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typical throttling speeds around Nashville for unlimited folks?

Hi. I have a grandfathered unlimited plan in nashville and am using a galaxy S3. recently, all of my speedtesting apps report an average of 3-4mbps, and occasionally will be as low as 0.05mbps. When I got this s3, the rep at the store told me i should get a minimum of around 5mbps. Initially I was getting a full 25-35mbps, but since a few months ago speeds have been exceedingly low. I had the SIM card replaced but that had no effect. Another rep at a different store called someone higher up who was supposedly an "engineer", and I was told that because I use a considerable amount of data, I could be throttled quite heavily.

So is this what I'm running into? Or might this be another issue, like a radio problem with the phone or on verizons end? Because 50kbps is quite painful to use... slower than dialup

Comments

tikibar1

Verizon doesn't throttle 4G like they do 3G. Did you see this thread where it could be related to congestion?

psycroptic

yeah i saw that.... no there isn't a pattern to it. I can be downtown, in a suburb, on the outskirts. doesn't seem to matter. In particular, I can have a full 5 bars and still be getting 2mbps. Funnily enough, I usually get a higher upload than download. up is ~6mbps.

what do you mean by "Verizon doesn't throttle 4G like they do 3G."?

tikibar1

3G data usage can be 'optimized', but it isn't on 4G. From the Customer Agreement:

Additional Disclosures
We are implementing optimization and transcoding technologies in our network to transmit data files in a more efficient manner to allow available network capacity to benefit the greatest number of users. These techniques include caching less data, using less capacity, and sizing the video more appropriately for the device. The optimization process is agnostic to the content itself and to the website that provides it. While we invest much effort to avoid changing text, image, and video files in the compression process and while any change to the file is likely to be indiscernible, the optimization process may minimally impact the appearance of the file as displayed on your device. For a further, more detailed explanation of these techniques, please visit www.verizonwireless.com/vzwoptimization

Verizon Wireless strives to provide customers the best experience when using our network, a shared resource among tens of millions of customers. To help achieve this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand. Our proactive management of the Verizon Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95% of data customers aren't negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few users.

psycroptic

right, that was basically what the engineer guy said. i would think that it wouldn't go down to .05mbps though....

what's kind of frustrating is the lack of information about it, though. When is my data getting reduced? At how much should it be reduced? Is it slow right now because of network problems, interference, or throttling? At what level of data usage does the reduction begin? all of the reps that i've talked to so far haven't been able to answer any of these... for example, i kinda wish i knew when the reduction would start, so i could plan my usage accordingly... i have an unlimited plan and i enjoy using it, so i stream a fair amount of media on the phone, but i don't obviously have to do that and would absolutely do less of it if i could know that i would get usable speeds...

not to mention i find it somewhat strange/annoying that in that highlighted clause from the agreement, I will get throttled not only during the current billing cycle, but the next one after that as well? even if i haven't "used too much" of the unlimited data during the second cycle... but i digress.

thanks for the input. i'd kinda like to wait for some official vzw input, then i'll mark this solved.

Verizon_Support

Hi there psycroptic!

Having blazing fast speeds is definitely great for your Galaxy S3! Let's make sure we figure out where your speeds have run off to together. As mentioned it is possible to have Network Optimization if your data usage is high, but it shouldn't be constant unless you're always on a tower that may have lots of users. Here's more information on Network Optimization: http://bit.ly/PQYjyp

I definitely want to deep dive in to this! I've followed you. Can you please hover over my icon, follow me back, and then send me a Direct Message with your phone number and account verification (password or last 4 of social security). This will allow me to review your account so we can figure out what's going on together.

Thanks!

MelissaM_VZW

Please follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

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