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Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling
- monocasa 8y agoWeren't wireless providers exempt from a lot of net neutrality?
- aerotwelve 8y agoThis was the case in the early 2010 version of the rules, but I believe the Wheeler FCC rules from 2015 applied to both fixed and mobile broadband providers. The justification was that use of mobile internet had grown significantly since then, and could no longer be excluded without punishing people living in remote areas. I can't read the massive PDF of the 2015 order on my phone though, so I could be wrong.
- tryptophan 8y agoWhere is that extra bandwidth going?
- mikeash 8y agoIt’s presumably being used to serve additional subscribers without having to pay for troublesome capital improvements.
- cwyers 8y agoClickbait. The content of the article has to do with wireless providers, not wired ISPs.
- dang 8y agoOk, we've grafted a more precise phrase from the article into the title above.
- TYPE_FASTER 8y agoBoth wired and wireless broadband internet connectivity were included in the 2015 net neutrality rulings: From https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/04/13/2015-07841/protecting-and-promoting-the-open-internet https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/04/13/2015-07...: “Broadband Internet access service” continues to include services provided over any technology platform, including but not limited to wire, terrestrial wireless (including fixed and mobile wireless services using licensed or unlicensed spectrum), and satellite. In contrast to the Commission's 2010 Open Internet Order, here we are applying the same regulations to both fixed and mobile broadband Internet access services.
- Jaymoon85 8y agoIs it still considered to be throttling when it's in the service agreement? I have Cricket wireless, and they tell me I am limited to 3mbps speed, which is exactly what reflects in all speed tests I've tried. I am totally OK with that, in exchange for having an "unlimited" data usage plan. All streaming video I've tried (Youtube, Netflix, DirecTV Now) seem to work and look just fine. They all look no different from when I'm streaming on my 100mbps Wi-Fi.
- grecy 8y ago> They all look no different from when I'm streaming on my 100mbps Wi-Fi. Yep, which is why very, very few people require anything more than 5 or 10mbps internet service at home.
- Dylan16807 8y agoFor a single person. And assuming they don't try to watch a high quality stream while also downloading anything. And if they don't mind waiting hours for things to install. A faster connection is not in the 'need' range but it's definitely not marginal.
- Dylan16807 8y agoGenerally "throttling" is when your connection is intentionally lowered beyond the base speed. So if you can use that 3mbps all month then it's not throttling. But are you sure it looks "no different"? 3mbps will probably get you 720p at 30fps. It probably won't get you 1080 or higher, or 60fps.
- ikeboy 8y agoThis practice was going on while net neutrality was law too. Very misleading title.
- JumpCrisscross 8y agoNetflix blocks PIA, a VPN, from accessing its servers. Rights holders’ unchecked power is the problem. Abstracting their power through net neutrality terminology distracts from their damage and promotes their cause. If you want a shortcut to the solution, it includes “how could I make Netflix indfifferent as to how I access their content?”
- rbritton 8y agoNetflix blocks virtually all VPS provider IP ranges, so you can’t even host your own VPN to work around it.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> Netflix blocks virtually all VPS provider IP ranges Netflix has done a terrific job of deflecting the issue from themselves onto ISPs. Yet Netflix et al support rights holders through their policies. It’s a complicated battlefield.
- phobosdeimos 8y agoTrue, Netflix first got popular in my country by people using VPN to access it. Now that they operate locally and are a part of the establishment they've been diligent in squashing VPNs.
- chatmasta 8y agoI’ve been using a VPN on an EC2 server for over a year with Netflix with no issues. I think the trick is to be the only one on the IP address and to use the same IP address frequently. It’s an interesting problem because really, Netflix just needs to pretend to care, enough to satisfy the rightsholders they are buying licenses from. At one point, there were millions of users in Australia even though Netflix didn’t even have a presence there.
- PenguinCoder 8y agoI'm really interested to see how they accomplished this. Considering PIA puts up new nodes pretty quickly, and doesn't have one congruent address space, how does Netflix detect PIA or other vpn users?
- openloop 8y agoFuck you pay me.
- openloop 8y agoGoodbye throttling or else.
- openloop 8y agoEmminent domain. Towers eveywhere they need to be. Move.
- sgt101 8y agoPhysics > law > hope. There is one bearer that is shared between all the wireless connections in a cell - the EM spectrum. Cells interfere with each other, so if you drop the power and up the frequencies of the cell you can have more cells in the same area but as you go up the frequencies to do that you have problems with things like walls and trees and also you have to have a wired network to provide the backhaul.
- openloop 8y agoEminent domain. Towers everywhere they need to be. Move bitch get out the way.
- hamandcheese 8y agoThrottling video speeds may very well be a good thing for many (most?) users who have a fixed data cap. Throttling means Netflix/Youtube/etc react by sending lower quality video to your tiny screen, where you won’t be able to appreciate higher quality anyway.
- gst 8y ago> Throttling video speeds may very well be a good thing for many (most?) users who have a fixed data cap. I would assume that most users with recent contracts are going to have an "unlimited" amount of included data, given that most (all?) major US providers sell unlimited data by default.
