What is Cell Phone Data Throttling?

Data Caps vs Data Throttling

Cell phone data throttling works by limiting (throttling) the rate at which a phone accepts and sends data to the network.  Data caps work by charging you additional fees per MB you use over your allotted data plans.  Mobile phone data throttling is a reactive measure employed by the cell phone networks to regulate network traffic and minimize bandwidth congestion. 3G and 4G throttling occur typically when a heavy user of data has exceeded their monthly data limit. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint & now T-Mobile use wireless data bandwidth throttling to help reduce a user's usage of data. Carriers do this action to limit a user's upload and download speeds on mobile applications.

Some carriers like AT&T & Verizon may not throttle your data but will begin to charge you extra for exceeding data plans as well which we call data caps.  Carriers like T-Mobile and Sprint who offer unlimited data plans will limit or (throttle) your speeds if you exceed their monthly thresholds.  We think there is a need for carriers to provide better applications for measuring mobile phone data usage.

Mobile video is congesting networks  & continues to be 66% of network traffic volume.  Mobile video download traffic is already exceeding forecasts from 2010 and carrier networks are struggling to keep up with the growing data demand.  This is another reason why we think data caps are also killing the mobile phone application ecosystem.