Are grandfathered unlimited data plans now being throttled?
Panderegg
Enthusiast - Level 2

Starting about 1 month ago, my upload speeds went from 32-43Mbps, down to 5-6Mbps.  The spot I do my testing is adjacent to a Verizon cell phone tower, and I have been speedtesting my 4G at this exact spot since I got my first 4G phone in 2011.  The consistency of this slow down is dramatic and rendering my service ususable.  I use the 4G service for 6Mbps live broadcast streaming equipment, and it's just not cutting it.  Does anyone know if Verizon has now throttled grandfathered plans, or perhaps is starting to throttle all 4G service to push 5G abnd make 5G devices look faster to sell customers on that?  For reference, my very first 4G phone a Verizon HTC Thunderbolt, got a consistent 10Mbps upload at my test spot, and that was 10 years ago. To be paying massively more for the same service only to be at half the speed I was a decade ago is unbelievable.  Phone I am using now is a Verizon locked Samsung Gaklaxy S10e which would typically do 4.5-5.5MB/s upload speeds around my tower and in most places until a month ago.

Re: Are grandfathered unlimited data plans now being throttled?
mama23dogs
Legend

Verizon does not throttle except for the hotspot.
 Any speed problems you were having are due to congestion of the network.  

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Re: Are grandfathered unlimited data plans now being throttled?
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

Panderegg, 

 

We know how important it is to have great speeds, and we are here to help share more details! The typical upload speeds for 4G LTE are around 2-5 MBPS. It is possible to get faster speeds, particularly if the network is not busy. However, a speed of 5-6 MBPS for 4G LTE is considered normal, and a bit faster than average. This would definitely not indicate any type of throttling for your service. Does that help clarify? 

 

Thanks,

Michelle_VZW

 

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Re: Are grandfathered unlimited data plans now being throttled?
XxPhonyGodxX
Enthusiast - Level 2

Hi Michelle, the post is saying that they were that speed Until a month ago. I have had the same experience, also grandfathered on a go unlimited plan. This throttling has been the experience for everyone on my family plan and many of my friends as of July 2021. This is real, factual. Verizon is either targeting these plans or has degraded very poorly in terms of data speed and reliability. 

Re: Are grandfathered unlimited data plans now being throttled?
SargeSmash
Enthusiast - Level 2

I'm seeing the same problem with my point. I have a grandfathered plan, and it depends on the type of traffic whether I'm seeing severely lessened download speeds. Streaming still seems to work just fine, upload speeds are what I'd expect, downloads from Steam or GOG through the clients works fine (I only get an average of 0.5-1.5 MB/s, but that's normal here), some mobile traffic is fine (Speedtest actually gives 6 Mb/s on tablet/phone), but any PC download traffic? Try 50-100 KB/s, tops. And this was even with a new rollover on the month. I honestly have no idea what's going on.

Re: Are grandfathered unlimited data plans now being throttled?
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

We always want you to excellent data speeds. We'd like to see what's going on. Let's get to the bottom of this. Please send us a Private Note for assistance. *Melissa

Re: Are grandfathered unlimited data plans now being throttled?
mghall83
Enthusiast - Level 1

This is all getting really frustrating. I've been a customer for almost 10 years now and I'm about done dealing with this throttling or whatever is going on. I've been getting absolutely horrible "4g" speeds in the past 3-4 months now, literally everywhere I go, small towns, large cities, rural areas it's the same everywhere I'm getting page timeouts and 30 secs+ to load simple websites with no video. Unless it's 10pm or later then everything is perfectly fine... I'm on the unlimited plan for all of my devices and have been for several years.

I travel 4-5 days a week so I'm in all sorts of different cities and locations across the country. The only constant is the service everywhere I go is worse than 14.4k dial up modem from back in the 90's. Speeds are consistantly bad whether I'm on mobile hotspot or just using data regularly off my phone or tablet.

I depend on this service for work and I have no problem paying a premium for the good service I used to receive from Verizon. Now they are literally starting to cost my money with webpages timing out. Oddly enough when I came to the Verizon.com webpage just now my speeds maneuvering around this site were perfect normal, just like it used to be everywhere...

Once I navigate away to another site I get time outs and horrendously slow service on regular webpages like Yahoo or ESPN. Enough with the games already. People are willing to pay good money for top notch service. I don't understand why they would rather risk losing long time customers leaving by throttling us like this. I've had enough

 

Re: Are grandfathered unlimited data plans now being throttled?
mama23dogs
Legend

@mghall83 wrote:

This is all getting really frustrating. I've been a customer for almost 10 years now and I'm about done dealing with this throttling or whatever is going on. I've been getting absolutely horrible "4g" speeds in the past 3-4 months now, literally everywhere I go, small towns, large cities, rural areas it's the same everywhere I'm getting page timeouts and 30 secs+ to load simple websites with no video. Unless it's 10pm or later then everything is perfectly fine... I'm on the unlimited plan for all of my devices and have been for several years.

I travel 4-5 days a week so I'm in all sorts of different cities and locations across the country. The only constant is the service everywhere I go is worse than 14.4k dial up modem from back in the 90's. Speeds are consistantly bad whether I'm on mobile hotspot or just using data regularly off my phone or tablet.

I depend on this service for work and I have no problem paying a premium for the good service I used to receive from Verizon. Now they are literally starting to cost my money with webpages timing out. Oddly enough when I came to the Verizon.com webpage just now my speeds maneuvering around this site were perfect normal, just like it used to be everywhere...

Once I navigate away to another site I get time outs and horrendously slow service on regular webpages like Yahoo or ESPN. Enough with the games already. People are willing to pay good money for top notch service. I don't understand why they would rather risk losing long time customers leaving by throttling us like this. I've had enough

 


You’re asking for some thing that’s not possible. You are using a shared resource, and when more people are using that shared resources than that shared resources can provide, you get congestion,  and you get slower speeds..  

it is not Verizon‘s problem to solve. They can’t.  It is always 100% on us customers to make service choices that suit our needs. If Verizon no longer suits yours, then leave.  This is entirely up to you to make a change to another network if you think you will get better service.   Despite AT&T having many many new connections in the past two years, their network seems to be going gangbusters. In fact they removed the deep prioritization on their top unlimited plan.   

The most significant complaint I see about Verizon or T-Mobile is that there is too much congestion and not enough band with to go around.  Ask around your friends and neighbors and see if they are having a good experience with AT&T, congestion wise, and coverage wise. 

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Re: Are grandfathered unlimited data plans now being throttled?
Panderegg
Enthusiast - Level 2

I use my serive between 10PM and 6AM...I have discovered the "issue" is related to BAND 13.  Band 66 and Band 5 provide amazing as always Verizon speeds, upload speeds of over 30Mbps.  When I get a fixed 5-6Mbps, I check the LTE connection, and it is 100% always Band 13.  I just did a speed trst looking at a Verizon tower...111Mbps DL, 3Mbps UL.

I don't know if this is some sort of 5G thing where the band 13 transmitters are being limited to less than 6Mbps ALWAYS, or what, but it's definitely Band 13 related.

This issue is so seriously affecting my ability to use the service (I just missed a broadcasrt slot in my newscast feeding in 150MB video file which took too long 14 minutes) I have been shopping around for T Mobile or AT&T plans. I am also looking at weird rooted phone hacks to keep the phone from going to band 13.

Paul

Re: Are grandfathered unlimited data plans now being throttled?
Panderegg
Enthusiast - Level 2
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