Sprint Throttles Top 1% of Data Users, No "Truly Unlimited" Data For US iPhone Users [Updated x2]

[FakeWozniak]

They are limiting my bytes to 8 bits. I want 9 bit bytes, but nobody will sell it to me!

There are always limits. In the UK that advertisement never would have aired.

 

[Norkusa]

I find this hard to believe since you actually need decent speeds to take advantage of Sprints unlimited plan.

I've had a Sprint 4S since launch and have been averaging 0.1 - 0.3mbps since day one. The sad thing is that I haven't even come close to using 1GB+ of data the entire time I've had my phone (at 350mb now).

 

[Michael Scrip]

... even if you downloaded at the maximum rate possible 24/7 for the entire month there's still going to be a limit.

What is that limit?

 

[scoobydoo99]

How does one "abuse" UNLIMITED data??!

 

[iEvolution]

... even if you downloaded at the maximum rate possible 24/7 for the entire month there's still going to be a limit.

So where are the reports where users get cut off for using it "too much" when they are on a unlimited data plan?

If there isn't a fine print that says "we're not truly unlimited we're just kidding" then its grounds for a lawsuit. They are capping data which goes against the concept of unlimited data.

I'm one of the few that is for throttling to a point because I'm sure at some point it does affect other people's service in the area, but I hate these games the carriers are playing with the random throwing out of buzz words, "if you're the top 1%...if you're the top 5%" tells the consumer NOTHING.

As in my previous post they should be telling at exactly what point the consumer will be put in a throttled state.

The only carrier that I know makes it clear is T-Mobile and its above 2GB per month (which is quite frankly way too low).

 

[nickn]

Another example of the entitled, whiny, clueless people I mentioned. Several TBs a month? On ****ing mobile Data? I'm pretty sure my home internet provider has bandwidth limitations in the 200-400GB range, nowhere even near 1 TB/mo, yet you want and expect mobile data to allow for several?

Are you part of this potential 1% Are you being affected or victimized? Who exactly is really suffering from this policy? What you deem to be necessary is irrelevant, because you have no clue of what you're talking about, and you're up in arms about something that likely if affect noone in an meaningful way.

Maybe it's because I get along fine on a 500MB/mo plan while constantly using 3G, so I have trouble feeling any sympathy towards potential throttling of those who use many, many, many times that.

I am not a sprint customer, and haven't even used more then 1 single GB of mobile data in a month. If I was a sprint customer though, I would certainly feel entitled to use as much data as I wanted, hell even 1000tb in a month, since customers have been sold with the unlimited usage allotment in mind. If any carrier doesn't want people to use over a certain amount of data a month, they need to say so when people buy the phones. It is extremely unethical and quite frankly criminal in my opinion, to sell someone on an unlimited plan, and then later while under contract, start throttling people.

 

[BC2009]

Since they have ads that point specifically to T-Mobile's throttling, could someone claim false advertising? Or are they simply saying that they could throttle people they think are abusing the system (i.e. not simply throttling everyone in the top 1%)?

Sprint actually coined the term "Truly Unlimited" to attack their competitors for throttling practices. Then after they lure the customers over they start throttling. I believe that is called "bait and switch".

While I fully believe throttling users makes sense the terms need to read like this:

You get unlimited data; however, your data speeds will be throttled if you go over X amount of data per month.


Incidentally, I think that X should be 4GB on AT&T since that is their current largest data plan (Data Pro) which should be considered the equivalent of their former top-tier data plan which was "unlimited".

I feel bad for anybody who got suckered in by Sprint and made the switch, but it should have been obvious to the tech-savvy that Sprint lacked the infrastructure to support their so-called "Truly Unlimited".

The reason that AT&T's throttling of the top X percent of users each month makes no sense is that as those users start using less data to avoid throttling then the top X percent threshold keeps dropping too. That's assuming the top X percent is actually going to use less data because they get throttled.

Anyway, I fully believe that Sprint will have a lawsuit on their hands if this applies to anybody who signed up after their "Truly Unlimited" ads hit the airwaves.

 

[Mr. Gates]

Only the a abusers will moan and groan

 

[iEvolution]

How does one "abuse" UNLIMITED data??!

When the usage affects other users. Which again is another thing that should be clearly defined by carriers.

