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Verizon Starts Throttling Unlimited LTE Users (Or Not)

See update at bottom. Just a reminder that if you're a grandfathered Verizon LTE customer, you're going to possibly find your connection throttled starting today. If you recall, Verizon made it clear back in July that they were going to start throttling unlimited LTE users starting October 1 under a revision to their "network optimization" policies. The throttling should only impact the top 5% of customers, which Verizon insist consume more than 4.7 GB a month.

Several years back Verizon implemented what they call "network optimization" for their 3G network, though their LTE network wasn't impacted. As Verizon explained it to me at the time, the system de-prioritizes user packets if that user is in the top 5% of the heaviest users and if a local tower (or node) is suffering from congestion. Verizon repeatedly insisted that this wasn't the same as a user being "throttled," even if the end result was indistinguishable from throttling.

Under the previous system, a user was throttled only temporarily. According to Verizon's freshly updated network optimization practices website, unlimited LTE users may now find themselves throttled for an entire billing cycle. Again, Verizon's FAQ is quick to proclaim this isn't the same as being throttled:

quote:
How is this different than throttling?

The difference between our Network Optimization practices and throttling is network intelligence. With throttling, your wireless data speed is reduced for your entire cycle, 100% of the time, no matter where you are. Network Optimization is based on the theory that all customers should have the best network possible, and if you’re not causing congestion for others, even if you are using a high amount of data, your connection speed should be as good as possible. So, if you’re in the top 5% of data users, your speed is reduced only when you are connected to a cell site experiencing high demand. Once you are no longer connected to a site experiencing high demand, your speed will return to normal. This could mean a matter of seconds or hours, depending on your location and time of day.


One wonders how Verizon would feel if customers stopped paying them, insisting they were simply "dynamically and intelligently altering payment transit." Regardless, unlimited users who find themselves throttled intelligently dynamically optimized under Verizon's update system can alleviate the situation by getting rid of their grandfathered data plan and signing up for a More Everything shared data plan -- where the network congestion carriers insist makes this kind of pricing necessary magically disappears if you pay significantly more.

Verizon's move caught the eye of FCC boss Tom Wheeler, who fired off a letter to Verizon stating he was "disturbed" by the possibility that big red might be using network management as cover for an effort to make a buck. Had Wheeler been paying attention, he'd know that using often-non-existent congestion as a bogeyman to justify aggressive price hikes has pretty much been standard operating procedure for many years.

Update: Verizon has decided to back off their scheduled throttling after pressure from the FCC.

Wheeler Letter to Verizon


Most recommended from 48 comments



IPPlanMan
Holy Cable Modem Batman
join:2000-09-20
Washington, DC

3 edits

2 recommendations

IPPlanMan

Member

There's always a top 5%...

There's always a top 5%... so this data threshold level will gradually fall lower and lower.

AT&T pulled this same crap for its Unlimited Data Plans by initially throttling the top 5% of data users progressively until the level at which data was throttled actually dropped below the tiered data plans being offered instead. However, if you were willing to pay more, you could get more "unthrottled" data before you hit a cap. After an uproar, it changed to 3GB for 3G devices and 5GB for 4G/LTE devices before "throttling".

Somehow, tiered data usage at the same levels doesn't cause congestion like unlimited data does.

As I've said before: Congestion my @ss.
IPPlanMan

2 recommendations

IPPlanMan

Member

A great disturbance...

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· 7TYWNxqA


I felt a great disturbance in the network, as if millions of Unlimited Data Plan users suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly "throttled".