Poor speeds, sluggish performance since switching away from unlimited

iphone3ger · ‎08-07-2008

I recently had to give up my grandfathered unlimited data on my iphone 4S so that I could have access to tethering.

Ever since the switch (which I set to change ON my bill cycle date) my data has been crap.

While on the unlimited data plan with no throttle I would hit 5Mbps most of the time, never had any issues with Siri.

Even while throttled on the unlimited plan I would rarely go under 0.3Mbps, and while it did stutter for the initial data setup it would eventually settle at the throttled speed, and allowed me to do everying... including using Siri.

Since the change to the 5GB Personal Hotspot plan my device sits at 0.02Mbps down and up for hours at a time... Siri will not function > 50% of the time.

If I power the device off and then back on I will get the old 5Mbps speeds again for a few minutes... but when I got back to use it ... boom back down 0.02Mbps unusuable speeds.

This is happening all over, it's not unique to one location. One location the other day didn't seem to have the slow speed issue.. BUT it would never go over 2Mbps UNLESS I restarted my phone... it would then hit 6Mbps and then after 10 mins or so lock down at 2Mbps again.

Apple store says they can't do hardware tests, but the test they do run show it's fine.

At&t has swapped out my sim, and to be fair it did work great in the at&t store after the sim swap but is back to its crappy performance now. We have reprovisioned my account, I have reset network settings... always reverts to this crappy performance.

I have done a complete restore on my phone to see if it is related to some iphone issue... but nothing changes.

I always have 4 or 5 bars when this issue occurs, so it doesn't appear to be fringe coverage.

So my question is: Is this normal? Does at&t provide the old unlimited and the new expensive 5GB plans differently?

Does everyone with hotspot experience this crappy performance?

Can I just go back to unlimited... at this point I'll just grab another device to use for tethering, if it means my iphone will revert back to its stellar network performance.

Anyone with any ideas?

Thanks for your time.

iphone 4S 16GB

wingrider01 · ‎05-26-2008

iphone3ger wrote:

I recently had to give up my grandfathered unlimited data on my iphone 4S so that I could have access to tethering.

Ever since the switch (which I set to change ON my bill cycle date) my data has been crap.

While on the unlimited data plan with no throttle I would hit 5Mbps most of the time, never had any issues with Siri.

Even while throttled on the unlimited plan I would rarely go under 0.3Mbps, and while it did stutter for the initial data setup it would eventually settle at the throttled speed, and allowed me to do everying... including using Siri.

Since the change to the 5GB Personal Hotspot plan my device sits at 0.02Mbps down and up for hours at a time... Siri will not function > 50% of the time.

If I power the device off and then back on I will get the old 5Mbps speeds again for a few minutes... but when I got back to use it ... boom back down 0.02Mbps unusuable speeds.

This is happening all over, it's not unique to one location. One location the other day didn't seem to have the slow speed issue.. BUT it would never go over 2Mbps UNLESS I restarted my phone... it would then hit 6Mbps and then after 10 mins or so lock down at 2Mbps again.

Apple store says they can't do hardware tests, but the test they do run show it's fine.

At&t has swapped out my sim, and to be fair it did work great in the at&t store after the sim swap but is back to its crappy performance now. We have reprovisioned my account, I have reset network settings... always reverts to this crappy performance.

I have done a complete restore on my phone to see if it is related to some iphone issue... but nothing changes.

I always have 4 or 5 bars when this issue occurs, so it doesn't appear to be fringe coverage.

So my question is: Is this normal? Does at&t provide the old unlimited and the new expensive 5GB plans differently?

Does everyone with hotspot experience this crappy performance?

Can I just go back to unlimited... at this point I'll just grab another device to use for tethering, if it means my iphone will revert back to its stellar network performance.

Anyone with any ideas?

Thanks for your time.

iphone 4S 16GB

first off - when you leave unlimited there is no going back, the plan was discountinued and once you request it be removed it is gone forever

Can't really help on the tethering you might try a factory reset and restore to see if that resolves anything. I have a cellular modem in my laptop for when I need it

iphone3ger · ‎08-07-2008

The rep I spoke with today advised they could make a case and have it rolled back to uimited so I'm not sure where you heard that information.

I just visited with apple store and they can find no issues with the device again ( I went back after the full restore to double check) so it has to be AT&T.

One rep has said that they have heard about this the first bill cycle so I'll give it another month.

Apple generously offered to device swap for me, I'll try that if it doesn't clear up next bill cycle.

wingrider01 · ‎05-26-2008

iphone3ger wrote:
The rep I spoke with today advised they could make a case and have it rolled back to uimited so I'm not sure where you heard that information.

I just visited with apple store and they can find no issues with the device again ( I went back after the full restore to double check) so it has to be AT&T.

One rep has said that they have heard about this the first bill cycle so I'll give it another month.

Apple generously offered to device swap for me, I'll try that if it doesn't clear up next bill cycle.

from hunderds of posts here by people that removed their unlimited data and had it refused on putting it back on, historicly att rarely makes exceptions with grandfathered features. good luck in trying to get it back if you go that route

renewedpurpose · ‎05-05-2007

Speaking from personal experience the only time I have ever seen AT&T add back a previously removed grandfathered feature was when it was accidentally removed during an upgrade. I have seen several instances where inexperienced employees at Best Buy and Radio Shack have accidentally removed a customers grandfathered unlimited data plan during the process of upgrading them to a new smartphone. When AT&T is called the SAME DAY and notified of the error they were able to correct the problem and add the unlimited data feature back. However, I have not seen or heard of any occurrence where AT&T was able to add back the unlimited data plan to an account several days after it has been removed. I am not in any way suggesting that you are wrong, I am simply speaking from my personal experiences.

iphone3ger · ‎08-07-2008

So noone has experienced this? So far all replies have been telling me that the AT&T rep is a liar... so I assume noone but me has ever experienced this.

