What you can actually do with 2G
We live in the era of speed where everyone is in a hurry and things have to be done ASAP. (We have even developed an acronym in order to cut down a longer expression, who has time for entire words, right?). That is why whenever we hear about something that will be slowing us down, like throttled data, we get the urge to knock on wood. There are a lot of things people don’t know about this, for example, what you can actually do with 2G & the magic apps that will save you, if needed.
Also, on a more personal note, we need to take things a little bit slower and loosen up. Keeping this in mind, it’s only fair to say that we have enough phobias and throttled data should not be one of them.
First of all let’s see what throttled data is
If your data speed is throttled, it means your internet speed is limited, working slower than usual. This happens once you used up your plan’s data amount.
If you are a Tello client your 4G LTE data speed will be throttled to 2G (64kbs speed). You can still benefit from 4G LTE speed if you renew your data plan, upgrade to a new plan with a higher data balance or add Pay As You Go balance.
2G/3G/4G – What do they mean?
It might seem confusing, but it’s really simple, the “G” letter after the number refers to the generation. In other words, 2G is the generation that came before 3G and 3G is the generation that came before 4G.
The main difference between them is that the newer generations have faster data transfer than the older ones. Of course, there are still other factors to take into consideration when talking about speed, but that’s another story.
What you can actually do with 2G
Data speed is throttled, now what? It’s time to make smart decisions. And by that we mean using the data in a calculated, rational way, like grown ups.
Lite apps could be a solution for this. Giants like Facebook, Google and others want people to use their service in any giving situation so they have created lite version of their apps. The lite version or light version doesn’t have as many features available as the original app which makes it perfect for low-speed data plans.
Here are some of the most popular lite apps used nowadays:
-
Facebook Lite
In August 2009, Facebook rolled out a “lite” version of the site, optimized for users on slower data connections. At first, the service was operational for only eight months, but in June 2015, this feature was reintroduced as an app with a total size of less than 1MB, focusing on markets where internet access is slow or limited. Today, Facebook Lite is an official app which allows its social network clients to browse without missing out on practically any of the basic features.
-
Messenger Lite
After a big success with Facebook Lite, the giant company created a light app for Messenger as well. Messenger Lite came out in October 2016 and with less than 10MB to install, it enables you to save storage space on your phone. It loads fast, runs efficiently and uses less mobile data.
The app works everywhere and it is designed to reach people when you’re in an area with a slow or unstable internet connection.
-
Google Go
Same as the other apps this is a lightweight, 5MB Google search app. As you’ve probably guessed by now, it’s a search app that allows you to discover what’s popular and trending. You can set a second language to switch your search results to or from at any time. It also helps you save time by using your voice to say what you’re looking for. You can even tap on “Images” or “GIFs” to find the best photos and animated greetings to liven up your chats.
-
Twitter Lite
Twitter presents its app as a faster, data-friendly way to see what’s happening in the world right now. It loads quickly – fast and light (under 1MB), and takes up less space on your phone. It has a smart feature which lets you control your data by turning on “data saver mode”. You can benefit from push notifications, you can access it offline (keep reading loaded content even if your network cuts out) and of course you can enjoy safe web browsing.
Of course, there are other apps out there that let you send instant messages to your loved ones without needing a lot of data, so make sure to choose what best suits you.
And on that note, let’s not forget about music, life would be so dull without it, right? You won’t be able to watch videos when your data is throttled but you can always listen to radio.
What’s next?
Next time your data gets throttled, don’t panic! You know what you can actually do with 2G and you’ve learned about Lite apps. Give them a chance, who knows, you might even like them more than the original ones.
More good news comes from Tello: once you’ve used up your 3G/4G data, you can enjoy unlimited 2G. However, if you want to enjoy the 4G speed you can renew or upgrade your plan anytime with no extra fees. The change is instant, and your remaining balance will roll over for the next 30 days.
Very informative, thank you!
Glad you liked it, Evan!
Have a great day!
thanks for sharing knowlege – for sure, it is badly needed, john
QUOTE: “Unlimited 2G data, after you’ve used your LTE data.”
