Question Verizon pixel owners unlimited plans throttled?

[rester555]

I noticed a "feature" by Verizon called, HD video. You can toggle it on and off. I noticed when using video streaming services that you get limited to 10 Mbps when they ISP detects video playing.

Does anyone notice a difference between the toggle on or off? I used VPN and I noticed video quality can be selected for higher bandwidth behind a VPN but not when toggling HD video on associated Verizon unlimited plans.

 

[zetsumeikuro]

This is nothing new and has been a thing since 2017~ and almost every single carrier does it. If you're on UWB you can get 4k streaming. With the toggle off on 4G and nationwide 5G you'll be subjected to 480p video and 720p on UWB. Most people won't notice the difference above 720-1080 anyways while watching on a small screen.

 

[pgrey2]

Yep, in my TMo plan it can be turned on-off per-device.
Seems like a feature to me, and if you don't know that about your plan, well, like @zetsumeikuro says, most will never even notice...
Maybe read those updated terms of service, next time (ok, so I don't read them e-to-e either, just parts ) ...
Technically, they could call it the video-battery-saving-feature, and it would be correct, in a round about sort of way. Sales/marketing is what it is.

 

[rester555]

I understand this is nothing new. I'm just saying people who have Verizon plans, you can bypass the 480p limitation by using VPN because I confirmed it. Otherwise you have to toggle the HD video on and off depending on the unlimited plan you have.

My observation here was that the toggle switch did not change the bandwidth for me on an unlimited plan that had a HD video on off function in the Verizon account.

 

[pgrey2]

Yeah, agreed, nothing new, just carrier-tweaks to try and manage bandwidth, that can be unhelpful if you want a high-def view of things. I've had 2-4k phones since the early 2000's for essentially this reason, so I'm very familiar. Not necessarily for 4K in that timeframe, obviously, but for pics/diagrams/whatever, 1080 is pretty limiting, IME/IMHO.
I haven't actually tracked used-bandwidth with the switches on TMo, I just know that 4K gets knocked-down to HD, if it's enabled (10Mbps is right around the low-threshold for 4K, so the VZW numbers make sense).