This past week, Verizon announced that it will be making two major adjustments to the data usage of its customers—increasing upload speeds to match download speeds for nearly all of its FiOS service subscribers and limiting the data speeds for the top five percent of data users for its 4G network, according to the Los Angeles Times and Forbes respectively.
The first change, announced in a news release this past Monday, comes with Verizon’s expectation that its users’ upload activity will double by the end of 2016. The increasing of upload speeds will allow users to upload videos to sites like YouTube nearly as quickly as downloading videos they want to watch.
Verizon has about 6 million subscribers and its FiOS service—which relies on fiber-optic cables that allow for both faster download and upload speeds—is available in 20 markets, including 1.4 million households in Los Angeles.
Verizon’s lowest plan, 15 megabytes per second download and 5 megabytes per second upload, will rise to 15-15, and the highest tier, 500-100, will switch to 500-500 in the coming months.
The other major adjustment Verizon will make is the limiting of data speeds for the five percent of customers that use the most data on its 4G network. Called the “network optimization policy,” users that fall in this category will see their speeds grow slower when they use a cell site that is experiencing heavy demand, such as a buffering in internet gaming or a lagging of web browsing.
The network optimization policy will affect the top five percent of users that have passed their minimum contract term and consume around 4.7GB of data per month or more.
“We understand that our customers rely on their smartphones and tablets every day. Our network optimization policy provides the best path to ensure a continued great wireless experience for all of our customers on the best and largest wireless network in the U.S.,” said Verizon Wireless VP of Technology Mike Haberman in a statement.
Verizon will notify customers of the network optimization policy through a message on August 1.
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