According to FierceWireless, an unnamed Straight Talk spokesperson has confirmed that the company does slow down or “throttle” data speeds of users who use “excessive” data on its “unlimited” prepaid service. The representative said that Straight Talk will call and warn the user before the slow down is imposed and that data consumption is evaluated on a case by case basis and there is no specific limit on data usage. Continuous video streaming and tethering were given as examples of prohibited usage that could lead to throttling.
The Straight Talk spokesperson emphasized that the vast majority of users do not experience throttling.
A number of users have reported being throttled to speeds of about 128 Kbps after using more than approximately 100 MB of data in a day or 1 GB in a plan month. Some received warning calls before being throttled but many say they did not.
The Straight Talk representative also confirmed that the personal hotspot feature is disabled on the iPhones that Straight Talk sells. That’s no surprise as Straight Talk’s Android phones always shipped with Android’s built in Wi-Fi hotspot feature disabled.
It’s good to see Straight Talk come clean on tethering even if only partially. Still I’d like them to follow the example of Sprint’s Boost and Virgin Mobile brands and explicitly state both the throttle point and throttled speed.
Source FierceWireless via PhoneNews
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