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Sprint Will Start Throttling Customers Who Exceed 23GB Monthly (sprint.com)
CNET reports (and CTO John Saw explains on the company's blog) that Sprint has decided to taper access to a slice of its "unlimited" wireless data customers, by throttling access (not curtailing it, at least) to those who slurp down more than 23 gigabytes per month -- the same cap that T-Mobile has imposed. If you think "throttled" and "unlimited" don't quite jibe to describe the same service, you're not the only one to quibble: CNET notes that regulators have "begun scrutinizing the carriers' practice [of slowing access past a cap]. In June, the Federal Communications Commission threatened to fine AT&T $100 million for deceiving its customers by mislabeling its service as unlimited. The FCC also challenged Verizon when the company planned to expand its data throttling policy to its 4G customers. The company retracted that policy last fall. In June, Verizon also stopped slowing unlimited-data traffic for 3G customers."
Sprint said customers will still be able to use unlimited amounts of data without overage charges, but for moments when the network is congested, traffic from heavy-data customers will move more slowly. Sprint said the policy operates in real time and only applies if a cell site is constrained. Performance for an affected customer returns to normal as soon as the local traffic returns to normal.
Doesn't seem all that diabolical. The alternative is the end of unlimited plans (which is probably coming anyway).
Exactly. And remember we are talking about wireless... In other words streaming to your cell phone. If you are streaming so much data to your phone that you are effecting other customers, there's no reason why you should not expect to be "prioritized".
Let's not start this ridiculous "they sold me unlimited and it's not", because we know that's not the case. There is no data cap, you just can't hog the pipe.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I don't use much (3-4gb a month), but i can easily see how someone could do more:
1) watching movies in bed
2) tethering from a coffee shop.
When you have unlimited, some habits also change...I have an unlimited plan now (promotion, obviously I wouldnt with my usage), and I'll do stuff like download a large game while walking to the subway because....I can.