4 ms·

The "we'll throttle you after nnn Gb" is supposed to be the regulator. If they promise me 10Gb of full-rate data, it shouldn't matter whether I burn it in 30 m

by hakfoo 2y ago

The "we'll throttle you after nnn Gb" is supposed to be the regulator. If they promise me 10Gb of full-rate data, it shouldn't matter whether I burn it in 30 minutes running rsync on a tethered laptop, or over 30 days of doomscrolling. Once it ticks down to the throttled 128kbps rate, then I have to decide to find a different plan. That's something they could be clear about. Instead, it tends to be buried at the bottom of a bunch of obtuse "It's unlimited, for specific values of unlimited, and here are 82 other aspects that aren't quota or bandwidth numbers that make comparison shopping difficult" statements.

dangus 2y ago
It’s not really buried at all. It’s right there on the basic plan descriptions for the big 3 carriers. The big 3 US carriers basically tell you that data used by the phone is unlimited with no significant throttling, and that tethering is a separate data quota with more significant throttling after your allowance. The reason this matters is that the aggregate sum of their customers aren’t realistically able to burn so much bandwidth on their smartphones that it causes issues, but someone using a tether could literally run all their home internet including hundreds of gigabytes of streaming TV that is never shut off off of a phone plugged into the wall and used as a router. But the phone company also doesn’t really want to make customers on actual smartphones have to think about data allowance on their unlimited plans. They would rather base plan tiers off of things like video download quality which are drivers of bandwidth usage and are easier to understand to the layperson. It’s could be an analogy to the same reason your car insurance company doesn’t want to insure your car if you’re using it for business purposes, because they know the costs and risks for someone using a vehicle for business are different than someone using a car for personal use, just the same way that someone using a phone to tether to a laptop is inevitably going to have a different usage pattern than someone with a smartphone in their pocket.
- musicale 2y ago
  > The big 3 US carriers basically tell you that data used by the phone is unlimited with no significant throttling, AT&T definitely throttles you (and sends threatening messages) if (for example) you get a new iPhone and your apps and music library start syncing to it (as they might.) Note by default apps over 200MB aren't downloaded over cellular, but if you have a lot of ~200MB apps that can still add up quickly... I miss the days when you could actually back up your apps (as well as their data) to local storage. I still have copies of apps (most of which paid Apple money for) which have been removed from the app store, or no longer work on current iOS. ;-(

by hakfoo 2y ago

dangus 2y ago

It’s not really buried at all. It’s right there on the basic plan descriptions for the big 3 carriers. The big 3 US carriers basically tell you that data used by the phone is unlimited with no significant throttling, and that tethering is a separate data quota with more significant throttling after your allowance. The reason this matters is that the aggregate sum of their customers aren’t realistically able to burn so much bandwidth on their smartphones that it causes issues, but someone using a tether could literally run all their home internet including hundreds of gigabytes of streaming TV that is never shut off off of a phone plugged into the wall and used as a router. But the phone company also doesn’t really want to make customers on actual smartphones have to think about data allowance on their unlimited plans. They would rather base plan tiers off of things like video download quality which are drivers of bandwidth usage and are easier to understand to the layperson. It’s could be an analogy to the same reason your car insurance company doesn’t want to insure your car if you’re using it for business purposes, because they know the costs and risks for someone using a vehicle for business are different than someone using a car for personal use, just the same way that someone using a phone to tether to a laptop is inevitably going to have a different usage pattern than someone with a smartphone in their pocket.

musicale 2y ago
> The big 3 US carriers basically tell you that data used by the phone is unlimited with no significant throttling, AT&T definitely throttles you (and sends threatening messages) if (for example) you get a new iPhone and your apps and music library start syncing to it (as they might.) Note by default apps over 200MB aren't downloaded over cellular, but if you have a lot of ~200MB apps that can still add up quickly... I miss the days when you could actually back up your apps (as well as their data) to local storage. I still have copies of apps (most of which paid Apple money for) which have been removed from the app store, or no longer work on current iOS. ;-(