Virgin And Boost Mobile To Enact Stricter Throttling On May 6th (Updated)
Humberto Saabedra
Both Virgin and Boost Mobile have begun sending messages to current customers warning that both brands will enact stricter throttling policies beginning on May 6th. While no specific reason was given for the policy changes other than quality of service maintenance, both brands are and have been at the mercy of parent Sprint in terms of network performance, which has led to many complaints over the past 2 years. Below, the statement being sent out:
Effective 5/6/14, if you reach 2.5GB of combined 3G/4G data during your monthly plan cycle, your data speeds will be reduced to 2G speeds for the rest of that monthly plan. During this time, you may experience slower page loads and file downloads, and lags in streaming media. Data speeds will return to normal as soon as your next monthly plan starts. If you’d rather not wait for your new month to start, you can restart your plan immediately through My Account.How will I know if my data speeds have been reduced?If you are close to reaching 2.5GB of data in a month, you will receive a text message alerting you. Once you reach the 2.5GB limit, you will receive a text message letting you know your data speeds will be reduced for the rest of your plan month. You can check how much data you’ve used at any time during the month by logging into My Account and checking Data & Web history.By putting this data speed reduction in place, we’re making sure we can deliver the same quality of service to all of our nationwide customers – we appreciate your understanding at this time.
Sprint defines 2G speeds as below 3G EVDO, or less than the 256Kbps speeds that throttled customers were previously subjected to under the old rules. Sprint, Boost and Virgin Mobile have yet to officially comment on the changes.
Update: Since this article, Sprint has released the following statement to the wider media about the changes –
“This change comes about because of the enormous data usage driven by the increasingly sophisticated smartphones we make available, and the more extensive uses customers are finding for these devices. We want to be able to serve customers who use our unlimited plans for their daily activity.”
The changes will now go into effect on the 16th of May and not the 6th, as originally written in the notice and speeds will now be throttled to 128Kbps, or around the maximum for the older 1xRTT service.
