30 MBPS on LTE whenever I drive through Albuquerque.

 

[topper24hours]

Trucks, motorcycles, and cars are all held to different rules on the road. Well, that sounds unfair, doesn't it? But so long as all cycles are treated the same as each other and all cars are treated the same as each other then that's fair.

An iPhone is not an Android phone which is not a tablet which is not a laptop. People use each of those in different ways so if they tailor the rules per device type, well, ok.

Terrible analogy, sorry.
The biggest point here is... if you buy a semi truck you KNOW that you can't drive it as fast as a sports car.. If you buy an iPhone you did NOT know that it was being speed crippled. Thus, it was sneaky, underhanded, and unfair.
If you are seriously trying to say that smart phones that run iOS somehow have distinctly different uses or purpose than Android based smart phones... Well, it's likely we're not going to be able to have a dialogue, because you're simply wrong.
I think that the user experience on Android is getting FAR better. I guess when people start using Android phones just as much as iPhones for web traffic you'll have NO problems with only certain models UNANNOUNCED by carriers being secretly speed crippled? Give me a break.

 

[MacDav]

Well, people pretty much decide not to believe what they don't want to believe regardless of the facts, too.

The observations I pointed out are second-hand, but were pointed out by two different people who have never met each other. I've seen the screenshots, if that means anything to you, but I doubt it does. What will you say if all these networks flat out admitted they throttle iPhone users?

Yes, I agree it goes both ways. The truth is, I don't know all the facts, and neither do you. Don't be silly...Obviously if they admitted this was true I would stand corrected. We shall see how this all pans out. It will be interesting to know the truth. So far it seems logical to assume I'm right. I'm sure you feel the same way.

 

[bushman4]

Article sounds credible. The reason I say this is that here in NYC speed was originally 40-50 and now its about 20 down.
Theres plenty of towers,deflectors , sub cells here in NYC. Regardless of what time of day or where you are 4G now is slower.

 

[Toltepeceno]

your testing your wifi connection

Look again.

 

[jm001]

With my carrier, Bell Canada, I got (using Speedtest app):

LTE connection
Ping: 29ms
Down: 31.21 Mbps
Up: 15.74 Mbps

 

[darster]

According to Cult of Mac, the throttling on Verizon is on 3G, not LTE. So this patch does nothing for improving LTE speeds on Verizon. Read the last paragraph.

http://www.cultofmac.com/230112/heres-the-proof-that-your-carrier-is-probably-throttling-your-iphone-without-cause/

 

[ITGuy]

I call ******** on this report. I have consistently received OVER 30 MBPS on LTE whenever I drive through Albuquerque.

The lead posting is missing an important piece of information from the developer's blog: "NOTE: The soft throttle does in fact depend on your location. Some areas simply have enough LTE spectrum where it's not noticeable. Also, the soft throttle is simply a data cap on bandwidth which means you are limited to a certain amount of speed or bandwidth on the network. This isn't to be confused with a typical throttle where you receive 2G speeds."

Perhaps Arn should update the article as some people don't seem to be reading the developer's blog to understand why some locations have good LTE speeds.

 

[Toltepeceno]

Talk about first world problems. In Brazil, telecoms sell data plan speeds like this:
3G = 1Mbps (notice MegaBIT, not MegaBYTE)
"3G+" or "3G max" = 3Mbps
and now:
"4G+" or "4G max" = 5Mbps

I'd love to get 14Mbps on my vanilla 3G plan...

Here in mexico I can't get over 2 at home, phone is sometimes better than dial up.

 

[macs4nw]

.....Brown goes on to point out similar throttling code present in the LTE and 3G network settings of both Verizon and Sprint, for the iPhone and the iPad. His theory is that Apple (or the carriers themselves) are throttling data speeds in order to cut down on the iPhone's data usage.T-Mobile, the last network to receive the iPhone, is the only carrier that does not appear to throttle iPhone data usage. Though Brown places the blame for the network settings on Apple, it is unclear whether it is Apple or the carriers themselves at fault, and the reasoning behind the alleged throttling is equally unclear. Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon have all historically throttled the data speeds of high volume users.....

Article Link: Developer Claims Three Major Carriers Throttle iPhone and iPad Data Speeds

Looking forward to hearing APPLE's as well as the carriers' official response to this. Spin anyone?