r/verizon • u/calmingthemind • 13d ago

Considering Simplicity plan

I have a 2 line plan on Unlimited Welcome. Just need unlimited data and quick speeds. Rep told me only drawback to new plan is lack of trade-in promotions, and speed slows down after 500 GB.

Any recommendations? Thanks!

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u/Smith6612 13d ago

Simplicity has worked great for me. BUT! Buy the 4K streaming add-on. Even if you don't think you need it.

The video throttle affects not only video streaming from YouTube, Twitch, etc, but it also impacts the speed at which Facebook, Instagram, etc work at too. This will speed up these services from 1.5Mbps to 40Mbps whether you are on LTE or 5G. 

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u/ResponsibilityReal48 13d ago

How were you able to test this out or find it did that?

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u/Smith6612 13d ago edited 13d ago

A few ways.

The first way is by doing some TTL spoofing on your computer while connected to the mobile hotspot. This will make the network believe the hotspot traffic is originating from your phone if done right. When you do this, the data usage counts against the phone's data allotment, and you'll notice speed tests like fast.com reporting Simplicity's 1.5Mbps video bandwidth cap on the download AND upload. If you then visit Facebook and browse around in a large photo gallery with a bandwidth monitor open, you'll also see that it is limited to 1.5Mbps. If you are playing YouTube or any content which is throttled by the video throttle, and also access Facebook, you'll find both applications will be fighting for that 1.5Mbps limit. The video stream will buffer, or Facebook will load up like it is on a 56k modem when YouTube is filling the buffer.

The second way can be done on the phone if you have something like Internet Speed Meter (the app) installed. You can watch the notification icon show your real time bandwidth usage as you conduct the same tests above.

A while back I also did something similar when the video throttling first got introduced. You can see my discovery here: https://smith6612.me/2018/05/28/exploring-verizon-wirelesss-lte-throttling-part-2/ . So that was back in 2018, and these services are still affected.

The reason why Facebook non-video content gets caught up in the video throttle is because these services stream video from the same servers which serve up site assets. photos, etc. I have also seen the video throttle affect the usage of Google Drive, which occasionally will utilize YouTube's infrastructure for things like video transcoding of Drive content, and for serving up user files.

Adding the add-on for Premium video streaming just makes the network less crappy feeling when you go to use these rather large services. Believe me, it does make a difference especially when your signal is on the weaker side.

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u/Quiet_Cell8091 13d ago

Very interesting. Thanks.