- jandrese 8y agoBy default? Don't fall for the marketing bullshit, "Unlimited" is like 20GB and then you're sent down to the penalty box and EDGE data speeds. Real unlimited is very expensive if it exists, which it usually does not.
- Jonnax 8y agoThis is ridiculous. People can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on a mobile screen. If they can't then they're a small subset of the population. Also it should be up to me to select what resolution I stream at. Not the service provider making the decision.
- sbr464 8y agoYears back, I operated a small ISP to serve a need until cable broadband arrived in the community. I had to monitor overall usage and throttle clients frequently with high torrent/video usage. It was also an issue with hotspots in RV Parks/campgrounds where there was a higher ratio of video usage. There are technical limitations to spectrum/bandwidth, I'm curious why this isn't mentioned more in discussions like these?
- takeda 8y agoYou should either guarantee a minimum speed with unlimited data or cap on maximum amount of data use can use. Throttling based on content means you were overselling. As an user I prefer to be in control of which applications get to use the Internet that I'm paying for.
- RangerScience 8y agoWelp. And you just totes changed my mind from the reply I just made. This is fantastically well put.
- sbr464 8y agoBut from a physics/technical standpoint, a radio only has so much capacity. How would you handle the situation, if you managed a provider, and 10 people at a bar started streaming an NBA game in HD? Somethings got to give.
- skummetmaelk 8y agoThen this must be clearly stated in the advertisement material.
- stefan_ 8y agoThe streams themselves give? That's why all the ISPs are throttling video, because it's adaptive to bandwidth and doesn't fail outright! Which also, of course, explains why throttling it all the time is not necessary and certainly not optimal.
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- gesman 8y agoThe problem is not with throttling per se (it’s a laws of physics after all!) but not disclosing and/or misleading customers to think there is an unlimited stable bandwidth and/or not disclosing in clear words when, how and how much throttling will be triggered. Do that - and the grief from both sides will be avoided. Without proper and clear disclosure both sides think the other side is an aholes
- mehrdadn 8y ago> The problem is not with throttling per se (it’s a laws of physics after all!) Are you using "throttling" to mean the same thing other people do? When people say "throttling" they refer to the deliberate/artificial action to that effect, not the natural throughput limitation.
- gesman 8y agoAvailable bandwidth vs. natural inclination of humans to pay minimal fee yet engage in non stop downloading of free hi def movies and watch streaming .... Something like that As a provider to survive and keep providing service to all members - throttling of offenders need to take place
- tim333 8y agoWhen I was in Thailand on Dtac they had a bunch of packages where you could choose your throttling rate, eg unlimited data at 512kbps or 1mbs, 4mbs etc. Or you could cap the data amount with the speed at max. It worked pretty well. 1 mbs unlimited was good for me - you could watch 360p video constantly if you wanted etc. Maybe 480p if lucky. And the cost was like $10/mo. I kind of miss that in the UK where I don't think any mobile networks do unlimited data.
- qaq 8y agoMost (all?) US residential ISPs throttle.
- hguhghuff 8y agoInternet companies need to refuse to serve ISPs who throttle. “Oh we can’t get YouTube google and Netflix on this ISP? We’ll leave for one who does provide them.” Restricting services can cut both ways.
- lrem 8y agoThat's pretty much what happened in France a few years back. SFR (I think it was SFR, could have been one of the others, sorry) wanted more money from Google, to which Google said nope. I don't even know how that one resolved, but for quite a while many folk in the office had no YouTube at home.
- rhodysurf 8y agoThat only works if there is competition between ISPs in your area, and usually there isn’t
- 52-6F-62 8y agoSometimes you don't even have that luxury between buildings—even if you live in an urban centre with a number of providers.
- josefresco 8y ago"To start, he said, consider an internet service provider that doesn’t throttle." Is this a joke? While reading an article about how every US cell provider throttles they recommend to choose an ISP that .... doesn't throttle?
- lainga 8y agoI was expecting that to lead somehow to the line "...however, this implies that no ISP exists which doesn't throttle, a contradiction. QED"
- _red 8y agoResearch shows you should use the proper name: QoS The name "Throttling" is an attempt to frame this pejoratively. All ISPs of every type engage in bandwidth shaping / QoS. Its the laws of nature that enforce this (demand always is greater than supply of every resource).
- nbhuik 8y agoYes, it isn't particularly hard to figure out why they are throttling. Video services especially will take up all the bandwidth when they can and then annoy people when it inevitably gets downgraded again. For most people "speed" is "does my video load" and "does this file complete fast", not "4k everywhere". This should be fairly obvious for anyone who have even shared a connection with a couple of people. And unfortunately the Internet is lacking in support of adaptive anything.
- tinus_hn 8y ago4K video is about 25MBit. If I have a faster than 25Mbit internet connection I should be able to watch 4K video. This should be fairly obvious. Oversubscription is the responsibility of the ISP and it is not an excuse.
- nbhuik 8y agoNot with wireless. That depends on geography, interference, temporary usage peaks etc. Much more variable, limited and costly than a "static" line.
