- Jan 2, 2006
- 10,455
- 35
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At around 5-7GB of data usage I noticed that they seem to throttle you after about 5 minutes of sustained high speed download.
Meaning after 5-7GB, you download a large file or something for the first ~5 minutes at whatever your max speed is. And then after ~5 minutes it drops down to 5KB/s.
I was trying to download ~150MB files from my Amazon S3 server and they would practically die on me after 5 minutes. Just to make sure it wasn't a server issue, I did a SpeedTest after the throttle point and indeed it showed 5KB/s. If you *cancel* the download, wait a little bit, it will go back to around max speed.
I'm on chat with T-Mobile right now and they just said:
Juanpaolo Z: You are using the unlimited 4G service.
Juanpaolo Z: There's no throttle point for that rate plan."
You: So why am I being thottled?
You: Like I said, no matter where I am, what files I download, after the first 5 minutes download speeds drop to 5KB/s.
Juanpaolo Z: I checked your account and it has used 7.83GB of data.
You: Yes.
Juanpaolo Z: Let me double check if it has throttle point.
Juanpaolo Z: I do appreciate you for staying connected.
Juanpaolo Z: There's a 5GB throttle point for the $70 Unlimited 4G, Talk & Text Prepaid plan.
Juanpaolo Z: Once the 5GB is reached, the speed will change to 2G (basic).
So basically, from what the T-Mobile rep has told me, the $70 unlimited talk, text, and 4G data plan is actually unlimited talk and text and 5GB of 4G data and unlimited 2G (less than 5KB/s) afterwards. So unlike the $30 5GB 4G and 100 minutes/unlimited text plan, you pay $40 more a month for unlimited minutes, not more data. That's it.
Meaning after 5-7GB, you download a large file or something for the first ~5 minutes at whatever your max speed is. And then after ~5 minutes it drops down to 5KB/s.
I was trying to download ~150MB files from my Amazon S3 server and they would practically die on me after 5 minutes. Just to make sure it wasn't a server issue, I did a SpeedTest after the throttle point and indeed it showed 5KB/s. If you *cancel* the download, wait a little bit, it will go back to around max speed.
I'm on chat with T-Mobile right now and they just said:
Juanpaolo Z: You are using the unlimited 4G service.
Juanpaolo Z: There's no throttle point for that rate plan."
You: So why am I being thottled?
You: Like I said, no matter where I am, what files I download, after the first 5 minutes download speeds drop to 5KB/s.
Juanpaolo Z: I checked your account and it has used 7.83GB of data.
You: Yes.
Juanpaolo Z: Let me double check if it has throttle point.
Juanpaolo Z: I do appreciate you for staying connected.
Juanpaolo Z: There's a 5GB throttle point for the $70 Unlimited 4G, Talk & Text Prepaid plan.
Juanpaolo Z: Once the 5GB is reached, the speed will change to 2G (basic).
So basically, from what the T-Mobile rep has told me, the $70 unlimited talk, text, and 4G data plan is actually unlimited talk and text and 5GB of 4G data and unlimited 2G (less than 5KB/s) afterwards. So unlike the $30 5GB 4G and 100 minutes/unlimited text plan, you pay $40 more a month for unlimited minutes, not more data. That's it.
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