QUESTION: If I choose “no 4G data” as my plan, will I still get unlimited 2G data?
Hello DaveHat,
Thanks for the question. If you choose a no data phone plan, you will not be able to have the unlimited 2G data. If you are subscribed to a data plan and you run out of balance, you can still surf the web but your data speed is downgraded to 2G.
Hope it helps,
Maria
Maria, you cannot surf the web on 2g, neither will maps load. Waiting 5-10 minutes to load webpages isn’t worth it. Search Google for a restaurant for dinner? Plan on waiting 10 minutes for the search to load. Tello is awesome but 2g speed is horrible.
If I choose no data plan, what is going to happen if I accidently turn on mobile data on the phone? Do I simply not get any data traffic? Or will I get data traffic but get charged from Tello?
Hi Jessica,
If you only have a plan (with no data) and no Pay As You Go credit you won’t be able to use the internet.
If you do have Pay As You Go credit, we will charge you from that balance.
Hope it’s clear now ;)
2g is worthless at that speed. If it was 500kb per sec plus at least it would be painfully usable
could have added some more uses other than just social networking.
2g speed isn’t worth it. You’ll be very-very lucky to reach 56kbps. It would be better if Tello charged a bit more and offered 2.5g (i.e., 250kpbs) when the LTE is exhausted. I don’t need much speed, but 2g 56kbps is worthless.
One tip is to use an app like Speedify to slow down your LTE data to 250 or 500kbs to make the LTE data last longer and still be fast enough to use Youtube, iHeart Radio, or most apps.
And after the LTE data is done. 2g speeds are fine for apps like Radio FM which gives thousands of great radio channels all over the US and world. Also have used apps like Evony Return of The King at 65kbs without any problems. Marvel Strike Force will also work, but not as good at slowed speeds due to having to download allot of data. And have used Youtube at slowed speeds, but can be laggy.
Also are plenty of places like restaurants or local library’s that can be used to update your apps without using your lte data. For example I always use McDonald’s wifi to update my offline Google Maps once a month.
First off, anyone reading this should know Tello customer service is amazing.
Brent’s comments above have not been my experience. I can be in the Sprint store with all the cell phone signal bars and Radio FM doesn’t work.
For anyone considering Tello I would say they are a wonderful company, providing excellent customer service and value.
Tello’s 2g is their one weakness. Tello 2g you’ll find 97% useless. You’ll get a faster connection using your 100 year old copper traditional phone line than Tello 2g.
I don’t think Tello is reading this blog. If so, why not contact me if you think I’m mistaken.
Tello 2g data speed at most is a way to send and receive short text email. Expecting anything more is dishonest.
Do your plans support kids smart watches that run off 2g. Mainly setracker 2. All the plans I see are $35 and that’s to much for a kids watch.
Hello Jr,
Unfortunately, Tello is not compatible with smartwatches, but we feel your pain.
A lot of our customers choose Tello for their kids’ phone plans since the can customize them as needed. With prices between $5 – $39 and options to add a talk & text only plan for your youngsters, parents highly recommend us :).
Stay safe!
Reading this in 2020, due to covid19, I have to change plans, can not spend much money now. Thank You María!, this will help me a lot🙂
GOOD WILL SEE WHETHER I GET MARKS USING THIS AS MY PRESENTATION IN CLASS
I just found out that if you have a MIFI you WILL BE CUT OFF when you reach your monthly data. They will not throttle you down to 2G. This is because they say your device connection is a tether and that’s not allowed on 2G. It doesn’t matter that I have a MIFI and can’t use the 2G !?
Hi, Steve, thanks for writing!
Here’s the thing: when your data plan balance runs out and your Pay As You Go balance falls below $0.50, throttling is automatically enabled, and tethering automatically disabled. This means your device can no longer be used as a Wi-Fi Hotspot and you won’t be able to share data with any other device until you upgrade your data plan or recharge your Pay As You Go balance. Hope this helps!
