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Verizon Using Recent Net Neutrality Victory to Wage War Against Netflix?
- transfire 13y agoCan anyone else verify this or similar?
- o0-0o 13y agoI think Time Warner has started doing this now as well. Right after the ruling, Netflix quality was so poor that I bought a new modem. No improvement. I will have to check the other AWS services I use including my own stiff. Thanks for posting.
- leobelle 13y agoThere is a lot of complexity involved with network connections. There are many plausible alternative explanations for your and the author's problems. One or two people talking about their experience isn't the kind of data you would need to jump to the conclusion that your ISP is throttling your internet connection.
- Justsignedup 13y agoThey literally stated that during a support call "we throttle cloud services" Can anyone set up a "speed test" online on AWS or something similar? This way we can experiment with connections.
- leobelle 13y agoThat guy doesn't probably have any idea about what he's talking about. Call center types wouldn't know this and "throttle cloud services" just translates to "throttle the internet." The cloud is the internet.
- insaneirish 13y agoUnless they were told to specifically say what they did, which seems unlikely, the chance of a first level technical support person having any clue what sort of QoS policy is implemented on the network is basically zero. That sort of person would not have access to see such things directly and wouldn't have the skill set to interpret configuration.
- orenmazor 13y agoif only we had a distributed group of people, all of whom with a vested interest in figuring this out, that could help us with doing speed tests in variety of configurations…
- leobelle 13y agoNetflix is already doing this: http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa
- orenmazor 13y agoOh wow. I was being tongue in cheek about us techies, but looks like Netflix beat me to it here. awesome!
- Xylakant 13y agoA rough look at the data suggests that Verizon DLS used to be around a stable 1.4 Mbps until October 2013 and is on a continuous decline since then with a current low of 1.17 Mbps. That would support the OPs theory, but it's only a single datapoint that may have other underlying causes.
- paulgb 13y agoInterestingly, the net neutrality ruling wasn't until last month.
- twoodfin 13y agoI believe that's a few months after Netflix started heavily using Cogent as a provider, and thus Cogent's peering disputes with Verizon and Comcast began: http://gigaom.com/2013/06/17/having-problems-with-your-netflix-you-can-blame-verizon/ http://gigaom.com/2013/06/17/having-problems-with-your-netfl... My company uses Cogent as an ISP, and remote workers have had nothing but trouble trying to use VPN and other connections back home via Comcast or Verizon because the Cogent/Comcast+Verizon peering points are severely overloaded, dropping packets at a 5%+ clip at some times during the day.
- 13y ago
- MichaelTieso 13y agoNot sure the person in the chat understood the question. Doesn't appear to be a native English speaker.
- squigs25 13y agoTotally true, but let's be honest even if the chat representative understood English perfectly and denied up and down that Verizon was throttling, he probably doesn't have the expertise to know one way or the other what is actually happening. I think the evidence speaks for itself however.
- ef4 13y agoI think the ISPs are going to eventually regret this. Once you get a reputation for having a crappy product, it's hard to lose it. And they will get that reputation. Their own advertising has often touted how well their service can stream Netflix. People are already primed to judge them on it, because the industy's own advertising has taught them to. Stupid stupid.
- squigs25 13y agoIN the perfect world of competition, true. Unfortunately most people have very few ISP options.
- zaraflan 13y agoComcast/Verizon/AT&T/et al already have terrible reputations. They also have dominant local monopolies and the legislative power to defend them.
- nhangen 13y agoI disagree. Here in Florida, Verizon FIOS has an excellent reputation and the product is far superior to the other choices we have. It's also the first place I've lived where I have choice (Brighthouse being the other player). Time Warner and Comcast are definitely among the worst though, and I suspect that if the OP is correct, it won't be long until Verizon joins them.
- falcolas 13y agoVerizon FIOS is exactly the product the article was complaining about... > I realized that the one thing in common between me and our president was that we both had FiOS internet service from Verizon.
- nhangen 13y agoYes, but the reputation isn't going to deteriorate overnight. There's a reason why they both had it. It's a good product (or it was).
- bhouston 13y agoSomeone should write a speed test website that looks to read from a set of common cloud services and then compares the speeds and records this based on ISP and location. This shouldn't be hard to setup and you'll get a ton of page views probably for ever. One can then see degradations over time and based on ISP. Would be even nicer to have some controls in there too so you can see if well known cloud services are slower than non-cloud services.
