Is Sprint Throttling LTE?

[S4GRU]

 

Galaxy S3. I'm sorry, I'm too much of a noob to understand how to check signal strength, but when I'd do speed tests on LTE, I'd get 4-5 Mbps and then as soon as I try to watch slingbox, the picture was horrible and stuttered a lot. So I would close the app and sure enough, back down to 3G, and very slow speeds on 3G.

Yeah, you probably have a very weak LTE signal. The "bars" do not show LTE signal strength, even when the 4G icon is on. It is only showing 1x voice signal strength. You can read about how to tell your LTE signal strength here: http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/2040-bars-lie-for-lte-signal-strength-how-to-determine-your-actual-lte-signal-strength/

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

[ks-man]

Reopening this old thread of mine.  Was reading that Sprint now may limit video streaming to 1mbps and I read on some other forums that they have always been doing this.  It certainly seems that way based on my experiences.

[BenChase7]

Reopening this old thread of mine.  Was reading that Sprint now may limit video streaming to 1mbps and I read on some other forums that they have always been doing this.  It certainly seems that way based on my experiences.

I've never experienced such a thing.

[Vince]

It's actually in the terms and conditions for the "unlimited for life plans" that you can have your video streaming throttled. It also says that other customers (presumably on older plans) can get top network priority. I've wondered for months if there is some kind of weird software glitch in place here in Chicago that is giving us horrible LTE download speeds.

[anthony.spina97]

Reopening this old thread of mine.  Was reading that Sprint now may limit video streaming to 1mbps and I read on some other forums that they have always been doing this.  It certainly seems that way based on my experiences.

I seem to of experienced this, considering I can get 15+ Mbps down on a speedtest, yet my video plays in 240p or 144p on Youtube. Sprint is only doing it on the new Unlimited My Way and All-In plans I believe.

[centermedic]

I have definitely suffered from buffet bloat before.

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

If you get bloated at the buffet then you are not doing it right!

[S4GRU]

I believe that the Sprint throttling of video on the new unlimited for life plans is set for 1Mbps. It is designed so people will not try to tether an HD 1080p television to their phone and bog down the network. Because Sprint has to find ways to battle the abusers who think they can do anything with their unlimited data, even things that are not allowed per their terms and conditions.

 

And streaming video is not always throttled with unlimited for life customers. Only when needed to preserve network performance. However, it seems some heavy streaming users may be getting flagged and always have throttled streaming video.

 

And for 90% of customers, 1Mbps of streaming video will be ample for use on a smartphone screen. That's what Sprint is aiming for. Allowing customers to still use unlimited streaming on their smartphones while limiting the bandwidth abusers can take away from all other customers.

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

[anthony.spina97]

And streaming video is not always throttled with unlimited for life customers. Only when needed to preserve network performance. However, it seems some heavy streaming users may be getting flagged and always have throttled streaming video.

Yeah that makes sense, when I'm getting throttled it only happens when I'm in a big city with a lot of people using the network. 1 Mbps is good enough

[The Dave]

I haven't experienced throttling that I can tell, but I also have an older plan and it also doesn't seem like the network here in Florida is too congested. Once tri-band becomes more commonplace, I don't see as much trouble for the network to keep up overall. If a stream did need to be throttled, though, I'd rather it be set to 1 mbps than a free for all and yielding 0.1 mbps.

 

What I think happened originally when this was posted is that the network was still young and not as many towers were using LTE, so the towers that were happened to be overburdened.

[JWMaloney]

Sprint Turns Up the Volume on 3G and 4G LTE in Chicago

 

 

The guarantee will apply to customers as long as they remain on the plan, meet the terms and conditions of the plan and pay their bill in full and on time. Price and phone selection are subject to change. Other plans may receive prioritized bandwidth availability. Streaming video speeds may be limited to 1 Mbps.

[Vince]

Sprint Turns Up the Volume on 3G and 4G LTE in Chicago

Another vague press release from Sprint. How about the LTE 800 activation date? At least an estimate.

[SWMich4G]

I wish they'd throttle connections to speedtest.net so people would stop wasting bandwidth doing 8 tests in an hour.

[JWMaloney]

I wish they'd throttle connections to speedtest.net so people would stop wasting bandwidth doing 8 tests in an hour.

 

I wish more people would switch to the FCC Speed Test app to keep the carriers honest.

[digiblur]

Another vague press release from Sprint. How about the LTE 800 activation date? At least an estimate.

