Verizon starts data throttling today

[Tumi 07]

Seems like Verizon is going to throttle data for its heaviest users (top 5%). Should be interesting to see what the throttled speeds are.

http://www.bgr.com

http://http://www.bgr.com/2011/02/03/verizon-wireless-to-begin-throttling-data-speeds-of-heaviest-users-optimizing-content-starts-today/

 

[MacDawg]

Looks like the link is bad

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Looks like the link is bad

A quick google I found one of them that works
http://www.gizmocrunch.com/mobile/5055-verizon-iphone-data-throttling-unlimited-plan

That being provided this is something I wish AT&T would of done as well. Personally I like how T-Mobile handles bandwithe abusers and that is after 5gigs of data they throttle the users pretty hard. I wish AT&T would take the abusers and say after 5 gigs kick them off 3G and force them to EDGE speeds and if it is still bad reduce them another level to GPRS speeds for the rest of the billing cycle.
Still have unlimited but the abusers are killed off and the people abusing the tethering now are no going to be an issue when streaming is killed.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

I wish they'd done this from the very beginning. This is how carriers should handle bandwidth hogs. Don't cut them off.....throttle them down.

 

[bad03xtreme]

I got this in my message center on verizonwireless.com.

If you subscribe to a Data Plan or Feature on February 3, 2011 or after, the following applies:
Verizon Wireless strives to provide customers the best experience when using our network, a shared resource among tens of millions of customers. To help achieve this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand. Our proactive management of the Verizon Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95% of data customers aren't negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few users.

 

[zenio]

I USE my smartphones. It should be obvious that I'm going to consume bandwidth. I pay for unlimited and when that changes as all things do, I will be happy to pay to continue to use all the bandwidth I need.

There's nothing better than unlimited web no matter what I use to access it.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I wish they'd done this from the very beginning. This is how carriers should handle bandwidth hogs. Don't cut them off.....throttle them down.

Yep and those guys threating to leave is not really a threat to the carriers. The response to it would be "do not let the door hit you the way out" reason for it those guys are costing the carriers money.

 

[JRoDDz]

Isn't the Verizon network slower to begin with? If you throttle it, what kind of speed are you going to get?

 

[Travisimo]

Potentially, throttling is a better deterrent than bandwidth caps. But it all depends on what they mean by "Top 5%". If, for example, they mean users who regularly consume more than 5 GB of data per month, then I can certainly understand. However, if "Top 5%" means pretty much all Smartphone users, then it gets ridiculous. I think this just gives them an "escape clause" if their network can't handle the influx of network traffic when the iPhone is released. They knew they had to keep Unlimited Data to compete against AT&T, but at the same time, they release that some users will take advantage of that unlimited data and abuse it.

So we'll see if this throttling is truly a way to preserve network quality. But I'm initially not too concerned.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

I've seen some other reports (I'll go find the link and post back if its in my bookmarks) that showed on Sprint that the "Top 5%" of bandwidth users were grabbing something like 35-40gb per month. Most were using it to stream movies and do illegal downloads via Usenet and such.

In other words, not your average joes when it comes to bandwidth usage.

When AT&T yanked back their unlimited iPad plans, there were people on here bragging about using 5+ gigs PER DAY in data usage (mostly via Netflix). I'm not even sure how thats possible but I think some people burn bandwidth just because they can, not because they need it.

 

[Zero!sOne]

Not just throttling, but "optimizing" as well: http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/verizon_starts_data_throttling_content_optimization/

AT&T keeps looking better and better.

 

[darngooddesign]

For everyone saying that bandwidth hogs deserve to be throttled, what happens when VZW decides that over 2GB per month makes you a "heavy user". Its easy to do that if you do that if you do a lot of streaming via Netflix and H+; I'm not even talking about tethering. And when you pay for unlimited its your right to enjoy unlimited data including streaming

 

[Small White Car]

Not just throttling, but "optimizing" as well: http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/verizon_starts_data_throttling_content_optimization/

AT&T keeps looking better and better.

Are you kidding? This makes Verizon look more attractive. I can only hope at&t follows their lead. (If they don't already, we really don't know.)

 

[aristobrat]

For everyone saying that bandwidth hogs deserve to be throttled, what happens when VZW decides that over 2GB per month makes you a "heavy user". Its easy to do that if you do that if you do a lot of streaming via Netflix and H+; I'm not even talking about tethering. And when you pay for unlimited its your right to enjoy unlimited data including streaming

So what's your suggestion to address the very real issue where network bandwidth is limited and a small amount of people are using a disproportional amount of it, slowing down the network for everyone else?

If everyone really got to stream unlimited, the network couldn't hand the capacity. That's a fact that's true on any wireless network on this planet.

Do what AT&T does and just not offer unlimited?
Do what Verizon does and reduce the speed of the top 5% of the users?
Raise the price of data to all customers and add more capacity at each of the 50,000+ towers across the country?

What other alternatives are there?

 

[Zero!sOne]

Are you kidding? This makes Verizon look more attractive. I can only hope at&t follows their lead. (If they don't already, we really don't know.)

It depends on how noticeable the quality difference is. There have been many cases that I have pinch-zoomed in on full size pictures to view them in better detail. I would prefer the option of detail vs. pixelation.

I've never had any issues with network congestion in my area though, and I can understand how this could drastically help areas like NY and San Fransisco. But for me personally, I would not want my data to be optimized without me having a choice.

