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Verizon Reserving Right to Throttle Data Speeds for Top 5% of Users

NoExpectations said:
Oh yeah, it's worked out great so far. Let's take a look:

Verizon crippled the iPhone and took away:

  • Fast network access
  • voice and data multitasking
  • decent international coverage
  • rollover minutes
  • free wifi at the 'popular' chains

Verizon added:

  • unprecedented, unpredictable, unwarranted data throttling
  • compression of my data (pictures) which will ruin their resolution
  • higher prices points

Oh yes....this is a great customer experience! :D
Click to expand...

this is by far the most slanted and uneducated post of this thread. Verizon didn't take away anything. We have never had those features so they can't be taken away. You clearly don't like Verizon. No one is forcing you to move from AT&T. However, people with VZ see this device as a good thing.

I don't understand why everyone is so against VZ. It's called choice people.
 
NoExpectations said:
Oh yeah, it's worked out great so far. Let's take a look:

Verizon crippled the iPhone and took away:

  • Fast network access
  • voice and data multitasking
  • decent international coverage
  • rollover minutes
  • free wifi at the 'popular' chains

Verizon added:

  • unprecedented, unpredictable, unwarranted data throttling
  • compression of my data (pictures) which will ruin their resolution
  • higher prices points

Oh yes....this is a great customer experience! :D
Click to expand...

99% of your posts over the last 8+ months are bashing Verizon. Give it a rest.
 
slicecom said:
... but I thought Verizon's network could handle ANYTHING. :confused: It just keeps getting worse for Verizon fans. Years of whining and complaining and I bet most Americans will stick with AT&T due to all the cons of Verizon.

Basically unless you use your iPhone more for talking than you do data, (I don't, and don't know anyone who does), then AT&T is the better choice.
Click to expand...

In the American telecom business, it is not the backbones that are screaming for this throttling but the local cell providers that Verizon and others contracts to for service. At times, a single cell site may be providing service for a dozen different network providers.

If you really want to have a fun time peeking at the dark underbelly of the cell phone business, go to your local PUC public file office and see who actually owns your local cell phone sites. In most cases, mostly in the midwest, a single company or even single person owns all the cell phone towers in a community.


In many cases, these same people are the ones that push the "aesthetic rules" so you can't post a cell phone tower just anywhere so they keep a local monopoly on local cell phone service. It is a constant cat and mouse game. More urban areas have more competition but on many cases the "partial suburban / semi-rural" areas that have a lot of power users have only one cell tower landlord.

These "telecom slumlords" like many other tit-sucking real estate types just collect the rent checks and puts minimal maintenance into their property. The telecom equipment is out there to make this throttling unnecessary. It is those with the local political connections who don't want to upgrade their switches that are the roadblocks.
 
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I is Mac said:
dont care to read them really. i just know that since june ive only had a handful of dropped calls. i dont think its luck, its just ppl exaggerating about the dropped calls they get on ATT.
Click to expand...

Your experience may even serve to prove the point. You say you had only a handfull of dropped calls, say 5. What if you used a VZW phone and only dropped 1. Your AT&T phone will have dropped more than 3 times the number of calls.

There are surveys and drives tests done on all networks and VZW consistently wins in terms of reliability (i.e. JD Powers).
 
maflynn said:
Its interesting to see so many people stating that that the throttling policy is ok, I guess its the honeymoon period. That warm and fuzzy feeling will quickly be displaced with anger and whining once vzw starts throttling the content

In another month or two, we'll be seeing a number of threads complaining about VZW and their throttling tactics.
Click to expand...

Guranteed, the only people that will complain will be the data abusers. The 5% will be all over the internet complaining about how Verizon is screwing them and the public will assume that this throttling is running rampant and obviously happening to them too...which it really isn't.

Wait...it's already starting
 
Wow, compression on a retina display sucks. What's the point of retina then?

The suits at the verizon event looked very similar to the AT&T suits. Same pig, different logo
 
bearbear said:
99% of your posts over the last 8+ months are bashing Verizon. Give it a rest.
Click to expand...

They're trying to make up for the fact they were COMPLETELY wrong about VZW getting the iPhone in the first place and just lashing out and clinging to whatever they can...
 
NoExpectations said:
Oh yeah, it's worked out great so far. Let's take a look:

Verizon crippled the iPhone and took away:

  • Fast network access
  • voice and data multitasking
  • decent international coverage
  • rollover minutes
  • free wifi at the 'popular' chains

Verizon added:

  • unprecedented, unpredictable, unwarranted data throttling
  • compression of my data (pictures) which will ruin their resolution
  • higher prices points

Oh yes....this is a great customer experience! :D
Click to expand...

Dude! that's the price/tax for being on "America's Most Reliable Network" ;-)
 
just take off the word unlimited already and replace it with 5GB. if they are not willing to offer unlimited why let us choose it? its tiered either way so not a big deal.
 
Zero!sOne said:
I'm not sayin'...

hammer_sickle_r_y.jpg

150px-nazi_swastikasvg.png

images


...I'm just sayin'...
Click to expand...

Yeah because Verizon Massacred millions of Jews. The whole Nazi comparison thing is not cool anymore.
 
CANEHDN said:
I think it's awesome how Verizon says they have the network issue that AT&T has "covered." All they're doing is limited people's bandwidth. Also, I read that Verizon will not allow multitasking on the network. So you can't check your email, surf the internet, or text while you're on the phone. I'd rather have the "lack of service" and have more features.
Click to expand...

