Reply to Message

The petitions are on the Internet. Here's one for AT&T: Petition | AT&T: Stop throttling the data speeds on plans with unlimited data! | Change.org  ... and for Sprint: Petition | Stop Sprint From Changing Our Contracts | Change.org. I won't even include T-Mobile here since their throttling doesn't kick in if you encrypt all of your traffic.

The big reason the FCC and the wireless community are going after Verizon Wireless for throttling/de-prioritizing their unlimited data users in the first place is due to the original license of the 700Mhz C Block (Band 13) spectrum. The license and terms of the deal clearly state that Verizon is not to impede the flow of legal traffic over Band 13 regardless of traffic type. They may manage traffic, but the extent of this includes pushing users to AWS (Band 4), adjusting device transmit levels to preserve spectrum efficiency and cell deployment and shifting to handle additional load. For all I'm concerned, the FCC has every reason to be concerned here, along with any users of that spectrum, and I would be more than happy to see the 700Mhz C Block license revoked if Verizon plans to impede traffic on that network. That would set a wonderful example as that would be a PR nightmare for Verizon Wireless. Of course, that probably won't happen. Verizon can do whatever they want to the 3G and AWS spectrum, if they really want to de-prioritize or throttle.

I'm not cool with any carrier throttling traffic. Throttling is a sign of poor network management and incompetence. Use Sprint as an example for this one. Between them shutting down the iDEN network inherited from a bad merger, to losing their ILEC status, to having a staggered LTE roll-out, to poor tower management and density, it's no wonder they're turning to throttling. They were losing a ton of money for a long time. AT&T has no reason to throttle given that their EDGE, HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE network combined has more capacity to spare in comparison to Verizon's network with 1xRTT (CDMA), EVDO-Rev.A (CDMA) and a lone 700Mhz C block LTE (GSM) network. Both Verizon and AT&T have no reason to be throttling when both are making record profits each quarter from wireless, both are ILECs, and Tier 1 providers with ample access to Fiber and land for additional cell sites.

Let's use an example here from Verizon's 3G network. If you have ever been throttled on the 3G network, you'll notice the following. First, on an unloaded rural tower equipped with both LTE and EVDO, you could switch your phone to use the 3G data network and receive a nice 2.8Mbps down, 700kbps up speed test result, and maintain such speeds solidly. If you have an unlimited data plan and use, say, 15MB of data, and you have gone over Verizon's statistic of 4.9GB for the month (even if that were all on LTE), your data speeds will suddenly shoot to 120kbps down, 120kbps up with 800ms latency. The speeds will hold there for an undetermined time, until you have not transferred data for a long period of time or you have moved back to LTE. At the same time where you're running at 120kbps, you can take another device and run a transfer test, and receive the full 2.7Mbps that you're supposed to.

With that said, Verizon's throttling as seen in the wild, so far does not agree with what their written policy is stating. Verizon doesn't state if load constitutes a "tower maxed out scenario," a situation where you have a ton of phones in a sector idly connecting to the network, or if you have a situation where only two phones are in a sector, one has unlimited data, and another is metered, and the unlimited data user gets a major shaft when pulling a full data rate.

As far as I'm concerned, the carriers treat wireless as magic pixie dust and have advertised it as such. When they haven't figured out that their networks lose range and much of the perceived load is due to overhead associated with having a ton of devices connected to an inadequately designed network, I can't feel sorry for them.