Shelly Palmer

AT&T, Sprint and Verizon Remove Samsung Galaxy S5’s ‘Download Booster’

Samsung loves to pack its phones with tons of software features, but one that customers won’t get to see almost anywhere in the US is the new “Download Booster,” which combines a user’s Wi-Fi and LTE connection to speed up downloads. US carriers aren’t overly fond of anything that might increase customers’ data usage unless they can charge extra for it, so three out of the four major carriers have removed Download Booster from their devices. Between reports from Android Police and FierceWirelessTech, we have confirmation that AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon have all shipped the S5 without the feature. AT&T was quoted by FierceWirelessTech as saying, “We are evaluating Samsung’s download booster feature. We thoroughly test new software, features, and functionality to ensure that it meets our standards for a quality user experience.”

Read the full story at Ars Technica.