스프린트와 부스트 모바일 등 스프린트 네트워크를 사용하는 프리페이드 업체들 모두
상위 5% 의 데이터 헤비유저들의 제제가 6월 1일 부터 시작될 예정입니다.
Those new Virgin Mobile
data management rulesthat we covered yesterday will apply to Boost Mobileand Sprint
Prepaid and postpaid customers too. FierceWireless is reporting that Sprint and Boost customers are receiving text messages advising them of the change, which is effective June 1, 2014. The messages direct customers to verbose Web pages detailing Sprint's Web Management policies. The pages for Boost, Virgin and Sprint brands all contain identical new clauses reading;
To more fairly allocate network resources in times of congestion, customers falling within the top 5% of data users may be prioritized below other customers attempting to access network resources, resulting in a reduction of throughput or speed as compared to performance on non-congested sites.
Though the exact amount of data used before a customer falls within the top 5% of data users will vary from month to month, currently customers who typically use 5 GB or more in a given month are likely to fall within the top 5% of data users.
The top 5% of data users will be determined on a monthly basis. If a customer is identified as falling within the top 5% of data users, the customer will be subject to network prioritization for the following month.
It's hard to say what exactly what impact these new policies have on users until they go into effect next month. But what Sprint is saying they will do is clear, each month the top 5% data users will be identified and during the following month those users speeds will be throttled whenever the network segment they are connected to is congested. This new throttling happen to these users even if they haven't used up their current hi-speed data allotment which is 2.5GB on Virgin Mobile and Sprint prepaid and 500MB to 5GB depending on plan with Boost. This change also brings the era of unlimited high-speed data on Sprint postpaid to an end.
As FierceWireless points out, what Sprint is doing isn't new. Verizon and AT&T have had similar data management policies in place since 2011 and T-Mobile assigns lower priority to prepaid plans.
Unlimited mobile data is an increasingly endangered species. The carriers initially used cheap unlimited data to sell the public on always connected smartphones and tablets. Now that we're sold, and with voice and messaging revenue declining operators are cashing in on the demand for data. At least AT&T and Verizon prepaid are. Both will let you buy more high speed data for $10/GB. Boost and Virgin will let users pay to start a new month when their plan's included high speed data allotment is used up. But it's not clear if starting a new month will restore normal priority to a user in the top 5% data users group.
