Verizon is preparing to throttle 4G LTE unlimited data users

Starting October 1, Verizon customers on unlimited data plans that meet certain criteria will see their 4G LTE wireless connection throttled as part of what the carrier calls "Network Optimization," a practice that previously only affected 3G connections.

The good news is that the list of criteria that must be met for speed reduction to occur is pretty lengthy. Here's the full rundown according to Verizon:

Top 5% of data users (you use 4.7GB of data per month or more)Enrolled on an unlimited data plan or featureHave fulfilled their minimum contract termAre attempting to use data on a cell site that is experiencing high demand

Keep in mind that a customer must meet all of the above criteria before reduced speeds kick in. Also, once a user has been throttled, they may continue to be impacted for the rest of the current billing cycle and through the next billing cycle.

The key here seems to be whether or not you're on a high demand network or not. Verizon doesn't consider this to be true throttling as speeds aren't reduced for the entire billing cycle, 100 percent of the time. For example, if you are a heavy data user and there's plenty of available bandwidth, your speeds won't be impacted.

Unlimited data plans were once an effective marketing method but as we slowly transitioned to a data-heavy society, carriers realized they could make more money by eliminating unlimited data plans and moving customers to tiered plans where they can charge a lot for overages.

According to DroidLife, more than 20 percent of Verizon data customers are still on unlimited plans. Verizon, however, claims this figure isn't accurate and the actual percentage is lower.

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Verizon is preparing to throttle 4G LTE unlimited data users

Starting October 1, Verizon customers on unlimited data plans that meet certain criteria will see their 4G LTE wireless connection throttled as part of what the carrier calls "Network Optimization," a practice that previously only affected 3G connections.

The good news is that the list of criteria that must be met for speed reduction to occur is pretty lengthy. Here's the full rundown according to Verizon:

Top 5% of data users (you use 4.7GB of data per month or more)Enrolled on an unlimited data plan or featureHave fulfilled their minimum contract termAre attempting to use data on a cell site that is experiencing high demand

Keep in mind that a customer must meet all of the above criteria before reduced speeds kick in. Also, once a user has been throttled, they may continue to be impacted for the rest of the current billing cycle and through the next billing cycle.

The key here seems to be whether or not you're on a high demand network or not. Verizon doesn't consider this to be true throttling as speeds aren't reduced for the entire billing cycle, 100 percent of the time. For example, if you are a heavy data user and there's plenty of available bandwidth, your speeds won't be impacted.

Unlimited data plans were once an effective marketing method but as we slowly transitioned to a data-heavy society, carriers realized they could make more money by eliminating unlimited data plans and moving customers to tiered plans where they can charge a lot for overages.

According to DroidLife, more than 20 percent of Verizon data customers are still on unlimited plans. Verizon, however, claims this figure isn't accurate and the actual percentage is lower.

Next China Telecom to carry Xbox One starting this SeptemberPrev Phone unlocking to become legal in the United States again

View the original article here

Verizon FiOS rolling out symmetrical upload speeds at no additional charge

Verizon on Monday announced its FiOS Internet service is getting a speed boost. Instead of upping download speeds (which are already plenty fast over the fiber connection), the company is tackling a facet that's often overlooked - upload speeds.

In a rollout that begins today, Verizon is matching its upload speeds to its download speeds for new and existing customers at no extra charge. For example, customers with a 50 Mbps connection previously had an upload speed of 25 Mbps. Following the update, their new upload speed will also be 50 Mbps.

FiOS is rolling out symmetrical upload speeds for customers across the board up to the top 500 Mbps speed tier. At the top speed, a customer could upload 200 photos (1GB) in four seconds, a 1-hour HD movie (3GB) in under 50 seconds and 10GB of data to the cloud in just 2.7 minutes.

While services like Google Fiber may have FiOS beat, that's still a ridiculously fast connection.

Robert Mudge, Verizon's president of consumer and mass business markets and the top FiOS boss, said the upgrade to offer symmetrical upload speeds required an almost insignificant investment on their part. Traditional cable operators, meanwhile, would need to spend a lot more green in order to offer symmetrical upload speeds.

Mudge and others believe that upload speeds will become increasingly more important over the coming years as video chat services and large file sharing in the cloud becomes even more prevalent. Verizon even expects upload traffic to double by the end of 2016.

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Verizon launches Smart Rewards program, but there's a (privacy) catch

Verizon has unveiled a nationwide loyalty program for its subscribers in which customers can earn points in a number of different ways that can be exchanged for a variety of rewards. The Smart Rewards program will be available to customers with post-paid accounts starting July 24 but before you decide to sign up, there's one big catch that you need to be aware of.

Activities that accrue points include signing in to the My Verizon online account management tool, paying your monthly bill, choosing paperless billing and using the Verizon Trade In program, just to name a few.

Once points have been accumulated, they can be used for things like discounts on hotel rooms, car rentals or select products from Verizon's catalog. What's more, points can also be used to bid on items in auctions hosted on Verizon's website.

Here's the big catch: customers wishing to participate in the program will need to enroll in Verizon Selects, a targeted marketing program that uses location, web browsing and mobile application usage data to generate advertisements based on user interests.

We're told that you can expect at least 10,000 bonus points for signing up for the Verizon Selects program. Users can leave the program at any time and remain in the Smart Rewards program although sticking around will net additional monthly bonus points.

Would you be willing to opt-in to such a marketing program and have you location and data usage knowingly tracked in exchange for reward points?

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