I was capped at 2G for a few days due to some websites (video ads) taking up too much data. The 2G is pretty much worthless. I was thinking it was going to be around 64-80kbps, but running a speed test, its more around 32kbps.Thats slightly over half of dial up.Many websites weren’t just slow, they plain just give up and fail to load. 80kbps would likely make some websites slow, but still usable.
32kbps did however work fine for one use. My 2 email apps. I could refresh and check for new emails almost as fast as full speed, and opening and reading the text was quite usable.
Can Tello do better under TMobile? TMobile throttling is 128kbps. No one can stream video in 64kbps or 128 kbps so no one can really abuse it but by 128kbps speed we can have Google map for emergency use or can use Tello web site to renew plan. Other comparator like Cricket also throttling at 128kbps. I love Tello and I don’t use data much but run out sometime specially on trip and hate this part of Tello.
Thanks for the feedback, Ashvin!
It’s on our list for future to-dos! Love back!
Can Tello do better with TMobile? TMobile throttling at 3g speed. At least if we throttled at 128kbps like Cricket wireless, then it is usable in emergency cases. I don’t use data much and I like Tello overall but when traveling and run out data, then 32kbps (max average we get today) not useful to use map or go to Tello web site and renew plan.
Can Tello do better under TMobile? TMobile throttling is 3G(376kbps) speed. Cricket wireless throttles at 128Kbps so if throttle at 128kbps speed at server side , then device will get about 64kbps and then it is useful on device side. At this point in reality we get only 32kpbs and at that speed even I can’t go to Tello web site and renew my plan.
Hello & thanks so much for your feedback!
We will be taking it into account for future upgrades to our service.
I think if your gonna have an unlimited plan, You should have higher options than just 25gb limit, in this day and age with every thing people do with their phones 25gb is hardly unlimited or even in the ball park, So that is kinda false advertisement in itself. Or at least lower speed to 3g instead of 2g. As for tethering If some one paying for unlimited how some one using their phone isn’t really your business, after all they are paying for unlimited. Again that is also dishonest practice, Either stop your false advertising or actually offer an unlimited plan.
Thanks for the feedback!
Noted and passed on :). Have a great day!
It took over 2 minutes on tello 2g which is actually worse than dial up of 20 years ago to finally load this page looking for answers and to see this
“Data speed is throttled, now what? It’s time to make smart decisions. And by that we mean using the data in a calculated, rational way, like grown ups.”
As an official response is a slap in the face to any rational grown up trying to use a service their paying for but may need more data for any rational reason. A smart caculated decision is for companies not to insult their angry customers especially on a help page.
All the good will built up over years is immediately gone. I used to tell every person I knew about tello and why they should switch until now it’s been great but when I think of tello now this is all I can think about.
There are plenty of other unlimited plans that are at least usable after the data cap and those companies don’t though insults at you for needing it.
64Kbps is more like 30-50Kbps in real world speed testing for us. Unusable for stuff you would normally do, but it is enough to continue to track your kids on their iPhones with “Find My” app, and iMessage does work for the most part. Other than this, forget it. Tello should bring their service up to the standards of other MVNOs and boost the 2G to 128Kbps (many ATT MVNOs have even 256Kbps). 128K would make things like Google Maps usable, and one could even use the browser (slowly) to make a payment on Tello website. With current 2G data, most web pages simply time out.
I’ve signed up for tello because I saw the plans seemed pretty good as well as the network. I switched from metro which runs on the same network nonetheless the service is not the same instead of 4g speeds it gets 2g speeds while metro gets 4g. And I’ve barely used any data and am on the unlimited plan. I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up cancelling.
Actual 2g speeds are indeed usable. However, the recent testing done on the tello network of the throttled data once 4g data was exceeded left me completely dissatisfied.
2g provides data transfer speeds between 64kbps and 256kbps with good reception. Using the tello network speeds were observed to be maxed out at 30kbps (0.03mbps) when the signal strength was the strongest. The testing was conducted over the course of 7 days in multiple areas with signal strength reading between -63dBm and -99dBm at testing.
My observation is tello throttles data much below the standard 2g network, making their service very much unusable once data cap is reached.
Hi Adam,
We understand your frustration, but please note that if you need more high-speed data you always renew your plan or add Pay As You Go data to your plan.
