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[GUIDE] How to Disable Boost Data Throttle - *Confirmed Works

dhabell

Well-Known Member
Boost recently announced if plans on throttling data down to 256k after a 2.5GB capped is reached...



Note - I used ES File explorer rather than Root Explorer

1. Root your phone

2. Perform a nandroid backup if possible

3. Download ES File Explorer from the Play store

4. Open ESFE and go to settings -> Other Settings -> Root Settings. Check all four boxes.

5.
I came across this and it seems to work. So, I thought I'd share it with everyone.


Disclaimer:
I cannot be held responsible for what YOU do to YOUR phone. With that said let's start!


(FYI: I use Root Explorer for this)

1. Preform a CWM Backup if you do not have one already :)
2. Make sure you are in WiFi or Airplane mode, or are not connected to 3G
3. Open root explorer and navigate to '/data/system/'
4. Find the 'throttle' folder and change the folder permissions to 'Owner:' 'Read' and 'Execute' only. (r-x------)
5. Open up the 'throttle' folder, you should have 2 files in here, one is 'temp' and the other is something like '-1226839461'. Backup these files to your SD card in case you have problems.
6. DELETE both files in the 'throttle' folder.
7. Clear Dalvik Cache
8. Reboot.

Original Thread Found Here:
[Q] Data Throttle Removal? [Archive] - xda-developers


Tips - Once inside ESFE press the up button until you are at / . Then find the throttle folder. After saving a backup of this folder just in case, select it then press the menu hard button. Choose Operations and scroll down to Properties. Where is says Permissions, hit the change button. Then in the top row uncheck the write box and hit ok.

Final Step - change your 4G and 3G settings too,
 
Actually Data speeds have been throttled down some for quite a while. I have done tests with a friend who had a regular Sprint post paid account and his data was always faster. It wasn't a crushing throttle like they have announced recently, but still..
 
not sure if you can test like that. there are too many variables to isolate. i.e. weather, location of user, PRL of user, distance from tower, which towers you are on, ROM settings, apps installed, etc.
 
the PRL is the preferred roaming list which is the list of towers that the phone connects to. Now he wasn't on a corporate account so wasn't on a business IP
 
not sure what that means, manually changing PRLs is a lil above my skill set. but I know a lot Boost people manually change their PRL to the Sprint business plan PRL bc it's faster, and Boost users dont have corp accounts or business IPs.

If you werent positive you were on the same PRL as your friend you could have been drawing from different towers which would affect data transfer speeds.
 
Boost PRL's do differ from Sprint ones. As a regular Sprint customer can roam onto towers a boost phone can't. I can also imagine Spring giving a higher priority to their own post paid accounts first.
 
In my area it is easy to know we are on the same tower. There aren't a lot of them here (damn county is tower unfriendly).
 
Changing PRL does help in a lot of cases. It is also a way to get a sprint contract killed by setting up your phone to use data from a roaming agreement tower (Sprint has to pay the other company for the use of those towers, so they don't like it when you pull a huge amount of data from them).
 
Boost PRL's do differ from Sprint ones. As a regular Sprint customer can roam onto towers a boost phone can't. I can also imagine Spring giving a higher priority to their own post paid accounts first.

Totally agree with you on that! I wish I knew how to change PRLs manually. I know it involves heavy terminal use. I hate that stuff lol.
 
Wow I've never heard of this changing ur prl to get different performance. Lol I don't even know what prl is. Anymore info on this, or if someone wants to start a comprehensive thread on the subject would be awesomeee.
 
idk enough about it. try searching on the Prevail forum. lots of PRL stuff there, including guides.
 
The PRL is the Preferred Roaming List which is basically the list of towers the phone connects to. If your PRL is a year old and a new tower for Sprint just went up in your area, your phone might not knot to connect to it. the phone has the ability to check for a new PRL. Now Actual Sprint customers do have a different PRL as they do get covered by roaming agreement Sprint has with other carriers, but they have to pay for traffic on those towers so needless to say they don't like it when you use a ton of data on them. Sprint will also give a higher priority to their post paid accounts, and the difference in PRL most likely is a part of how they do that. Changing ones PRL is not as easy as rooting or installing a ROM. Also changing your PRL doesn't always help if you live in an area that has few towers for instance (*grumble* damn tower unfriendly county)...

Codegerm
 
Regarding the original post of this thread, mhannah3333 used this method and has not not been throttled even after 7GB of data use. it appears to work.
 
It would be nice if that holds. We will find out as time goes on. Right now I am on WiFi most of the time so it is hard to get past the 2.5gig in a month, but next trip I take I'll try streaming a movie or three lol..
 
The heavy terminal use could be easily cut down if somebody writes a script that can me used in a script manager app with root access
 
So far, it looks like it only affects 4g traffic, 3g is still throttled on my phone (after a recent flash 4g was sluggish until I did the steps here)

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2
 
So far, it looks like it only affects 4g traffic, 3g is still throttled on my phone (after a recent flash 4g was sluggish until I did the steps here)

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2
I would be interested in knowing since I havent had any luck on my thread yet. I didnt use ES but just root manager pro and there werent two files in there, just one and following the steps just bumped my data all together
 
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