Last month, Telus kicked off discounts on its unlimited data plans, being first of the ‘Big 3’ to offer its $75 plan with 20GB of data (speeds throttled to 512 Kbps once initial data exceeded), saving users $20 per month off regular prices. This plan has again popped up, along with an $85/20GB plan with shareable data.
While the 20GB plan offers high speed LTE data, some Telus customers are noticing YouTube videos are not playing in 1080p over cellular data, but rather defaulting to 480p.
According to iPhone in Canada reader, Alex, he notes his 20GB Telus Peace of Mind plan is unable to play YouTube in 1080p, as videos won’t load most of the time. However, after enabling a VPN, Alex notes YouTube was then able to play videos in 1080p. He says the ‘Play HD on Wi-Fi’ YouTube setting has been disabled.
Alex shared a screen recording of his iPhone experience with us, showing how YouTube was unable to play in 1080p over a regular LTE connection. But once a VPN was enabled, YouTube played 1080p videos right away, which leads him to conclude some sort of throttling is happening.
Other users on Reddit also had a similar experience as Alex, noting YouTube on this 20GB Telus plan would also show constant buffering for 1080p videos, while some said videos in 720p wouldn’t even load.
Are you seeing any problems with your Telus 20GB plan and streaming YouTube in 1080p? We’ve reached out to Telus for comment on this issue and will update this story accordingly.
Update Feb. 7, 2:05pm PT: A Telus spokesperson responded with the following statement to iPhone in Canada, saying “The type of rate plan a customer is on has no effect on this particular inquiry. At TELUS, we continuously optimize our network to manage traffic, including congestion in urban areas and environmental conditions in order to maintain an exceptional network experience for all of our customers.”
