Many telecommunications and broadband companies falsely advertise unlimited data packages to their customers. Unlimited data plans have to be one of the most banal myths among internet users. If you subscribe to an unlimited data plan, you will be provided with 25GB, for example, and as per terms and conditions, your data provider follows what is called “Fair Usage Policy”, in which it has the right to throttle your connection speed if you hit a certain data limit.
As for Verizon, and international telecommunications and technologies company, follows a fair usage policy when a customer reaches 22GB as stated on their website:
“ What happens after I use 22GB of data? Most of the time customers will enjoy the same great network experience once they exceed 22GB during a billing cycle. If you’ve already used 22GB on a particular line during your current billing cycle and you’re on a cell site that is congested at that moment, your download may be temporarily queued behind other Verizon Wireless customers, which may result in slightly slower download speeds.”
Verizon has come recently under fire when it was accused by many users that it intentionally slow down internet speed for Netflix and Youtube. The allegations were posted on Reddit, “Recently, user /u/iBen95111 has brought to our attention that Verizon may be manipulating user’s speeds when using streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube.”
Users have posted their test results online on fast.com and said that the speed is throttled at around 10 Mbps. One user posted “Confirmed it myself today. Running fast.com produces 9-12mbps, settles down to 10mbps. Running speedof.me, Speedtest, and coverage, produces speeds upwards of 60mbps.”
Verizon, however, denied intentionally slowing down speed for Neflix or Youtube in an official statement saying that they have been carrying out some tests on their network.
“We’ve been doing network testing over the past few days to optimize the performance of video applications on our network,” a Verizon spokesman told Fortune. “The testing should be completed shortly. The customer video experience was not affected.”
On the other hand, Netflix confirmed in an official statement that the slowness in speed is not from their end:
“We don’t cap data and don’t cap for any mobile network,” a spokesman said. “We offer settings inside the Netflix app to empower our members to control their own quality preferences and data usage.”
These allegations came after the controversial debate to roll back Obama’s net neutrality rules which would allow internet service providers and telecommunications companies to divide the internet into lanes and throttle internet speed in return for fees.
