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I'm on a totally unlimited phone plan (talk, text, data & hotspot) and been using this for almost a year now. But up until sometime last week my internet speeds have plummeted. I get anywhere from 100kbps to 35kbps download speeds, yet my upload speeds will often be 1mbps or more.

I've done the run around several times with customer service. Restart phone, factory reset, removing sim card etc. The company said "we've checked the networks and everything is fine, it must be your phone." Ok well there were plenty of things I didn't like about my old phone anyways so I bought a new one.

Phone came in today, put in my SIM and boom, still slow speeds. fucking hell. So I get back in touch with the company and explain, and now they tell me "well it must be your SIM card then, you'll need to get a new one sent out and we'll have to suspend your current SIM card until then." So I told them to hold off on the SIM card at the moment while I dig around.

I'm not really huge on phones so I don't know much about them, but from what I've been reading it seems a SIM card doesn't really affect your internet speeds, and if they go bad they just stop working.

BUT the interesting thing is- if I turn off my phone, remove the SIM card, wait 30 seconds or so and reinsert and reboot the phone, my internet speeds will then jump up to 1-3mbps download. My faster speeds stick around for maybe 10 minutes or so then out of the blue they slow back down to 100kbps.

So my question to the tech savvy (and tldr) is:

1) Can an old SIM card cause an issue with data speeds?

and

2) Why does removing the SIM card and rebooting my phone temporarily boosts my speeds back to normal?

My gut tells me my 50gb+ monthly data usage has thrown a red flag and now they're throttling the fuck out of my unlimited data speed, and rebooting the SIM card temporarily bypasses the throttling. But of course their reps told me they don't throttle speeds. Maybe my SIM card really does have an issue and I'm just being cynical. Interested in hearing the opinions of those more educated in this department

I'm on a totally unlimited phone plan (talk, text, data & hotspot) and been using this for almost a year now. But up until sometime last week my internet speeds have plummeted. I get anywhere from 100kbps to 35kbps download speeds, yet my upload speeds will often be 1mbps or more. I've done the run around several times with customer service. Restart phone, factory reset, removing sim card etc. The company said "we've checked the networks and everything is fine, it must be your phone." Ok well there were plenty of things I didn't like about my old phone anyways so I bought a new one. Phone came in today, put in my SIM and boom, still slow speeds. fucking hell. So I get back in touch with the company and explain, and now they tell me "well it must be your SIM card then, you'll need to get a new one sent out and we'll have to suspend your current SIM card until then." So I told them to hold off on the SIM card at the moment while I dig around. I'm not really huge on phones so I don't know much about them, but from what I've been reading it seems a SIM card doesn't really affect your internet speeds, and if they go bad they just stop working. BUT the interesting thing is- if I turn off my phone, remove the SIM card, wait 30 seconds or so and reinsert and reboot the phone, my internet speeds will then jump up to 1-3mbps download. My faster speeds stick around for maybe 10 minutes or so then out of the blue they slow back down to 100kbps. ----------------- So my question to the tech savvy (and tldr) is: 1) Can an old SIM card cause an issue with data speeds? and 2) Why does removing the SIM card and rebooting my phone temporarily boosts my speeds back to normal? My gut tells me my 50gb+ monthly data usage has thrown a red flag and now they're throttling the fuck out of my unlimited data speed, and rebooting the SIM card temporarily bypasses the throttling. But of course their reps told me they don't throttle speeds. Maybe my SIM card really does have an issue and I'm just being cynical. Interested in hearing the opinions of those more educated in this department

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[–] • 1 pt (edited )

" What they instead do is go down a couple of layers in the OSI model and instead say "That device goes access to the tower only after everyone else has had their shot."

This is what I've been feeling like. Late at night, 2am ish I seem to be able to get 1mbps speeds.

One odd thing is my download speed is ALWAYS slower than my upload speeds, no matter in the middle of the night or after I removed my SIM card and rebooted the phone (which does temporarily boost my speeds)

I've been using anywhere from 50 to 90GB's of data a month through hotspot for nearly a year now, so it'd be weird that they just now decided to start jewing me. I'd like to have good faith in them but getting a new SIM card is my only option left other than leaving the company.

[–] [deleted] • 2 pts

They may have spent more time dicking with their Quality of Service configurations for download due to needing to knock down streamers.

As to suddenly getting deprio hammer, could be more end devices in your area or a topology change with the towers. Hard to know.

[–] • 0 pt

When I first contacted them about a week ago they told me Verizon, who's towers they use, were currently in the process of implementing 5G networks which could have an affect on my speeds, but they told me my speeds should not be as bad as sub 100kbps.

But 1) I'm a bit rural and don't think we have 5G here yet, and 2) I know several people who have Verizon and haven't been having any issues with their internet speeds recently.

I haven't had to use internet this slow since 1998

[–] [deleted] • 0 pt

Well, if its of any use, I was actually looking at your numbers with a certain amount of jealousy.