When the wireless carrier Visible first launched, Visible throttled data speeds to a maximum of 5Mbps. In June, Visible announced a removal of the cap for new and existing customers:
Last week, I started trialing Visible’s service. Speed tests I ran all found download speeds of about 5 or 6 Mbps. Whether I had a strong LTE connection or a weak one, I experienced about the same download speed.
Each of the tests showed a weird pattern. After initiating a test, speeds would briefly shoot up well beyond 5Mbps (red arrow) before stabilizing around 5Mbps (green arrows).
Shortly after experiencing these weird test results, I found a Reddit thread where other Visible subscribers mentioned similar problems. Here’s the original post by Reddit user n0ki:
I reach out to support on my 2nd phone and explain I’m having the same problem and what the solution is. They want me to spend another hour going through all the same troubleshooting steps.
Frustrating that it’s currently advertised as unlimited but all these new accounts still seem to be capped at 5!
Most of the people experiencing the issue were using the Visible R2, the same phone I experienced an issue with.
I went ahead and reached out to Visible’s support. After a live chat conversation that took about 20 minutes, I was experiencing much faster download speeds:
While it’s unimpressive that Visible seems to still be throttling some subscribers, I’m inclined to believe the issue is due to an honest mistake on Visible’s end.
I experienced this, and had it fixed on the backend. When I got reprovisioned to fix my visual voicemail, the cap came back, and got it fixed again by CS. So at least at the time, it seemed like the cap was maybe on by default, as resetting things made the cap come back.
Thanks for sharing your experience–that’s interesting & concerning. Hopefully Visible will come up with a long-term fix at some point. I’m not even sure how aware of the problem Visible is at this point. The chat rep I spoke with didn’t seem to know this was a regular/ongoing issue for some subscribers.
I’ve noticed this exact same issue, which made me question if the cap was indeed removed entirely. All speed tests start out high, then drop to right around 6 mps. I figured it was a cap of some sort, but this proves it.
Thanks.
I contacted Visible for another issue, and while I was on the chat with them I asked if they would remove the cap from my account. I explained the above speedtest irregularities, and after the initial requisite “your speeds may vary depending on traffic and blah blah blah” they said they would “reset it” and then asked me to reboot my phone. Afterward I received normal LTE speeds.
If anyone experiences this issue, definitely contact customer support and they will remove the cap.
Just did the same as the above commenters. Visible rep said that my cap was turned off already but went ahead and reset it for me and asked me to power cycle my phone. After I did, speeds went from 5-6mbps to 61mbps!! It looks like it is still on by default.
I’m in an area that Verizon/Visible is the only carrier. Verizon & Visible, we all know what their contracts are. My other wireless options are microwave ($80/mo, unlimited data, 75M/sec (unclear if this is MBps or Mbps either way it’s plenty fast for the $)) and Hugesnet (65/mo, 20G data, weather interruptions). Inside the house cell connection is so-so for voice, useless for data. The fun part about microwave is I’d need the cooperation of a strategically located neighbor who’s willing to host a relay station – I don’t quite have line of sight to the microwave tower.
So… Visible. When I was site testing, there’s a spot I’d see full LTE communications speed. OK, we’ll go with that. Install a transceiver & antenna for $1K. Every once in a while Visible would go off the rails and bandwidth would drop to near zero. I’d fuss and they would reboot everything, reprovision (amazing what words we come up with in the digital age!) and generally burn the better part of an hour. No mention of throttling.
Sometime last week that changed, and I’m trundling along at 5Mbps. I complain. They say “Yep, that’s what you get.”
Because of the transceiver investment, I’m stuck with this for a year or two. I could switch, depending on microwave neighbors, but budgets matter. Who knows, maybe competition will work its magic and someone will pull fibre up the street. My brother has had better luck with the ISP crapshoot twice in 15 years. He’s had FIOS (AT&T fibre optics) since it first appeared. When I was living in suburbia, I had fibre trunks passing me in three directions and they couldn’t be bothered by selling it to the residents.
Sorry to hear about all the difficulties. Here’s to hoping Starlink will be a viable option for you in the next year or so.
I have been using Visible since Feb 2019 . Starting last month 03/21 I have had no service messages repeatedly. Spoke with CS 3 different times. They guided me through very time consuming corrections which all failed until I executed a total reset. If I didn’t know better I would say I am being throttled !