Verizon will throttle LTE for heavy users of unlimited data

If you're still on an unlimited data plan from Verizon, there's some pretty bad news coming your way.

Your carrier of choice has decided it's time to take its efforts to get you off unlimited data to the next level. And that is throttling 4G LTE speeds for the heaviest data users.

The new policy will go into effect on October 1. From that date on, when the network gets crowded in any particular area, customers who pay for data buckets (no matter how big or small) will get priority over people who are still on the now-extinct unlimited data plans that Verizon used to offer a few years ago.

Those who will see slower speeds will only be the top 5% in terms of monthly data usage. Though when your allowance is truly unlimited, you're bound to use more data compared to people who are on the new plans that have a set amount of traffic in them.

Right now, these 'top 5%' are users who go through 4.7GB of data or more - each and every month. Obviously though, that number could change on a month by month basis.

Verizon has actually done the exact same thing back in 2011, yet so far the limitations have only applied to its 3G network. The carrier cutely calls this Network Optimization. And this fall it will apply to 4G data too.

This move may have something to do with how much more LTE is used nowadays, when 76% of the traffic that Verizon sees uses that high-speed network.

Source | Via