While it's true you can't email, surf, you are giving out misinformaion. You can text all day long while on a phone call. Do it all the time. next
 
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NoExpectations said:
Oh yeah, it's worked out great so far. Let's take a look:

Verizon crippled the iPhone and took away:

* Fast network access
* voice and data multitasking
* decent international coverage
* rollover minutes
* free wifi at the 'popular' chains


Verizon added:

* unprecedented, unpredictable, unwarranted data throttling
* compression of my data (pictures) which will ruin their resolution
* higher prices points


Oh yes....this is a great customer experience!
Click to expand...

bearbear said:
99% of your posts over the last 8+ months are bashing Verizon. Give it a rest.
Click to expand...

Lol, I guess the truth hurts, huh? So funny that so many Verizon worshipers bashed AT&T on a near daily basis, and now that Verizon finally gets the iPhone, they make things worse than any of AT&T's perceived issues as seen by the bashers. Ha ha ha.
 
ripper998 said:
Wow, compression on a retina display sucks. What's the point of retina then?

The suits at the verizon event looked very similar to the AT&T suits. Same pig, different logo
Click to expand...

Only affects recognized file types passing through TCP port 80 using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol.

So, your software can be tuned to:
1) Use a different transfer protocol, such as FTP, on which Verizon is not applying the optimization.
2) Use a non-standard port to carry the HTTP data.
3) Encrypt the individual media files that pass through the HTTP transport - the encrypted files would not be recognized by Verizon's optimization filter.
4) Use HTTPS, where the end-to-end transaction is secured, so Verizon would find it difficult to sneak in and transcode the content on the fly.

For applications such as uploading personal information and pictures to webapps, you really should already be insisting that your webapp providers start using HTTPS anyway.
 
mysticbluebmw said:
Lol, I guess the truth hurts, huh? So funny that so many Verizon worshipers bashed AT&T on a near daily basis, and now that Verizon finally gets the iPhone, they make things worse than any of AT&T's perceived issues as seen by the bashers. Ha ha ha.
Click to expand...

Personally, I LIKE the idea of throttling the biggest users. Nay, I LOVE it. It's the way all "soft" capped data plans OUGHT TO BE.

It's way better than a hard capped data plan. The carrier can still plan to efficiently allocate its bandwidth, and I never need to worry about whether or not I have to stop downloading in order to avoid the possibility of having to pay overages.
 
Icedog said:
I'd rather have [throttling] than the tiered data plans.
Click to expand...

They'll offer both. Some people are bandwidth hogs and are willing (by need or desire) to pay for it.

Your municipal water service may in theory let you get all the water you want, but if you start using so much it affects others, they'll have a chat with you about running a dedicated pipe and putting you on a different payment plan.
 
I've been using an iPod Touch tethered to a Wi-Fi enabled phone on Verizon before they finally released the iPhone. Trust me when I say I've been using the iPod almost exclusively while the cell phone was relegated to being a glorified Mi-Fi card. My data for last month never breached 50MB, and usually I never use more than 300MB a month. And this with the occasional streaming of radio and uploading photos in their original sizes wirelessly through my camera (I use an Eye-Fi card) too.

I can't imagine iPhone users hitting the top 5% unless they were being stupid ridiculous. My rule of thumb is that as long as you try to limit your data usage to 5GB a month, I'm convinced you'll never be throttled. Even though I have unlimited, I don't expect this to last, so disciplining myself not to go overboard now with data usage is seen as good practice for the future.

I should note that this also includes those times when I've tethered my MacBook to my cell phone to surf the Internet via Verizon. Even watched a couple of Hulu shows without issue. *knock on wood*
 
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gunthermic said:
...Also, I read that Verizon will not allow multitasking on the network. So you can't check your email, surf the internet, or text while you're on the phone. I'd rather have the "lack of service" and have more features.
Click to expand...
While it's true you can't email, surf, you are giving out misinformaion. You can text all day long while on a phone call. Do it all the time. next
Click to expand...

gunthermic already addressed this partially.

I'd like to add that the statement is misleading in that you can multitask -- ie, check your email, websurf, and use a streaming audio service all at the same time. It's just the phone call part that gets in the way.
 
goosnarrggh said:
Only affects recognized file types passing through TCP port 80 using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol.

So, your software can be tuned to:
1) Use a different transfer protocol, such as FTP, on which Verizon is not applying the optimization.
2) Use a non-standard port to carry the HTTP data.
3) Encrypt the individual media files that pass through the HTTP transport - the encrypted files would not be recognized by Verizon's optimization filter.
4) Use HTTPS, where the end-to-end transaction is secured, so Verizon would find it difficult to sneak in and transcode the content on the fly.

For applications such as uploading personal information and pictures to webapps, you really should already be insisting that your webapp providers start using HTTPS anyway.
Click to expand...

Great.....but your average smartphone user will not understand what you are talking about and how to get around this throttling of an already slow network.
 
rstansby said:
They are already throttling back everyone by 50% (compared to AT&T)
Click to expand...

Really? Everyone? So you're prepared to say that in every circumstance, in every region of the USA where both carriers offer parallel service, AT&T offers better speed than Verizon? Even in every area where AT&T only has EDGE, but Verizon has EV-DO?
 
MacRumors said:
..."sizing the video more appropriately for the device".
Click to expand...

Wow, nice! 960x640 video streaming over the cell network? Maybe they'll just round up to 720p?

I assume native resolution is "appropriate" for any given device, right?
 
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