Verizon Throttles iPhone Data Hogs

Verizon Throttles iPhone Data Hogs


It was too good to be true. Last week Verizon Wireless had good news for data hogs when it said the iPhone 4 will be sold with unlimited data plans for a limited time. On Thursday we now know there's a catch. If you're in the top 5 percent of Verizon's data users, you'll be throttled.

Verizon announced the change in a note on its Website (PDF link). Once you've crossed the 5 percent threshold, Verizon will reduce your data speeds "periodically ... at locations and times of peak demand" through the next billing cycle.

I suppose it's a good thing that Verizon is even bothering to publish this information. The carrier certainly doesn't have to, at least until the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules take effect. Those rules allow wireless carriers to manage bandwidth as they please, as long as they're transparent about it.

The problem is that Verizon's not being transparent enough. Its little disclaimer about smartphone data throttling raises several big questions:

· What's the typical amount of data that a smartphone user consumes, and how much data do the top five percent typically consume?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/218640/verizon_throttles_iphone_data_hogs.html

A classic marketing scam.

what could possibly be wrong with that????????????????

wireless (we have a big contract with them, so that's the preferred way) and it was damn near as slow as dialup thanks largely to assholes watching porn, or whatever they do, on their Android phones. Adding a few million customers downloading "Avatar" with their rotten Apples can only make the situation worse.

Your "freedom" to download infinite amounts of music and video stops short of my ability to work.

(Or call 911)

voice calls just when voice use gets too heavy in some areas.

And I've already seen slower data speeds without Apple's help-- massive graphics hog bandwidth.

There are two totally seperate networks. A voice network on one frequency and a data network on another frequency.

Excess data has no effect on voice.
Excess voice has no effect on data.

and I use my home broadband to communicate because Verizon's network is already too slow for decent data transfer.

I don't get any cell signal where I live but just for the hell of it tried to use
Verizon for my daily upload. I was sitting in a parking lot-- my big mistake because I sat there for twenty minutes waiting for what would be a half hour on dialup and three or four minutes tops on cable.

Well I'm stuck with V for another 18 months. Thanks guys.