8 "Performance profiles"

New customers at “Drei” are now much more unequal

Data rate too low? This may be due to your user class.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/kerkezz)

The denser the crowds, the more difficult it can be to get a stable Internet connection with your smartphone. It's not just at events such as concerts and demos that enormous amounts of data hit the mobile phone masts; load peaks are also distributed unevenly in other areas. In order to decide who surfs how fast on a busy cell phone mast, mobile network operators therefore apply complex distribution keys and divide customers into different user classes. A1 and Magenta divide customers into up to a dozen, while Drei previously only knew two. But that has changed.

The fact that not every customer is the same at the mobile phone mast is the subject of controversy. Consumer advocates criticize the practice as non-transparent. In a study, the Chamber of Labor criticized the practice, saying that it requires "considerable searching" to obtain information on the customer categories, also known as user classes or usage groups. This is also the case with the latest change at Drei, where the customer categories are referred to as "service profiles". Krone+ explains the background: What principles providers use to direct bandwidth, who is throttled and how much when in doubt, and how likely it is to be affected yourself.