Verizon will now throttle videos to 480p or 720p

WhistleOut Staff Writer

Updated 22 August 2017

Verizon is making a change to the way you watch videos on your smartphones.

The mobile network has recently decided that as early as this week, they'll throttle videos watched on smartphone devices.

The deal

Verizon jumped in on selling unlimited data plans back in February 2017. Unlimited was the way every major carrier decided to go and before we all knew it, "How unlimited really is unlimited data?" was the question setting the internet on fire. Verizon explained that streaming videos would be of the same stream resolution quality that video companies provided to Verizon. Sounded great.

Things change on August 23.

Single Line Unlimited Data: $75

Verizon's cheapest single line unlimited data will be $75. It used to be $80. So, you save five dollars on your unlimited data. The catch is that you now have what they call "DVD-quality streaming" at 480p on your smartphone and 720p on tablets.

Single Line Beyond Unlimited Data: $85

720p on your phone, 1080p on your tablet.

Good to know

If the 480p on your smartphone or 720p on your tablet isn't going to cut it for you, you can get higher quality resolution for $10 more a month.
This $10 extra a month will give you 720p on smartphones ($85 Beyond Unlimited) and 1080p on tablets ($95 Beyond Unlimited).
Current Verizon customers will experience a reduced resolution on their smartphones and tablets regardless of their data plan.
480p is the new normal for smartphones on Verizon's $75 unlimited data plan. It applies to both prepaid and postpaid customers.
How this works: Verizon isn't converting videos to lower resolution. Instead, they place a bandwidth limit. THIS is what causes the lower resolution. Video bandwidth limit? 10Mbps.
Using your phone as a hotspot? 1080p is the limit for tethering. So if you try to watch a laptop via your phone's hotspot, you're going to have to watch in 1080p, not 4k.

Hotspots

With the single line unlimited data plan for $75, you are looking at resolution that's 480p on smartphone/720p on tablet. You are also only looking at 600kbps of hotspot service.

If you choose the Beyond Unlimited plan, you get 15GB of 4GLTE hotspot speed. After the 15GB cap, you get reduced to 600kbps.

Why the change?

Unlimited data has never meant unlimited. Not really, anyway. As with most major carriers, a cap was placed on Verizon's unlimited data. This caused a bit of stir with customers who thought they could stream endlessly without a hiccup.

The reality was that 22GB was the cap Verizon placed on unlimited. What this cap meant was that if you hit that 22GB (yes, even if you are on the unlimited data plan that you pay good money for) you will be deprioritized during peak/congested times on your network. This deprioritization will mean that instead of streaming in HD, you were forced to suffer the buffer: 480p/ standard definition.

These changes to the resolution will help you decide how much data you actually need. Need more ways to compare? Use our comparison tools before you choose a cell phone plan.