5G Chunghwa Telecom Major Throttling?

Anyone have experience being data throttled on their phone? I have 25gb 5g quota and unlimited 4g fallback, but…

  • Anytime I use 5g, it works for a few seconds then drops me to like 2~3g (0.2 to 2.5 down)
    • For example, a mobile game will require a giant patch. It’ll download 1/2 instantly, then the last 1/2 will take a good 30m. By the time I’m done patching, I’m out of time O_o then future data use for the rest of the day is so slow that even Forumosa times out.
  • We called and they “reset something” and it magically worked again for a day, but seemed to be a 24-hour trick.

Does this happen to you? What do you do? I thought ZhongHua (being more $$) would have this happen less… ugh.

Do you have the chance to try out using a different phone / modem?

Some devices might have overheating issues when 5G is utilized fully and might throttle their speed until they have cooled down enough.

Use a speedtest service before and after the period you suspect throttling has occurred to get a definitive answer. Some download services will give you lightening fast download for the initial period to get you on the hook before falling off when you’ve downloaded enough that you are less likely to give up.

Some ISPs whitelist speedtest services to deceptively make it look like it’s not throttling.

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Some do, some don’t.

Oh, they aren’t even trying to hide it - it’ll download 230, then drop to 0.2 a few seconds later for the next hour+. I’ve already done the speed tests and can 100% confirm throttling, without a doubt.

We called customer service, they “reset something”, and it temporarily worked again. Next day, the throttling returned. What to do? I had to upload a proof of covid test video that was quite large and, ugh, kept timing out. It’s failing me when I need it (not just for something casual like gaming).

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Are you using this for home?

That’s bad news. I thought Taiwan ISPs were generally against those tactics. They seem happy to be dumb pipes like they should.

I will say Taiwan Star never slows down for me even though it’s supposed to after a certain limit, and Chungwha’s home service never throttles. I’m my area 100mbps is the highest available plan, and I’m almost always locked in at 12MB/s 24/7/365 and a constant 40mbps upload.

Ah, phone service rather* Star is for home internet?

Tstar is mobile.

Do you have a home broadband connection? What are the needs that Chunghwa is preventing?

I’m trying to understand more so I can offer better advice.

Do you have another 5G capable phone to see if the behavior is consistent? Or maybe a 5G Wi-Fi box?

Chungwha never throttles on 4G in my experience. I have no interest in paying for 5G ATM. I’ll wait until it’s under $399 for unlimited. But I’d be surprised if you are being deliberately handicapped.

I’m using a Samsung Galaxy S20+, quite beastly - it can handle it. My wife’s similar Note model does this, too.

Feels deliberate. We had unlimited 4g before this upgrade and feel like I was never throttled. Once 5g was added, maybe there’s some fine print we missed.

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Have you tried switching to 4G to see?