- trigger 13y agoNetflix already do this, http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/ http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/
- sonnyz 13y agoThings are not looking good in my area... http://imgur.com/pxlpxO9 http://imgur.com/pxlpxO9
- paulgb 13y agoUnfortunately their US data only goes to December. Looks like Verizon dipped prior to the net neutrality ruling. http://imgur.com/xOfjRf0 http://imgur.com/xOfjRf0
- erjjones 13y agoDid you check out the other countries. We get the shaft on speeds for sure.
- JangoSteve 13y agoI'm a little confused by the average speed reported in their speed index. Not sure about the others, but I know Comcast and AT&T both offer several speed tiers. Is their average speed reported here affected by the percentage of customers who purchase the lowest tier?
- wmf 13y agoYes, which is why the data is effectively impossible to interpret. Only the FCC reports speed as a percentage of the plan. http://www.fcc.gov/measuring-broadband-america http://www.fcc.gov/measuring-broadband-america
- colinbartlett 13y agoI would not take some offhanded remark from an outsourced, minimum wage, offshore worker as confirmation of anything.
- RyanZAG 13y agoBy far the most correct observation. These guys are just following a script - they probably don't even know what half of the words mean. Please don't read anything into it or assume the outsourced support is somehow privy to anything at all that goes on inside Verizon other than what the FAQ system he's using tells him on screen.
- squigs25 13y agoI wouldn't read into this even if it wasn't an outsourced support person. But the proof is in the pudding, the speed tests speak for themselves, no?
- incongruity 13y agoBut the proof is in the pudding, the speed tests speak for themselves, no? That's exactly it -- multiple, independent yet individually unreliable measures can actually produce very reliable aggregate evidence through convergence. This is particularly true if one uses abductive reasoning, but IIRC, there's statistical proof behind this idea as well... That is to say that the speed tests say something and the chat says something, but together, they begin to paint an troublesome picture. Combine that with the timing and it starts to look bad. More data points will add to that convergent picture, of course...
- kordless 13y agoAs they say, a leading question's answer is usually no. We need this to be verified by someone with intricate knowledge of whatever is going on inside Verizon's network. The number of people with the exact knowledge of what is going on will be necessarily limited.
- waps 13y ago
- grej 13y agoThis is probably only the beginning. On demand video directly threatens the television business model of these companies. They will use every technology available to them to throttle users like crazy until they are compelled not to, either by the market (consumers en masse) or by regulation.
- xSwag 13y agoYes let's arm ourselves with pitchforks based on an anecdotal experience of a stranger on the internet.
- eksith 13y ago"That means a lot of services are going to be impacted by this." Should be easy enough for someone else to verify shortly. No need for pitchforks, but corroboration would certainly be welcome.
- eksith 13y agoOh dear. Looks like the work left for Google Fiber isn't done yet. Hoping they'll make a run in New York (or at least upstate where I intend to move), but that's a long shot. I wonder how much independent ISPs could make if they stick to a small list of customers, but take up the "We Don't Throttle" stance.
- lucb1e 13y agoGoogle Fiber is the worst idea ever. You know this company makes the vast majority of its income through advertising and collecting data about you, right? I understand that it's a great service for a great price, but the question is how long that remains sustainable. Right now they're sitting on such a pile of money that it doesn't matter whether they provide internet access in a few cities at a super cheap price. They benefit enough in reputation and in extra usage of other services when people are able to use very high quality internet. Proof of this is that Google disallowed running servers (the very thing that makes the internet the internet, end to end communication) up until their reputation was almost completely tarnished in the hacker community. Only then did they relent and allow servers to be run. They're not much different from other for-profit companies.
- eksith 13y agoGoogle disallowed servers initially as a non-insignificant number of people thought of the service as an easy entry into mass virtual hosting as soon as they got it. That started to affect throughput[1]. As mentioned numerous times elsewhere, their ultimate goal is to embarrass ISPs into providing better service. That seems to be working in Texas ATM. The hobbyists that complained got an exemption in their TOS for non-commercial use[2]. Of course, Google is collecting information about me. As is every other ISP (Verizon and Comcast hijack domain misspellings to redirect to their search pages), which is why VPNs and Tor are so popular right now. [1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/google-we-can-ban-servers-on-fiber-without-violating-net-neutrality/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/google... [2] https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/2659981 https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/2659981
- jpswade 13y agoNet Neutrality was dead as soon as Google became an ISP. We all know where this is going.
- alimoeeny 13y agoSo that is what's going on! What should we do?
