Verizon to begin throttling its highest data users

Important Information about Verizon Wireless Data Plans and Features
As part of our continuing efforts to provide the best experience to our more than 94 million customers, Verizon Wireless is introducing two new network management practices. 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

If you subscribe to a Data Plan or Feature on February 3, 2011 or after, the following applies:
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.

Continue reading: Previous Page

About The Author

Kelly Hodgkins

Kelly spent the last four years covering mobile technology at places like BGR, Gizmodo and The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Before writing, she spent a few years working with and teaching others how to use Adobe Flash and Macromedia Director. Even earlier than that, she spent several years as a Ph.D student in Microbiology. When she's not writing, she can be found fishing the lakes and hiking the mountains of Western Maine with her husband and tribe of children. You can follow her on Twitter @kellyhodgkins.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1324502085 Jordan McMahon

This is stupid. People who drive hummers aren’t forced to use shittier gas simply because their car uses more of it.
If you’re paying for the data, you should get the same speeds as anyone else.
- Shifty
  
  Moron.
  - Dude
    
    I agree with Shifty’s succinct comment. To make the original analogy actually relevant…its not about the quality of the gas, its about the size of the road. If 95% of the cars on the road fit within the lanes, it makes no sense to make the road wider over its entire length for the 5% of overcompensating douche-bags who don’t understand the mechanics of need vs desire. Every driver would all pay for the needs of a 5% minority if Jordan’s desire’s were met.
    
    Get a fat pipe if you want gobs of bandwidth, and pay a premium. Its reasonable, not stupid.
http://twitter.com/AZjbc Janet Carney

Anyone else get the AWFUL change when you updated your Android w Verizon and it changed the dial pad to BLACK, AND IN THE SUN YOU CAN’T SEE IT ! and you can’t change it.. already called “they are working on it . . .
Guest

The guys at CERN (yes, that Large Hadron Collider place) have basically had to invent a newer internet capable of handling all the data the LHC will put of into their many, many networked PCs that’s in place to gather all this data. I think it was mentioned that a HD movie sent and downloaded in under 30 seconds.

Let’s use that, wifi the whole damn place with mesh networks, and toss the cellular data providers on top of the 8-track heap. It’s obvious they aren’t up to the task in a nation where we all want netflix, kids using tablets in schools and vocal Facebook updates beamed to your car.
Fed up

Verizon, cable internet companies and all the rest are doing nothing different here than just taking a page from the big 3 business model book. The rest of the world can get cars that do 60 mpg, but hit the shores of a country where a vehicle, not train, is the dominant mode of transport and all the sudden they’re struggling to get 23mpg.
Are we that ass backwards here now that we can’t manage better data speeds than we do yet Switzerland can top it by a factor of 5? Does technological know-how suddenly fall into some mysterious blackhole once you arrive in the U.S.? I think not and seeing that Verizon and others profit margins are just about as high as the oil companies tells the tale.