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Verizon throttling

Verizon throttling

Old Dec 12, 2019, 6:53 am
  #16  
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Originally Posted by vanillabean
I am reminded that the iPhone 6 released September 2014 is a year and a half older than the iPhone SE released March 2016.

When iOS 12.4.1 was released in August, I soon thought that was the end of my iPhone 6 being supported, and here we are, being given 12.4.4 yesterday.

This is the same iPhone 6 on 12.4.3 at a comfortable speed on VPN-boosted Verizon the other day. It looks like my upgrade can wait until September 2020.
I'm talking about hardware support for various radio frequency bands, not iOS software. The iPhone 6 supports all the main LTE bands Verizon uses except one. Verizon uses bands 2, 4, 5, 13, and 66. The Verizon iPhone 6 (model A1549) doesn't support band 66. But that may or may not be an issue in your particular case. They do use 66 to augment coverage so it might be deployed on the particular tower you were concerned with.

My example of the iPhone SE (which supports LTE bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 29) is that T-mobile has recently deployed 600 MHz coverage (in the old UHF TV frequencies, actually). This is referred to as LTE Band 71 - so my friend would get minimal T-mobile coverage here in Maine, for example, where Tmo has deployed Band 71 extensively.
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Old Dec 16, 2019, 4:21 pm
  #17  
 
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@gfunkdave: Overall, I've been very happy since switching to T-Mobile. T-Mobile also has a nice edge over Verizon in that their "3G" network is still pretty speedy (~10Mbps-25Mbps) compared to Verizon's decrepit CDMA2000 3G network (0.5Mbps).

My problems with poor coverage and speeds were with Verizon, who was actually TURNING OFF towers around Florida. I had just bought the latest & greatest Samsung Note phone about 4 months before they started doing this. At my office, cell coverage went from 3-4 bars of LTE to No Signal-0. Similar story for my homes in two other cities. After some back-and-forth with the Verizon techs, they sent an engineer out to two of the locations I was having trouble with and he confirmed my suspicions -- Verizon had intentionally dropped leased towers and hoped to make up the difference with their Verizon-owned facilities, which obviously didn't work. They told me they were building new facilities and hoped to have LTE coverage restored to some of the locations in 12-18 months. I said no way and they let me out of the contract on the phone after just 6 months and no back-charges.
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Old Dec 16, 2019, 4:26 pm
  #18  
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Yeah, it can be a slow process. Verizon is the big carrier that most insists on using all their own infrastructure. They don't even like to lease dark fiber from others (which the other three carriers do all the time). Instead, Verizon is embarking on a multi year multi billion dollar investment push to build fiber everywhere to serve business customers and Verizon cell sites.
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Old Dec 19, 2019, 12:32 pm
  #19  
 
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Originally Posted by vanillabean
What’s your take on Verizon throttling these days? My iPhone never gets past 5 mpbs anywhere in the U.S. With VPN turned on yesterday, it was up to 80 mbps. Have users been better off in the two years since the Federal Communications Commission voted in favor of repealing the net neutrality policies?
What speed testing service are you using?

Most verizon plans throttle "video" sites like netflix. If you are using Fast.com (netflix's speed test service), you'll be throttled as Verizon thinks you are streaming video. Turning on a VPN would bypass this throttle as you have noticed.

In my testing the Fast.com app tops out at 4mbps while on verizon LTE, fire up ExpressVPN on at the same location (weak signal) and I'm getting over 16mbps download speed
The ookla app shows me around 25mpbs in this same weak signal location while NOT on vpn.


download the Ookla speed test app, I find this more reliably shows the real speed as it isn't categorized by the providers in their data deprioritization schemes.
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Old Dec 19, 2019, 9:24 pm
  #20  
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Originally Posted by LordHamster
If you are using Fast.com (netflix's speed test service), you'll be throttled as Verizon thinks you are streaming video. ... download the Ookla speed test app ...
You nailed it. Thank you!
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Old Dec 20, 2019, 1:46 pm
  #21  
 
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Originally Posted by vanillabean
You nailed it. Thank you!
Needless to say, this means you aren't really being throttled except for streaming video. Something that can be easily bypassed by a VPN. That said, my eyes aren't good enough to distinguish between a 720p stream or a 1080p stream on my phone, so I never bother.
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Old Dec 24, 2019, 8:33 pm
  #22  
 
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Originally Posted by TWA884
I don't know where in Southern California you are located. In my neighborhood, in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains in the West San Fernando Valley, T-Mobile's reception is non-existent.
I have the same issue in burbs on the outskirts of Vegas. I'm no fan of VZ but the T-Mobile coverage was just nonexistent even in some populated areas where AT&T and VZ worked just fine.
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