Sprint to start ‘throttling’ “Unlimited Data” users

Published on October 17, 2015 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

Sprint is joining the top three carriers in throttling unfair users exceeding 23 GB data per month.

This they maintain is to maintain optimal usage of cell sites for all users. This is because (they maintain) the quality of service declines at particular sites – so, the throttling will involve connection speeds at these sites until congestion clears.

The optimization will be calculated every 20 milliseconds.

Sprint maintains that the 23 GB standard is one held across the industry.

“According to metrics provided by the carrier, with 23GB of data users can send 6,000 emails with attachments, view 1,500 Web pages, post 600 photos, stream 60 hours of music and another 50 hours of video…AT&T and Verizon were first to institute connection slowdowns on customers with grandfathered-in all-you-can-eat subscriptions. T-Mobile, which like Sprint still markets unlimited data options, also adheres to a soft data cap set at 23GB, and in August said it would come down hard on users abusing the system.” – appleinsider

Verizon and AT&T have seen push back from the FCC but in May eased back on throttling for grandfathered data plans.

Source:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/10/17/sprint-to-throttle-unfair-customers-using-more-than-23gb-of-data-per-month

Comments (Page 2)

ZombiesRus5

on Oct 19, 2015

Ryat

reply 3

This is big for those like myself who operate in a manner in which use of Wi-Fi is impossible. I deliver for UPS. I use my phone network to stream music and news while I work and I move between multiple businesses through out the day, many of whom would frown on me using their Wi-Fi and in residential areas where I don't think they would want a random stranger tagging their Wi-Fi and those that would I wouldn't be in range long enough for it to matter. I would blow through 60 hours of music/news in a week.

Music streaming is likely not nearly as bad as streaming full length movies or watching netflix all day long on your phone. Unlimited data on your phone wasn't meant to support this type of high quality bandwidth requirements. However, due to better transfer rates with LTE, the accessibility of streaming high quality content has grown a lot. Carriers are simply having to adjust due to limited network bandwidths. 23gb should cover standard web content, streaming music and probably a few movies in a month.

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