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Virgin Mobile starts throttling smartphone users March 23

Categories: Mobile Web, Virgin Mobile
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 at 4:24 PM
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Virgin Mobile announced that it will start throttling its smartphone customers that use the most data per month beginning March 23.

Throttling, in case you aren’t familiar with the word (by now, you probably are), means Virgin Mobile will slow down your Internet speeds to avoid overcrowding its network. Indeed, Virgin Mobile claims the change is “to make sure we can keep offering our Beyond Talk Plans at such great prices.” That’s PR-talk for “Hey, we’re trying here.”

Most Virgin Mobile customers won’t be affected by the throttling, however. The carrier will only flip the switch on lower data speeds for customers that use over 2.5GB of data per month and Virgin Mobile says that’s less than 3 percent of its customer base. If you are impacted, Virgin Mobile will send you a text message warning you that you’ve passed 2.5GB of data and to prepare to crawl through the rest of the month.

So, just how slow will the Internet connection get once the throttling begins? Data speeds will drop to 256Kbps or lower. Ouch.

Virgin Mobile originally planned to start throttling its smartphone users in October 2011, so heavy users should be pleased with the delay. Throttling will officially start on March 23rd, which is more than enough time to check your monthly usage and determine if you need to make any adjustments.

[via Phone Scoop]

About The Author

George Tinari

George has followed technology news for quite some time, but he only started writing about it a few years ago. He particularly enjoys covering Apple, but that doesn't stop him from reporting on a wide range of topics in the mobile area. When he's not reporting for IntoMobile, you can usually find George listening to a wide array of music, trying to be funny and sarcastic, eating, or voicing his opinions about all things tech on his personal blog, GT Daily.

  • http://twitter.com/AvvasiVideoQoE Avvasi Incorporated

    Interesting news, which should come as no surprise. Understandably, Virgin Mobile is doing what they can to help cut down on network congestion. With reports stating that the top one percent of mobile internet users are consuming over half of the world’s data, makes sense to cap their downloads & slow down speeds. However, others argue that heavy users aren’t to blame for overcrowding. They believe the issue is simply usage during peak hours (85.3% of bandwidth used by non-heavy users at these times). Is there another way to deal with network congestion without affecting customers?