- wheaties 13y agoSo there's no issue with a business line? Sounds like they're NOT throttling Netflix per se but rather residential lines. That would make sense since businesses pay more and generally consume less. Welcome to the future.
- Twirrim 13y agoHanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." It could be any number of things, like a problem with one of their peering providers. I wouldn't take one customer support agent's word for it.
- veritas20 13y agoFile a compliant with the FCC. Yes, I know, but you have to start somewhere to let them know how their action/inaction/decisions affect consumers. The more complaints, the better.
- bartkappenburg 13y agoSlightly off topic: I'm very lucky to live in the Netherlands if I compare the average speeds, even with the mediocre ISPs, with the rest of the countries where Netflix is active. See: http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/netherlands http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/netherlands
- gst 13y agoYou can't really compare a small densely populated country such as the Netherlands to a huge country with large rural areas such as the United States. If you live in an urban area here (such as the Bay Area) you get excellent speeds as well.
- seanmcq 13y agoWhat bay area do you live in and who is your ISP?
- squigs25 13y agoI think the best way to test this would be to open a VPN connection, and connect to AWS or watch Netflix via VPN
- alimoeeny 13y agoOK, this guy lost his job, I am sure they record all the conversations, and just a grep -i "cloud providers" should be enough to find the conversation, sorry man,
- joshuacc 13y agoI have also noticed a similar effect on Verizon FIOS, where some video services work perfectly well during the day, but around 5pm or so start getting incredibly slow to buffer. Whether this is intentional throttling I'm not qualified to say, but it makes me quite hesitant to use Verizon in the future.
- riggins 13y agoI have had the same experience with Verizon FIOS in NYC.
- brown9-2 13y agoI've noticed this when streaming from the PBS Apple TV app, but not so much the Netflix app or website. Occum's razor would suggest the problem is likely with the video services themselves, and/or congestion from other people who are now home from work watching videos, than something malicious from Verizon.
- polarix 13y agoBack to torrents, anyone?
- rmchugh 13y agomight have been a good idea to black out his name. poor fellow might lose his job for being caught saying that.
- incongruity 13y agoHaving the raw chat visible would be enough to find it in the logs, if they cared that much… just say'n is all.
- lucb1e 13y agoI'm pretty sure the chats get logged, they can search through that. There are no privacy regulations in the US like there are in Europe about not spying on employees, and even here (Europe) most have an automated message saying "This [chat/call] may be recorded for training purposes."
- GunlogAlm 13y agoNet Neutrality is dead [in the United States].
- geofflane 13y agoNet Neutrality is fine. The FCC just needs to reclassify internet providers as common carriers rather than information services. To quote from the Washington Post [1]: "Broadband is currently classified by the FCC as an information service, a category that gives the agency a fairly limited set of regulatory options. If Internet providers were classified instead as common carriers, the FCC's rule would likely stand. In fact, the federal ruling on Tuesday upheld the FCC's net neutrality rules as a matter of principle; the problem is that the agency effectively tried to apply its powers in the wrong context." [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/14/d-c-circuit-court-strikes-down-net-neutrality-rules/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/14...
- wiremine 13y agoSo what does the legal roadmap look like going forward for the FCC?
- jlgaddis 13y ago> The FCC just needs to reclassify internet providers as common carriers rather than information services. Yeah, it's not quite that easy. With the "common carrier" classification comes a lot of other regulatory issues.
- padseeker 13y agoHow do we, IT savvy people capable of monitoring, testing and verifying this stuff, use our collective skills to monitor each ISP and communicate who is doing the best/worst job? As long as there is at least one ISP provider who is not throttling traffic, we should reward that ISP that does not discriminate on web traffic, and punish the ones that do. You might have to show some differences across different regions and cities, but this is critical. I don't know enough about monitoring web traffic to figure this out but it sounds like an awesome project to spearhead. How do we get started? It's just that I'm just a little sick of the finger pointing, and would prefer to do whatever I could to fix the problem or use the markets to promote the good companies and punish the bad ones. If there is a market where all the ISP providers are throttling then you have a better case for government regulation. Who's with me?
- kordless 13y agoI'm with you. The primary problem we'll have is the 'reward' system in locales with only one provider. You'll have to focus on markets with multiple providers. The solution involves building an escrowed Bitcoin fund which does payouts based on provider's aggregate throughput. How that is implemented, I have no idea.