I am starting to wonder if my iphone is just failing... yesterday the battery started rapidly discharging after visiting the apple store.

A pattern I am seeing is if the phone has been sleeping for several hours when it comes back up the speedtests will come back slow 2 times, and then the 3rd time it goes back to the normal speed for the area... this still has be confused... is it my device or some messed up throttleing that shouldnt be on my account anymore?

wingrider01 · ‎05-26-2008

iphone3ger wrote:

So noone has experienced this? So far all replies have been telling me that the AT&T rep is a liar... so I assume noone but me has ever experienced this.

I am starting to wonder if my iphone is just failing... yesterday the battery started rapidly discharging after visiting the apple store.

A pattern I am seeing is if the phone has been sleeping for several hours when it comes back up the speedtests will come back slow 2 times, and then the 3rd time it goes back to the normal speed for the area... this still has be confused... is it my device or some messed up throttleing that shouldnt be on my account anymore?

can;t answer that, I utilzie a dedicated cell modem built into my laptop. If you are on the tethering / hotpsot plan you will not be throttled, you have 5GB to utilize, after you exceed that limit you wil be charged for additional data usage. You have checked the basics that you data plan is set to 5gb and not anything else right?

you might think about doing a full reset on the phone back to factory defaults and see how it reacts with absolutely nothing but the facttory supplied apps on it

iphone3ger · ‎08-07-2008

wingrider01 wrote:

If you are on the tethering / hotpsot plan you will not be throttled, you have 5GB to utilize, after you exceed that limit you wil be charged for additional data usage. You have checked the basics that you data plan is set to 5gb and not anything else right?

It shows both. It shows that I have the 5GB Personal hostpot and Unlimited data (deactivated).

They tried to re-provision it, but that rep said that the soc code for unlimited never goes away... he was the rep that said to give it until the 2nd bill cycle to see if it clears up.

The oddest part of all this is that I made sure to set the plan change for next billing cycle... I did not do a midstream or backdated change.

A full reset has been done. Factory defaults. No restore. That is why I went back to the apple store to have it checked the 2nd time.

I am also under the 3gig mark... the issue has been occuring from 0gig on... so even if the throttle system was malfunctioning I dont understand why it would have kicked in already.. I'm sitting at 2.8gigs of use... and it performs much worse than it ever did even when I was throttled on the unlimited plan.

I did a little digging and on the overview page it shows I have the 5GB hotspot and on the Data Detail page it says I have the Unlimited plan... after seeing that I am now swinging back to thinking it must be AT&T and not the physical device.

wingrider01 · ‎05-26-2008

iphone3ger wrote:

wingrider01 wrote:

If you are on the tethering / hotpsot plan you will not be throttled, you have 5GB to utilize, after you exceed that limit you wil be charged for additional data usage. You have checked the basics that you data plan is set to 5gb and not anything else right?

It shows both. It shows that I have the 5GB Personal hostpot and Unlimited data (deactivated).

They tried to re-provision it, but that rep said that the soc code for unlimited never goes away... he was the rep that said to give it until the 2nd bill cycle to see if it clears up.

The oddest part of all this is that I made sure to set the plan change for next billing cycle... I did not do a midstream or backdated change.

A full reset has been done. Factory defaults. No restore. That is why I went back to the apple store to have it checked the 2nd time.

I am also under the 3gig mark... the issue has been occuring from 0gig on... so even if the throttle system was malfunctioning I dont understand why it would have kicked in already.. I'm sitting at 2.8gigs of use... and it performs much worse than it ever did even when I was throttled on the unlimited plan.

I did a little digging and on the overview page it shows I have the 5GB hotspot and on the Data Detail page it says I have the Unlimited plan... after seeing that I am now swinging back to thinking it must be AT&T and not the physical device.

if you just converted to the tethering plany and have not completed the billing cycle it will show both of them on your account information page until the billing cycle completes. That is becasue of billing, if you have been on the tethering plan for a couple of billing cycles and it still shows then that can be a problem.

iphone3ger · ‎08-07-2008

wingrider01 wrote:
if you just converted to the tethering plany and have not completed the billing cycle it will show both of them on your account information page until the billing cycle completes. That is becasue of billing, if you have been on the tethering plan for a couple of billing cycles and it still shows then that can be a problem.

As stated a couple times... i made sure the switch occured at the start of the bill cycle. I am just a bit upset that if they are gonna overcharge for data like this... that at least they could do it properly.

Next bill cycle coming up... if it still stutters I guess I'll drop it down to the cheapest plan and drop them when contract is up... the sad part is I was totally happy with their service prior to the plan change... that's just not good business.

iphone3ger · ‎08-07-2008

Just wanted to update...

The 2nd bill cycle came and the speeds were still all over the place, pages would still stall when loading etc.

I went to the apple store and had them swap out the device with a replacement. With the replacement iphone I could pinpoint the issue to a specific area (so perhaps the previous iphone's radio was having issues).

I called and reported that specific area to tech support (they made a case)... and within a few days the area seems to be fixed!

So while I am still not pleased about the overpriced data, I will admit that once the issue was narrowed down att did get it fixed quickly.