Sprint will soon begin throttling heavy data users in congested areas
For many, it was Sprint’s saving grace: “unlimited” data free from the shackles of caps and throttling that have become the norm with their rivals. It seems all good things must come to an end, as the folks at FierceWireless are now reporting that Sprint — as well as its subsidiaries like Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile — will soon begin throttling users on its network.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Apparently this will only affect the top 5% of users on its network, and while an exact number of bits wasn’t provided, Sprint did confirm that those exceeding around 5GB+ of data per month could be targeted. Sprint also mentions that throttling will only occur in some of their more congested markets, a way to free up and spread out some of that bandwidth to its other customers as part of the carrier’s “prioritization management” plan.
Sprint has already begun sending out SMS messages to their worst offenders, notifying them to slow things down before they begin restricting data speeds. We expect to soon find a few more asterisks and fine print added to signage in the coming weeks. “Truly unlimited data… mostly.”