- tinus_hn 8y agoWireless is pretty cheap compared to wired, because you don’t need the wires and laying the wires is the expensive part. If you can’t give people 25Mbit connections with your wireless technology, don’t sell them 25MBit connections. But coincidentally typically the stuff where the ISPs have all these terribly difficult problems are the services that refuse to pay their extra fees. Kind of like what happens to restaurants that don’t pay the protection fee.
- Proven 8y agoThose who aren't are treating their customers like crap. Imagine being a customer of such a crappy provider who cannot guarantee a minimum or maximum SLA... Thanks but no thanks.
- throwawaymanbot 8y agoLets not mention the ISP's either. Its like enforcing us to be third world no matter how much money we spend. #AmericanStyleCapitalism
- andrewla 8y agoI'm not entirely sure I understand what these graphs are saying, because they're somewhat confusingly presented. Specifically, I see no evidence of differentiation. The data looks so sparse that I'm not even sure I understand what the signal is supposed to be. In the first chart, does an absence of a number mean that no throttling was detected, or does it mean that the combination was simply not tested? I assume the latter, and in that case I don't really see anything interesting, especially since we're not given N or a standard deviation. ATT, for example, shows 1.5, 1.4, 1.4, NA, NA for its data points, which means that it doesn't appear to differentiate between NBCSports/Netflix/Youtube. The other data points show similar patterns. Am I misreading this?
- davidkuhta 8y agoAgreed, I found the visualizations confusing. Also, is there significance in the separation into two 'blocs' of carriers? I thought it was 'US (ATT-ViaSatInc)' and then 'global (du-iWireless)', but O2UK was in the former set and cricket seems to be without a home.
- Nasrudith 8y agoThe physics limit is a misleading talking point that always comes up when justifying throttling and not providing what was promised. If physics were truly the limiting factor dense cities would have the worst data quality and rural areas the best. Instead cities have the best short of overwhelming events like tech conventions and disasters. The cell footprints are adjustable. A localized network of smaller area cells can handle more people and data than one big tower which covers a broad area. Reminds me of one Vice President of Verizon who visited and tried to bullshit classes of electrical and computer engineers about the end of unlimited data as a technical necessity. Competition intervened via I believe T-Mobile and suddenly it wasn't a problem although Wall Street got pissy about the decreased margins.
- MrEfficiency 8y agoTmobile has become Verizon screwing people over with claims of UNLIMITED, but in reality is just another marketing tactic. Source: Got throttled and couldnt load my school's website let alone upload a 500mb file.
- Nasrudith 8y agoI meant it more that they disrupted the pricing model shift they wanted to pull off than they were saints or anything. Capitalism works ideally when being selfish benefits others sort of thing. Per data pricing is something that doesn't seem too viable given lack of user control over it and ability to know ahead of time.
- resters 8y agoThis article inadvertently supports why stopping Net Neutrality was a good idea. If it takes a deep investigation to discover "throttling", and there has been no outcry from consumers, then the throttling did not cause any harm. Net Neutrality bans many sensible forms of traffic shaping. What we are seeing is network capacity being greatly increased through sensible traffic shaping, with no downside for consumers. That's why Net Neutrality is a bad idea in the first place!
- jakebasile 8y agoSo, if something can be done and no one notices it can't be a bad thing? "I would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids!"
- resters 8y agoTraffic shaping does exactly that. It prioritizes traffic in a way that makes sense for each protocol. So yes, the point is that being aware of the protocols lets the shaping create more perceived bandwidth out of thin air. This is the reality as long as we have "residential quality" broadband, which is more like a finance product arbitraging bandwidth, intended to lower cost and minimize (but not reduce) the impact of congestion. If you want dedicated bandwidth the price is significantly higher. I wish I could afford a dedicated high bandwidth circuit as my residential connection. I can't, but I think that ISPs are better able to choose what QoS makes sense than regulators are.
- jakebasile 8y agoThe ISPs created this "arbitrage" style of overselling bandwidth, and we shouldn't let their use of loose definitions serve as an excuse to further degrade their products against their marketing claims. My residential broadband from AT&T is sold to me as Gigabit. Do you know how often I've ever gotten what they sold to me? Never. I top out at about 300Mbps, and even that is rare.
- resters 8y ago
- cestith 8y ago"doing throttling" is not the problem. If I'm using a lot of bandwidth and I get slowed down in fairness to other users or for network stability, I can accept that. Throttling based on my remote network peer rather than on how much data I'm moving is anticompetitive towards that party and unfair to me as a paying customer. That's the issue. If I'm downloading Linux ISOs, streaming Netflix, grabbing all the latest podcast episodes, archiving my Google Drive locally, or grabbing the whole Simtel DOS archive for my DOSBox installation, my ISP should treat my traffic the same.
- feketegy 8y agoWhere I live, if you don't pay the ISP the same day the invoice arrives, next day you can only browse websites in an iframe, with ads from the ISP... They did this a couple of years ago, they doubled down on it since competition arrived...