Virgin Mobile to begin throttling data speeds beginning March 23

January 19, 2012 By Jeffrey Van Camp

Virgin Mobile will begin throttling user data speeds for those who use more than 2.5GB of data beginning March 23.

Like so many wireless carriers, Sprint subsidiary Virgin Mobile will soon begin throttling the data speeds of those who use the most data on its ‘unlimited’ data plans. Currently, Virgin Mobile users who have used more than 2.5GB of data in Dec. 2011 are being sent to a mobile site that warns them that, beginning March 23, 2012, any data they use in a month over the 2.5GB limit will be slowed down to 256Kbps. We don’t currently have a Virgin Mobile handset to test, but we suspect that typical data rates are around 1Mbps, or four times the reduced data speed.

Users who exceed the allotted 2.5GB in a month will receive a text message notifying them of their reduced speed for the remainder of their monthly billing cycle. Once the month is over, their speed will reset…until they exceed 2.5GB again. Users who want fast speeds have the option of paying their monthly bill early to reset their data speeds.

Back in July, Virgin originally stated that it would begin data throttling users like this in October, but delayed the implementation for unknown reasons that are likely technical.

Despite owning Virgin Mobile, Sprint still maintains that it will not throttle users of its unlimited data service.

Showing 2 comments

Richard Delgado at 7:04am 21st January 2012 What horrible timing THIS is!!! I was seriously considering moving over to Virgin Mobile to save over 50% over my Verizon bill. But I need lots of phone web access for my business and throttling at such low data levels would kill me. So I guess all I can say is thanks, VM. You helped me make up my mind to stick with Verizon.
Mike Dunn at 11:02am 19th January 2012 My lady friend has a Virgin phone, and the data speed is already pretty horrible, so I can only imagine how slow it will be if it is throttled.