You could classify nearly anything that uses it as "abuse".

 

[Daveoc64]

When the usage affects other users. Which again is another thing that should be clearly defined by carriers.

You could classify nearly anything that uses it as "abuse".

Yeah, the problem with that is that it relies on the carriers actually having enough capacity for reasonable usage.

If they plan for a site to be used by two people and ten turn up wanting to download an App from the App Store, is that abuse?

 

[vrDrew]

I don't see why not. Apple could go some way to alleviate these issues by putting FM or Digital Radio support in the iPhone - even if people stopped streaming audio over cellular networks that would be something.

Or the people who are being throttled could go and buy themselves an FM radio. But you and I both know that they won't.

"Unlimited Data" is more of a marketing strategy than an absolute. We all understand that an All-You-Can-Eat buffet stops working once you see people lugging a Hefty bag full of coleslaw out of the restaurant. Which is what the 24/7 bit-torrenters and jailbreakers are essentially doing.

Damn. Now I'm hungry.....

 

[moldy lunchbox]

Someone on MR posted that they purposely ran Pandora all night long on mute...those are the kind of people that made this happen

That's ****ed up.

 

[Mac2012]

If you stream video content then even a 30 minute show could use 600MB+.

If you add in Apps, Web Browsing, Streaming Audio etc. or tethering with a computer then you've got a lot of usage.

All they have to do is pay for it then. Not rocket science here.
Plus, they do have up to 64 GB's of memory in them if you want to rip it to watch WITHOUT ANY connection so... PAY FOR IT so the casual users don't get a dog assed speed on the network from morons streaming movies on their iphones.

 

[danahn17]

Throttling IS limiting data. That's the entire point of artificially throttling someone's speeds: to limit how much data they use. That's why they're doing it!

It's a little bit of both, depending on how you view it. But unlimited is still unlimited regardless of your download speed.

I get that you may not be able to download the same amount of content if you're throttled... but if you're gonna claim that, then you can't claim the original unlimited data was unlimited either because it would also be limited by your bandwidth / data speeds.

I'm just saying I don't think people can claim it's false advertising.

 

[iEvolution]

I am not a sprint customer, and haven't even used more then 1 single GB of mobile data in a month. If I was a sprint customer though, I would certainly feel entitled to use as much data as I wanted, hell even 1000tb in a month, since customers have been sold with the unlimited usage allotment in mind. If any carrier doesn't want people to use over a certain amount of data a month, they need to say so when people buy the phones. It is extremely unethical and quite frankly criminal in my opinion, to sell someone on an unlimited plan, and then later while under contract, start throttling people.

Throttling is not capping. Its still unlimited under throttling conditions.

However, I was unaware that Sprint is trying to act like they don't throttle by advertising it as "truly unlimited" vs the other competitors. That is just wrong.

I'm curious if there is anywhere that indicates throttling in the contracts when you sign up because if there isn't I could see how Sprint could be sued for this on the basis of the commercials. (which I'm pretty sure their legal department was smart enough to have it covered)

 

[Daveoc64]

All they have to do is pay for it then. Not rocket science here.

But they are paying for it!

If they were paying for 2GB and using 3GB then that'd be a fair point.

I doubt Sprint (or any other carrier) offers them any alternative plan (with say 50GB) that isn't throttled - regardless of how much that might actually cost.

 

[rocknblogger]

The 1% more than likely is comprised of 14 to 18 year old kids who root their eevos then tether to their little netbooks so they can watch hours of videos on YouTube of other teens doing other dumb things.

The average user, even a power user who uses his/her phone for business and some entertainment, doesn't even come close to that 1%.

I watch ESPN, maybe an hour to two hours of video from Netflix or Hulu, surf the web, check in jere a few times a day, read my email, maybe Facebook a bit, upload to Instagram and my average month is about 600 to 800MB's. And I do consider myself A heavy user.

I'm on Sprint and I applaud them for doing this. This is good for the average user.

Also, throttling as I understand it doesn't cut you off but just slows you down. So it's still unlimited just a lot slower.

Full disclosure: I have grown kids of my own so I know not all teens will abuse the system. Just sayin.

