T-Mobile has significantly increased its “prioritization point” to 50 GB from 32 GB, meaning the most active users can consume much more data before experiencing slower speeds on the network in congested areas.
For comparison, AT&T and Verizon both have prioritization thresholds of 22 GB, with Sprint slightly higher at 23 GB.
T-Mobile has increased its cap before, but not by such a large amount. The operator launched its unlimited plan with a prioritization threshold of 23 GB, which was similar to that of rival carriers. After jumping to 28 GB, the threshold was then bumped up to 30 GB in the first quarter of this year, and increased again to 32 GB in the second quarter of 2017.
In a blog post announcing the move T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray said data usage on the Un-carrier’s network has increased more than 50 percent over the last year, while average LTE speeds have gotten 25 percent faster based on Speedtest data.
Data from OpenSignal reported that T-Mobile was the fastest network, while AT&T and Verizon’s 4G speeds had been “dropping steadily” since March under the weight of their unlimited plans. However a performance report from RootMetrics painted a different picture, with Verizon coming out on top in five of six categories, including overall, reliability, speed, data, and call.
This isn’t the first time T-Mobile has bet its network can handle increased data traffic. The move comes shortly after the Un-carrier added free Netflix subscriptions to customers who have least two T-Mobile One unlimited data plans.
Filed Under: Carriers
