Google fi user here: when they throttle in areas with weak cell signal, the throttling is aggressive and internet practically doesn't work. It's very frustrating. "Throttling" isn't the right word.. maybe "crippling" is better.
> when they throttle in areas with weak cell signal, the throttling is aggressive and internet practically doesn't work.
I want to add in for those that don't know. There's a difference between throttling and deprioritization. Throttling usually kicks in as some specified speed at the IP network's level(like 256kbps). This isn't going to make a difference whether you're close to a tower or far away. It will make a massive difference on your battery life if your user equipment has to stay transmitting forever to complete transfers (this is a big problem when roaming on t-mobile's throttled international plans, battery life is obliterated).
Deprioritization is very different. The radio layer (called radio access network) of the tower (specifically the sector) that you're connected to controls how much time your device gets using a QoS scheduler. Stuff like voice always takes priority no matter what, since it all goes over the same data network now. I'm going to try to explain this below in easier to comprehend language...
In LTE, resources can be allocated out to a device as resource blocks. Each layer allows up to 100 physical resource blocks at any given time. Depending on the quality of the signal (how far away you are and how many people are using it), the blocks can be broadcast at different MCS levels. This controls the amount of error correction and the amount of data that can be carried per resource block. So when you're stuck at cell fringes and only allowed to get less than 5 resource blocks at an instant, the transfer rates will be slow. When you're close and allowed to use higher orders of modulation with less error correction (256QAM broadcast 4x4 MIMO), the performance loss isn't going to be as noticeable.
Deprioritization can be worked around by connecting to a different sector that isn't as busy. It's also assessed pretty quickly, something like 20ms the radio scheduling happens. Sprint's the only network afaik that posts something even slightly technical to the general public: https://www.sprint.com/en/legal/open-internet-information.ht...
Also a Fi user, and the quality of my internet is almost entirely based on whether the carrier is Sprint or not. Sprint, at least around here, almost always has no upstream bandwidth, so you can't even get a request to go out.
If you get the fi info app, it can fill your clipboard with a switch carrier sequence you paste into your dialer and it will switch you to one of the alternate carriers.
It's not hard to memorize it's 'FI' + $CODE. I switch regularly when I have poor connection:
##FITMO## (TMobile)
##FISPR## (Sprint)
##FIUSC## (US Cellular) <- Have never used this though
##FINEXT## (Next carrier)
##FIAUTO## (Switch back to auto)
I never got the app, though I really wanted to at first, thinking it did this automatically, but all it does is paste in the dialer codes. Why would I pay for that?
> Also a Fi user, and the quality of my internet is almost entirely based on whether the carrier is Sprint or not. Sprint, at least around here, almost always has no upstream bandwidth, so you can't even get a request to go out.
I had a Pixel 2 XL back in the old "Project Fi" days, I had to manually switch basically every time my phone selected Sprint as the carrier because it was so slow. After the rebrand and the expansion to allow other phones but only route them to T-Mobile, I switched phones, and I genuinely get better coverage. (This isn't too just due to the phone hardware, either; on my old phone, the data speed would be fine after manually switching from Sprint to T-Mobile, so the benefit seems to be that I don't actually ever get routed to Sprint anymore)