- padseeker 13y agoI was thinking a lot simpler - keep tabs on each ISP in each market. Determine who has the least discriminatory network. Once enough data is collected you can make recommendations. ISP X is the best, ISP Y is the worst, anyone who cares needs to switch from ISP Y to ISP X. No bitcoin needed. You can have a coordinated event, a cancellation day where all users of ISP Y cancel on the same day and switch to ISP X. Make a big deal about it. Tell your friends about it. The one concern I have is in certain markets there might not be enough competition. If all the providers in that market are throttling then you have a stronger case for the government to get involved. Heck, there might even be collusion in those markets. But you might be able to bypass any government enforcement of Net Neutrality if there are enough well informed consumers punishing the bad ISPs and patronizing the good ISPs. It aint rocket science.
- ceterumnet 13y agoI've updated the blog post to also include traceroutes from the 2 sites. I'm not a networking expert, but since the traffic is ultimately going through the same network - peering should be a non issue. Feel free to let me know if this is significant or not.
- rnovak 13y agoThere are really too many variables to have any idea. For example, in both instances I see that your traceroute identifies the hop to your router, and you're using the 192.168.1.0 private network. Since your business example shows actual reverse dns lookups (from the looks of it), I'm guessing it uses a commercial switch. Unfortunately, there's no way to determine the actual cause of the slow down. For instance, you said that the slow down happens after 5pm, which quite literally is when 80+% of the working force gets off work. It could also be an artifact of AWS, and not Verizon FIOS. Also, 2 instances does not a trend make. There's no way to know if you're one of those people who were sent a letter because they were using terabytes of data a month, and they're simply protecting the network traffic of 99% of their other users. Granted, I assume you aren't, but I can't be 100% sure. For a truly independent test, you'd need the same modem/access device, without a local switch (i.e. a machine connected directly to the modem), and you would need VPN access to test both identifiable and non-identifiable traffic. If you could verify that Netflix traffic through the VPN, on the same network, without any interference through the router, was delivering much more bandwidth than the same Netflix traffic, but in the open (not through the VPN), and could do so for a statistically significant portion of the Verizon FIOS user base, then you'd have reason to complain. Until then, I don't see your claim being taken very seriously. Just my opinion though, ymmv
- Touche 13y ago> Unfortunately, there's no way to determine the actual cause of the slow down. Is networking the most frustratingly complex field in technology? As someone who admittedly knows little about it it all seems like a pile of hacks stacked on top of one another. It's the only explanation I can come up for why it's near impossible to figure out why a network isn't behaving correctly.
- jstalin 13y agoI have experienced exactly this on Comcast. Suddenly, about two months ago, Netflix and Hulu became terrible to watch. I thought maybe it was my cable modem, so I upgraded it and still no luck. So I signed up for a VPN service and tested watching Netflix and Hulu both on the VPN and off. Sure enough, when on the VPN, I get the highest quality picture. When I disconnected the VPN, Netflix dropped down to about 500kbps. Terrible.
- nathan_long 13y agoAn excellent test. If a VPN makes something faster, despite the fact that it adds overhead to the process, that seems like proof that it's being throttled.
- jstalin 13y agoOh, and the even more galling part... when watching Hulu on regular Comcast (without the VPN), the shows average around 500-900kbps. When it flips over to displaying the commercials, it jumps to 8Mbps or more!
- driverdan 13y agoThe ads are probably served from a different service / CDN / network.
- skj 13y agoThis is actually not malicious at all. An individual ad gets served to many more people than any given show, and as a result they'll get cached closer to the destination. Still pretty obnoxious though :)
- twoodfin 13y agoNot necessarily. It might just be bypassing the congested route that everyone else on your ISP is using. Comcast and Verizon have had disagreements peering with Cogent, one of Netflix's ISPs: http://gigaom.com/2013/06/20/verizon-that-peering-flap-about-netflix-is-cogents-fault/ http://gigaom.com/2013/06/20/verizon-that-peering-flap-about... It's not throttling, but rather the peering points along the "best" route between Cogent and Comcast/Verizon are overloaded, resulting in lousy connections between them. Look at this traceroute hop from Comcast to Cogent I just recorded: 7 he-0-10-0-1-pe03.111eighthave.ny.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.83.94) 21.377 ms 20.379 ms 19.387 ms 8 be7922.ccr21.jfk10.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.13.161) 67.126 ms 67.747 ms 69.083 ms 40 ms to go one short hop in, I believe, the same data center.
- jevinskie 13y agoDoes Netflix actually stream video data from AWS or from other CDNs? Can the OP compare the route to AWS to the route to the Netflix server?
