Sprint introduces mobile data throttling on Virgin Mobile US

US MOBILE OPERATOR Sprint has chosen its virtual network brand Virgin Mobile US to trial bandwidth throttling.

Sprint and its offshoot Virgin Mobile are among the last major wireless providers in the US still offering unlimited data tariffs to its customers. Now Sprint has chosen Virgin Mobile, which is marketed as a cheap and cheerful virtual mobile network, to test the waters with bandwidth throttling.

Virgin Mobile US will still market the data allowance on its tariff as unlimited, which technically it is, but said that users who exceed 2.5GB in a month will have their speeds cut. The throttling will begin in October and the firm claims this will affect only three per cent of its customers.

In introducing its mobile throttling, Virgin Mobile's parent operator Sprint decided it would be best to highlight its competitors' failings, saying that AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon had all ceased their unlimited data plans. The company said that while it will impose bandwidth throttling after 2.5GB, it will not add bandwidth overage charges and that it will lift the data rate limit at the start of the following month.

Virgin Mobile claims that bandwidth throttling is the fairest way to ensure that the majority of its customers will receive good service. Being fair to Virgin Mobile US and Sprint, although throttling is something that no customer wants to see, it is a whole lot better than employing pitiful data usage limits that require the customer to supplement the default data limit with rip-off overage charges, or 'bolt-ons'.

The question Virgin Media customers will want answered is just how aggressive the throttling will be. Virgin Media said that users that have their bandwidth throttled "may experience slower page loads, file downloads and streaming media", but this does nothing to clear up customers' concerns. If customers can expect speeds of around 200Kbits/s then few will have cause to complain, as that's enough to handle email and light web browsing.

British punters will look on with interest, as currently most mobile operators offer laughable mobile data quotas and yet peddle smartphones that require high bandwidth and liberal data quota plans in order to truly function. For those Brits stuck with a 500MB monthly data cap, the chance to have 2.5GB and then some more at a cut down transfer rate sounds mighty generous. µ