 

[err404]

Do the Math

Frankly, there just isn't enough information to be outraged yet.
It all depends on where the cap falls and how much they throttle.

However, keep in mind that by restricting the "top 5%", the GB throttle cap will likely trend lower each month as you "persuade" many of your top end user to cut back on usage in order to maintain speed.
The more severely they throttle, the lower the throttle cap falls.

 

[Small White Car]

It depends on how noticeable the quality difference is. There have been many cases that I have pinch-zoomed in on full size pictures to view them in better detail. I would prefer the option of detail vs. pixelation.

I've never had any issues with network congestion in my area though, and I can understand how this could drastically help areas like NY and San Fransisco. But for me personally, I would not want my data to be optimized without me having a choice.

Sorry, to be clear, I was talking entirely about throttling, not any of the other stuff.

 

[Zero!sOne]

Sorry, to be clear, I was talking entirely about throttling, not any of the other stuff.

Fair enough. I definitely don't have a problem with the throttling. I see no reason why anyone would need to use upwards of 10GB in a month on a mobile phone. For me to accomplish that I would have to try really hard not to use the free or home WiFi that surrounds most people nowadays.

 

[Rooftop voter]

Sucks for verizon customers. The optimizing thing would really irritate me. I'm assuming that is something that could be fixed through a jailbreak though.

I wouldnt want my data throttled, just build a network that can handle it.

 

[err404]

The top %5 is probably far fewer GB then most people realize. The vast majority of users barely use any data.
Even factoring in the heavy 50GB per month users, the average data used per smartphone was under 300MB per month last year on AT&T.
2GB was probably calculated based on this.

 

[darngooddesign]

So what's your suggestion to address the very real issue where network bandwidth is limited and a small amount of people are using a disproportional amount of it, slowing down the network for everyone else?

If everyone really got to stream unlimited, the network couldn't hand the capacity. That's a fact that's true on any wireless network on this planet.

Do what AT&T does and just not offer unlimited?
Do what Verizon does and reduce the speed of the top 5% of the users?
Raise the price of data to all customers and add more capacity at each of the 50,000+ towers across the country?

What other alternatives are there?

A very small percentage of heavy users are not going to impact the network; what impacts it are a large number of heavy users.

What VZW needs to do is publicly state at what point they will start throttling. Either that or not offer unlimited. If you're not a heavy user then a data cap isn't going to bother you.

Not doing either is just a slight of hand method of making their network appear more robust than it is. VZW has been shouting how their network rocks and can handle the data load of whatever all those iPhone users can throw at it, but in reality they can't and that's why they are practicing throttling.

Sucks for verizon customers. The optimizing thing would really irritate me. I'm assuming that is something that could be fixed through a jailbreak though.

JBing won't fix this as its calculated by how much data VZW's servers know you have used.

 

[err404]

Here is your Top %5 cap. It's under 2GB.

http://www.crn.com/news/client-devices/226300173/verizon-smartphone-users-overtake-at-t-iphone-users-in-wireless-data-use.htm;jsessionid=UdL9NZKzff-Yo2PByVDy6A**.ecappj01

 

[Zero!sOne]

Sucks for verizon customers. The optimizing thing would really irritate me. I'm assuming that is something that could be fixed through a jailbreak though.

I wouldnt want my data throttled, just build a network that can handle it.

Jailbreaking won't help because that only affects the software on the device you hold in your hand. Verizon will be optimizing any data that is sent out via their network, so if you're connecting to the internet through their network, your data will be optimized.

Here is your Top %5 cap. It's under 2GB.

http://www.crn.com/news/client-devices/226300173/verizon-smartphone-users-overtake-at-t-iphone-users-in-wireless-data-use.htm;jsessionid=UdL9NZKzff-Yo2PByVDy6A**.ecappj01

Wow. If that's actually the case, then there are going to be a lot of ticked off Verizon customers. It seems like a large part of Verizon's hype about their network being ready to handle the stress that the iPhone would bring refers mostly to policy changes and restrictions, rather than beefing up their actual network.

 

[Rajani Isa]

Sucks for verizon customers. The optimizing thing would really irritate me. I'm assuming that is something that could be fixed through a jailbreak though.

I wouldnt want my data throttled, just build a network that can handle it.

Jailbreaking won't help because that only affects the software on the device you hold in your hand. Verizon will be optimizing any data that is sent out via their network, so if you're connecting to the internet through their network, your data will be optimized.

Exactly. Expecting the optimization, which is done by the ISP, to be affected by a tweak on the phone (jailbreak or no) would be like the person asking if a jailbreak app could hide the amout of celluar data your phone was using from AT&T

 

[Geckotek]

So what's your suggestion to address the very real issue where network bandwidth is limited and a small amount of people are using a disproportional amount of it, slowing down the network for everyone else?

If everyone really got to stream unlimited, the network couldn't hand the capacity. That's a fact that's true on any wireless network on this planet.

Do what AT&T does and just not offer unlimited?
Do what Verizon does and reduce the speed of the top 5% of the users?
Raise the price of data to all customers and add more capacity at each of the 50,000+ towers across the country?

What other alternatives are there?

Only throttle when a particular tower or network component is reaching capacity.

Should I be throttled when I'm using 5GB, but on a tower and backhaul that's currently idle otherwise?

Randomly throttling a user because they used more bandwidth makes no sense. It only makes sense when they are causing an issue.