Enjoy your new CDMA iPhone 4, but if you eat up too much data, Verizon Wireless will throttle you. That’s the new strategy that came to light Thursday as the nation’s largest wireless provider, after months of speculation and hype, finally offered its version of Apple’s golden-goose smartphone to its consumers.
Current Verizon customers began pre-ordering the iPhone early Thursday morning, with new customers allowed to buy them in stores on Feb. 10. But perhaps out of concern that the app-heavy, browser-friendly phones will slow the carrier’s 3G network, Verizon in a “fine print” PDF document attached to its web site essentially told smartphone and feature-phone users to slow down.
Easy on the Data
“Verizon Wireless strives to provide customers the best experience when using our network, a shared resource among tens of millions of customers,” read the new guidelines. “To help achieve this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand.”
The process is called throttling, essentially putting the brakes on data hogs. The iPhone isn’t mentioned, but the timing of the announcement suggests it’s a cause of concern. AT&T, which had exclusive U.S. carrier rights to the iPhone until now, saw widespread complaints that its network couldn’t handle the iPhone.
“I think it shows that they have a plan in place just in case demand outstrips capacity, especially in the early stages of the iPhone launch,” said wireless analyst Kirk Parsons of J.D. Power and Associates. ”Once they get a better handle on demand, I’m sure they will adjust activities such as data throttling to optimize the…