 

[RetepNamenots]

I can't believe how expensive American contract prices are - in the UK I get unlimited texts, 600 minutes and 2Gb of data for £19 ($30) per month, which included the phone for free!

 

[rorschach]

Throttling is not capping. Its still unlimited under throttling conditions.

However, I was unaware that Sprint is trying to act like they don't throttle by advertising it as "truly unlimited" vs the other competitors. That is just wrong.

I'm curious if there is anywhere that indicates throttling in the contracts when you sign up because if there isn't I could see how Sprint could be sued for this on the basis of the commercials. (which I'm pretty sure their legal department was smart enough to have it covered)

If the point is not to cap data, what is the point of throttling heavy data users?

 

[Daveoc64]

I watch ESPN, maybe an hour to two hours of video from Netflix or Hulu, surf the web, check in jere a few times a day, read my email, maybe Facebook a bit, upload to Instagram and my average month is about 600 to 800MB's. And I do consider myself A heavy user.

I don't see how you could watch 30 minutes of video and not exceed 500MB, let alone several hours of video plus everything else.

 

[nickn]

I can't believe how expensive American contract prices are - in the UK I get unlimited texts, 600 minutes and 2Gb of data for £19 ($30) per month, which included the phone for free!

It doesn't have to be expensive here, people just don't know about alternatives. Virgin Mobile USA has fair priced contract free android phones with plans that start at $35 a month with 300 min and truly unlimited text and web.

 

[srxtr]

Is that really an appropriate use of radio spectrum?

I certainly can see how somebody might occasionally want to watch the odd episode of Two and a Half Men on their iPhone. But why not wait to do that when you have wifi access? Or download an episode from the iTunes store.

Its not like Sprint is saying you can never stream video over their 3G network. Its just they are saying that, if you do it all the time, they'll start throttling. And I don't think that is unreasonable.

The fact of the matter is that radio spectrum is limited by the fundamental laws of physics. It can never be increased, no matter how many cellphone towers Sprint or ATT or whoever puts up. And if a relative handful of people are walking around streaming bandwidth hogging entertainment to their phones, it will mean that other people wishing to use those same (public) airways for the kind of data transmission for which the smartphone was created, simply won't have access.

The convenience of being able to stream for the lazy people was a nice thing to have. What you're asking is for the lazy people to stop being lazy, and that's not gonna happen.

 

[batchtaster]

Sure, but on an unlimited plan, it's dishonest for a company to limit the plan.

The data is unlimited. You'll just take longer to use it.

 

[iEvolution]

I can't believe how expensive American contract prices are - in the UK I get unlimited texts, 600 minutes and 2Gb of data for £19 ($30) per month, which included the phone for free!

Yeah even though I'm against government dictating stuff I think they really need to look into the American cell phone providers, these companies nickel and dime you for everything. They're almost as bad a cable providers.

Here we live in a world were more and more is becoming internet enabled (or even required in some cases, like certain blu-ray firmware updates to be able to play the latest video).

Yet these companies decide instead of embracing the internet they are going to try to rip off as many people as they can by limiting their data to 2GB monthly and charging everything after. To put things into prospective that is roughly 2 HIGH DEF videos or 500 128kbps mp3s A MONTH. GET REAL. What are we still in the 90s? What the cell phone companies do in the US is criminal.

 

[darkplanets]

What concerns me is the price, not the fact that it's not "unlimited" per say.

Let's see... on some networks its $30/mo for 2GB of data a month. Keep in mind that most of these networks run data and voice on the same spectrum too. So on average I could be spending $360 a year for a collective bargain of 24 GB. Considering my yearly usage overall tops out at around 1TB (on a landline), the future of "mobile computing" where everything is "in the cloud" quite frankly isn't feasible at this point it time-- carriers charge way too much for so little service. Let's not even get started on the speed either, as that certainly doesn't support "the cloud."

IMO the current system is broken (in the US), and is holding back a better mobile computing experience. If prices were brought down (or services were increased) to be more in line with ISPs then we would all be better off... except maybe the telecom's bottom line. Now I do realize that it costs money to upgrade hardware between transitions in network types, but when you're charging 45/mo for basic phone services that are never really upgraded in a major way (and more for texting!)... I think they have enough capital to fund the upgrades. American companies are getting away with quite a bit when compared to their European counterparts (which still have better networks).