- kevingadd 13y agoIIRC netflix runs pretty much everything out of AWS.
- higherpurpose 13y agoSolution: don't serve Netflix to Verizon customers.
- dangrossman 13y agoI just spun up an EC2 instance (US-East) and threw a bunch of 100MB-1GB test files on it. I'm on Verizon FiOS here at home, residential service, and they all downloaded at ~20Mb/s, which is the line speed I'm paying for. Anecdotally, I watch Netflix every night and haven't noticed a buffering/quality issue. I'll have to try the download test again later.
- legohead 13y agoThe author said this was happening specifically after 4pm.
- ceterumnet 13y agoJust FYI - I'm only seeing the slowdowns in the evening.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- couradical 13y agoDo you know how many homes in your neighborhood have FiOS? I am wondering if it's a congestion issue - have you checked RTT in the day vs afternoon? What about looking at wireshark to see how many duplicate Acks/Re-transmits you're seeing? As only the first-hop device appears to be different in the tracert, I doubt it's something upstream - if they were throttling, they'd probably do it at the network core - before it left the Verizon network for transit, which would apply to both circuits.
- bsdetector 13y agoI'm on Verizon FIOS and since some time after the ruling Netflix has been taking 10+ seconds to buffer initial SD quality where before it was always less than a second. There are times where it takes 15 or 30 minutes to switch to HD and sometimes it never even does. Meanwhile I can download games from Steam at 3+ MB/s, torrent at the same rate, and so on. Maybe Netflix suddenly got a ton of demand shortly after the net neutrality ruling or changed their software, but frankly Verizon doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. They've done so many sketchy things that at this point if they aren't doing this on purpose they need to prove it.
- j_m_b 13y agoTo the people saying that you shouldn't trust some tech support guy, I counter with this: He is acting as representative on behalf of Verizon. Verizon trained them and Verizon gave them the scripts to read so that this tech will properly represent Verizon.
- elgato999 13y agoSwitch to t-mobile. Screw verizon
- PanMan 13y agoAFAIK Netflix doesn't stream directly from AWS, but (while using it for their transcoding and so) uses a CDN. So blocking AWS wouldn't help in changing the quality of netflix, right? It certainly could be related though.
- vzwthrow 13y agoThey use a form of deep packet inspection to identify and "manage" traffic on their network. Where it sits doesn't matter.
- brown9-2 13y agoLet's say Verizon was intentionally throttling all traffic to AWS at certain times of the day (which seems like an awfully blunt weapon, but whatever). Where is the part of this where they are promoting their video services over Netflix's "inferior" experience?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- saskiah 13y agoThey don't have to explicitly promote this. Honestly, getting people fed up with Netflix (not realizing that Verizon is at fault) and then deciding to go with an actually TV package (with a discount for bundling it with internet, no less) might be the goal here. That, or the goal is simply to hurt Netflix, which approaches the same end from the side of the provider, not the consumer.
- jusben1369 13y agoI'm not sure I believe any of this for reasons others have pointed out. But let's say it's true. Is this an argument for or against Net Neutrality? By most accounts I read NetFlix is responsible for 30% + of evening internet traffic. Kind of staggering. If an ISP actively throttled Netflix people would leave that ISP for another one that didn't throttle Netflix Netflix is clearly a hugely popular service with enough people that it could exercise that clout. Netflix can sign agreements and tout such providers (heck, bundle in sign up offers etc) So the market can solve this problem. Secondly, why are they throttling this service? Because they can't charge effectively for it. We all love the simplicity of "all you can eat" pricing. Yet Netflix essentially exploited that model to their own benefit to the point now that model is under risk. I find it fascinating that a service that has (legally and ethically and followed standard biz practices and sensibilities) grown to gobble 30% of all resources and effectively squeezes out other traffic is seen as a victim here. I'm not trolling so would love to hear what I'm missing.
- dankoss 13y agoMost people in the US don't have a choice in their ISP.
- jusben1369 13y agoInteresting. That's news to me. The majority of people in the US really only have one choice?
- er35826 13y agoSomewhat. Most people in the US only have a choice between the specific type of line they use (Cable, DSL, Satellite). There are typically only one provider for either Cable or DSL in an area, and you're not even guaranteed to have an option between either.
- jusben1369 13y agoI'm really struggling with this concept. I've lived in 3 different metro areas in the US and always had more than one option. I can see it for rural areas but in terms of % of population. Can't find anything definitive on the internet though.
