Well...
I purchased more data, and will see how things go.
My wife has unlimited data on her phone plan, but speeds are throttled down severely when she turns on the hotspot on her phone. I've been using her hotspot to access the fire so I can preserve the extra data I bought.
On that note, I'll mention that I've used her hotspot often before, and most threads and pages on the 'fire load almost normally. Or at least they did until recently. Now, using her throttled back hotspot, even a thread without pics or video takes from probably 15-30 seconds to load. Threads with pics or video are to be avoided as they don't load well at all...
I don't know if it comes from Verizon, The Campfire, or the browser used, but things have certainly changed.
