4 ms·

Indeed. And much like high-speed highway driving, if my iphone 4s were to use its full internet bandwidth, i would be a mortal danger to my fellow man. Oh wait.

rayiner 13y ago
No, but you might negatively impact the user experience of someone else in your cell sector. It's about system design. Your phone is just a way to access AT&T's wireless network. As the designer of that system, AT&T is entitled to control how your devices access it to optimize overall performance.
- pavanky 13y ago
  This would make sense if other phones are throttled similarly. And the article suggests they are not. (an android user)
- glesica 13y ago
  It's not the fact that they throttle. It's the fact that they hide the fact that they throttle.
- kelnos 13y ago
  Then the designer did a shitty job. They should be throttling at the towers if and when doing so is necessary. They shouldn't have devices (which by definition they cannot trust to do the right thing) do the throttling for them -- especially when they don't even have all devices (e.g. Android) set up to do throttling.
coldtea 13y ago
>Indeed. And much like high-speed highway driving, if my iphone 4s were to use its full internet bandwidth, i would be a mortal danger to my fellow man. Oh wait. It would be a total annoyance of your fellow subscribers to the same network. Maybe not a car accident, but a lot like traffic congestion. I mean, since capacity does not grow on trees, and it is not that easy or cheap to expand it.
- pavanky 13y ago
  You are not going to be using the peak capacity constantly. If you are listening to music / watching videos, then the rate at which you are downloading is limited to the quality of those streams which is often not close to the peak. If you are downloading an app, it can use peak bandwidth, but you are done in seconds. If you are browsing the internet, you are not bothering anyone at all. The only issue I see is if you are torrenting from your phone. How many people would you see doing that ?

rayiner 13y ago

No, but you might negatively impact the user experience of someone else in your cell sector. It's about system design. Your phone is just a way to access AT&T's wireless network. As the designer of that system, AT&T is entitled to control how your devices access it to optimize overall performance.

pavanky 13y ago
This would make sense if other phones are throttled similarly. And the article suggests they are not. (an android user)
glesica 13y ago
It's not the fact that they throttle. It's the fact that they hide the fact that they throttle.
kelnos 13y ago
Then the designer did a shitty job. They should be throttling at the towers if and when doing so is necessary. They shouldn't have devices (which by definition they cannot trust to do the right thing) do the throttling for them -- especially when they don't even have all devices (e.g. Android) set up to do throttling.

coldtea 13y ago

>Indeed. And much like high-speed highway driving, if my iphone 4s were to use its full internet bandwidth, i would be a mortal danger to my fellow man. Oh wait. It would be a total annoyance of your fellow subscribers to the same network. Maybe not a car accident, but a lot like traffic congestion. I mean, since capacity does not grow on trees, and it is not that easy or cheap to expand it.

pavanky 13y ago
You are not going to be using the peak capacity constantly. If you are listening to music / watching videos, then the rate at which you are downloading is limited to the quality of those streams which is often not close to the peak. If you are downloading an app, it can use peak bandwidth, but you are done in seconds. If you are browsing the internet, you are not bothering anyone at all. The only issue I see is if you are torrenting from your phone. How many people would you see doing that ?