Yet many markets are waiting on 1x800 and some 1900 NV 1x.

[richy]

hmm perhaps it has something to do with the fact the network is nearly symmetrical but usage is naturally asymmetrical? i.e. 10mhz up 10 mhz down, even factoring in less efficient use of phone > site (lower transmit power correct?), the site > phone connection can suffer saturation that wouldn't affect the reverse path right?  Put simply folks download more than they upload, so assuming no other limiting factor it's possible for only one direction to be congested, especially where the two paths are similar in capacity?? 

 

Please feel free to tear this apart This is just a guess \ suggestion based on work in a datacenter rather than a statement of fact. We would routinely see the inverse, over 10x the egress than ingress causing congestion on links that test fine the other way. 

[Deval]

hmm perhaps it has something to do with the fact the network is nearly symmetrical but usage is naturally asymmetrical? i.e. 10mhz up 10 mhz down, even factoring in less efficient use of phone > site (lower transmit power correct?), the site > phone connection can suffer saturation that wouldn't affect the reverse path right?  Put simply folks download more than they upload, so assuming no other limiting factor it's possible for only one direction to be congested, especially where the two paths are similar in capacity?? 

 

Please feel free to tear this apart This is just a guess \ suggestion based on work in a datacenter rather than a statement of fact. We would routinely see the inverse, over 10x the egress than ingress causing congestion on links that test fine the other way. 

 

That usually works in a TDD environment, not FDD. Since our 1900mhz LTE is deployed in FDD, there is a lane blocked for both uplink and downlink, regardless of use. 

 

In a TDD model, devices are assigned time slots, not frequency slots, so more users can jump on at a given moment, and you can allocate bandwidth differently. 

[richy]

That usually works in a TDD environment, not FDD. Since our 1900mhz LTE is deployed in FDD, there is a lane blocked for both uplink and downlink, regardless of use. 

 

In a TDD model, devices are assigned time slots, not frequency slots, so more users can jump on at a given moment, and you can allocate bandwidth differently. 

Thanks,  that was how understood it worked (apologies if my post was unclear),  so it is possible for download rates to be affected by a congested channel whilst upload rates are fine because that channel is naturally used less but of near equal capacity?

[Deval]

Thanks,  that was how understood it worked (apologies if my post was unclear),  so it is possible for download rates to be affected by a congested channel whilst upload rates are fine because that channel is naturally used less but of near equal capacity?

 

Yes sir, that's why during peak hours of usage, you can see speedtest results which show lower downlink than uplink speeds.

[Guest DigiClaws]

Will Sprint throttle your data speed (LTE) if you hit a certain threshold of data accumulated?

[Dkoellerwx]

Will Sprint throttle your data speed (LTE) if you hit a certain threshold of data accumulated?

 

No.

 

Unless unauthorized tethering is involved. In which case your account could be terminated. 

[Marv1]

Thanks for the explanation.  I was wondering why I had way low download speeds vs upload these past 3 days.

[Guest DigiClaws]

Well I am not tethering. I'm only downloading music to my new phone. Granted I'm at 9GB since I got my phone two weeks ago. I am definitely being throttled to around 2MB on the download. This is definitely a first.

[anthony.spina97]

Well I am not tethering. I'm only downloading music to my new phone. Granted I'm at 9GB since I got my phone two weeks ago. I am definitely being throttled to around 2MB on the download. This is definitely a first.

If you are downloading at 2 MB/S (MegaBYTES per second), then that means you're getting great LTE speeds. 2 MB/S equates to roughly 16 Mbps (MegaBITS per second), which is well above what Sprint is advertising for LTE.

 

-Anthony

[utiz4321]

Well I am not tethering. I'm only downloading music to my new phone. Granted I'm at 9GB since I got my phone two weeks ago. I am definitely being throttled to around 2MB on the download. This is definitely a first.

And how do you know exactly you are being throttled? Simply seeing speeds around 2mb isn't really proof. Maybe there are a few other people who like to clog lte by constantly downloading music (or videos). And why not download music (I assuming torrents) to your PC?

[Guest DigiClaws]

Anthony....sorry, 2Mbps.

 

Utiz....Band 41 pretty much blankets DFW. I have Band 41 to and from work. Haven't received less than 15Mbps on Band 41. Plus the average of 2Mbps on speed tests on the way home. Hard to believe people are bogging down the network on my way home.