Tello is designed for residential usage, and our throttling is meant for basic online functions.
We appreciate your understanding.
Sincerely,
Tello
This capped speed is ridiculous, I had unlimited and it was throttled at 5 gig, so my hotspot didn’t work on vacation at all. I understand capping, but if you say, it will be capped at 25 gig, don’t cap it at 5 gig for hotspot.
Hi Marty,
Sorry if you didn’t know about the cap, in fact the info is available on our Plans page: “The unlimited data plan offers 25GB 4G LTE/5G. Your hotspot/tethering speed is slowed down once you’ve used 5GB of hotspot/tethering.”
We do appreciate your feedback and we apologize for the inconvenience created.
Thank you for using Tello!
I have unlimited text/talk and 1 GB of data. I never ran out of data until this month( I got a new phone so it probably took some mobile data). I decided to use up the remaining 145 MB left to see how painfully slow it is. Well, it is slower but not bad for me. I can still do the typical things that I normally do like using my banking apps and reading emails and I was even able to watch Youtube videos ( occasionally it might get blurry) but not bad for me. I did a speed test for an hour and tested my apps – these are my results:
* I got these speeds with 4 to 5 bars. I am using an Android phone. So I would imagine the speed rate will be less with fewer bars.
I clock in anywhere between ( 60kbps-147 kbps download speed with an average of around 130kbps download). When I did the first speed test I got 29kbps but that was only once ( it didn’t seem painfully slow even at that rate). Upload speeds were more consistent around 150kbps. I used Google Go and things populated fast. MSN was pretty slow but that was in the standard Chrome app.
Most of my bank apps populate in a couple of seconds, however, loading the transactions took somewhere between (35 seconds-1 min on average). One of my banking apps took 5 minutes to load my transactions( it isn’t a well-known bank)! Everything loaded from Waze App in a reasonable timeframe( now I wasn’t moving so not sure it would be reliable at throttle speed), Youtube, Upside( took around 1-2 minutes to load the gas stations), all my banks’ apps came up in 10 seconds or less but the transaction part took some time, and McDonald’s App came up fast. Some of the pictures in the email don’t load right away but that should be expected. Youtube comes in about 15 sec- 20 sec- sound is good.
Add on… ( Day 2)
I decided to test Waze App and drove to the store to see how it worked. To download the voice it took around 2-3 minutes, after that, entering the directions and it directing me was good- saw no difference from using non-throttle speeds- I had 5 bars.
However, Downloading something from like the App store is very slow and not worth trying to download it ( expected).( speed test shows 62kbps download). I was downloading the Chase App and I was at 2% at 5:35 minutes- at 9 mins it was still at 2%. seems like will take hours to download the app whereas with standard speed takes seconds.
I really like Google Go- it brings up results pretty fast without searching for them- however, loading the actual site, like Instagram, took over 6 minutes to load. Social media sites most likely be very slow unless using a “lite” version.
The amount of bars you have just signals how close you are to the tower-it does not affect speeds. (shouldn’t)!
I have a question:
Are Discord and Spotify compatible with 2G speeds (after using up all my data)?
Hi Luwen,
Please be advised that the apps you mentioned are streaming apps which requires lots of data balance, therefore, we cannot guarantee that the mentioned apps will work with 2G speed as expected.
We checked the official website of Discord and it seems like the messages might load, but not calls/ video calls.
In regards to Spotify, it will take more time until a song will be playing, it has to buffer and it might stop from time to time.
Hope this answer helped!
It’s nice you posted all the reason 2G is great and then get rid of it without clearly informing your users. I lost the ability to track and text my child as they ran out data. They also could not text me because there phone uses RCS which requires data. I liken this to pulling the power on somebody’s house, but at least with a generator (The 2G) the lights could still run.
Regrettably, the decision to discontinue 2G services wasn’t within Tello’s control, but rather an anticipated shift driven by the rapid evolution of technology. We diligently notified all our customers about these changes through email. If you haven’t received our communication, it’s likely because your device doesn’t use it anymore.