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This is not uncommon here in Turkey. I end up using my iPhone as a modem via USB tethering often. Mobile internet is much faster in Turkey (100+ mbs for cheap) than the wired network. It only adds ~10ping and can handle anything.

I'm willing to bet this will be the norm worldwide when 5G rolls out. Here in Turkey we have '4.5G' which is a marketing term for the latest generation 4G infrastructure. We only got 4G last year here, so we have the latest hardware.

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Really? I just returned from a 2-week vacation in Turkey (Izmir, Cesme) and I was lucky to get working internet at all roaming on Turkcell. When it did connect, the speeds were ~4 mbps (iPhone6s - Verizon). Not sure if that's just because I was roaming.

If you were roaming then all your data is being tunneled back to the US to Verizon's network / a US IP.

It's very possible that Verizon is limiting your bandwidth so that they don't have to pay the Turkish providers as much for the network usage.

In addition, you are probably getting QoSed by the provider itself.

Did you think to walk into a Turkcell store and buy a SIM card + prepaid bandwidth? 6GB LTE + 500 minutes/texts is 50 lira (~$15)

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