- nevir 13y agoThis looks more like an overloaded residential gateway.
- jonknee 13y agoOverloaded just to AWS? Seems strange.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- fredgrott 13y agoI like to point out something... The ISP providers that use fixed wireless to customers have the same upstream infrastructure and costs as Verizon.. Want to guess if they are throttling? They are not.. for example CSINEt local to me does not So we should be asking what part of verzion's structure is forcing them to do this.. It cannot be money alone as both entities are entitled to the same broadband federal grants
- smutticus 13y agoWe need more data. This doesn't prove anything and the author is just speculating.
- danielsiders 13y agoWe're seing up to 80% packet loss on our routes to Cogent (Verizon FiOS customers).
- brianmcdonough 13y agoThe net neutrality issue is a tragedy of the commons. Say you have a common green area and everyone shares it. People come and picnic and everything's great until a family of giants moves into town and sits on the entire green. Netflix is like that family of giants. The solution is to build a bigger green, but how is that going to be funded. Customers don't want to pay for it and feel they're already being overcharged. Netflix doesn't want to pay for it just because they are streaming giant files. Such costs are not built into their ability to make profits. It's a common tragedy.
- talmand 13y agoYour analogy seems off to me. It works as long as you admit that the reason the family of giants is there because everyone else wants them to be there. Plus, both the customers and Netflix already pay into the system, it's just that the companies in charge of it want more simply because Netflix is a competitor to some of the services they offer.
- Zizzle 13y agoExactly. It's not like the ISPs and making a profit. They are extremely profitable and just want more. Makes me wonder how much this discussion is being atrsoturfed.
- spinlock 13y agoThis is why I think streaming is a broken model: it spikes usage at the same time every day. BitTorrent (or just off-line downloading) is so much better because you can amortize the download over the whole day and take advantage of off-peak bandwidth. We just need to convince copyright holders that its in their best interest to deliver a superior product.
- aroch 13y agoExcept streaming is the only viable option due to how content licensing works. You could do slow (200Kbps) download of content you plan on watching in the evening while you're at work, but because of restrictive licensing the cost becomes prohibitive ($10-40/night to rent and watch the same thing as on Netflix)
- shinratdr 13y agoThat sounds like a problem for content licensing, not me. Promoting a broken model because the model that model is built on is broken as well hardly bodes well for this burgeoning industry.
- wmf 13y agoIf Netflix pre-cached content during off-peak hours it's not clear that their licensing bill would be any higher.
- vzwthrow 13y agoThrowaway here, so take it for what it's worth but I swear my experiences are true. I deal with Verizon Wireless (as far as I can tell, the article is about the other Verizon entity) reps often, I've heard this mentioned many times in an almost off-handed, positive, revenue-generating manner. That they're positioning themselves to charge providers like Netflix for "priority" on their network. Except the way they describe it, it sounds like they will be deprioritizing or otherwise "shitifying", for lack of a better word, the provider's traffic. Netflix was specifically mentioned. It's never mentioned on internal slides, but there's always some vague term on a slide that brings up this topic. This is going to happen, people, unless legislation interferes with their plan and even then they may be able to loophole it. Net neutrality is the enemy, as far as Verizon (and possibly the other big telcos) are concerned.
- talmand 13y agoI see it more as an opportunity for more VPN services. I can imagine the ads proclaiming something along the lines of getting the bandwidth you're already paying for.
- inkovic 13y agoIf companies are serious in battling ISP throttling, they should explain to users that their content will load slowly due to their ISP and they should consider switching. Make Verizon and whatnot pay with their wallets.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- cobookman 13y agoThe industry as a whole will eventually just charge a per GB cost. During peak hours its more expensive...etc, just like electricity. The interesting part will be if they still have speed tiers. Its really in both parties best interest.
- ChrisLTD 13y agoI'm guessing there will be speed tiers at first. The telecom industry doesn't leave money on the table without pressure from the government or fierce competition.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- specialp 13y agoVerizon may not purposely throttle content but they are certainly uncooperative because they want to be paid from the big bandwidth consumers. This is why Google is trying to make it more transparent to users who is to fault when you can barely watch YouTube in 360P on FIOS during some periods when speed tests to other locations yield 50Mbit. http://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/#how_video_gets_to_you http://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/#how_video_gets...
- darkarmani 13y agoThis might explain why netflix has been working horribly starting about a month ago.
- broknbottle 13y agoThe traceroute is useless without a return traceroute..
- tim333 13y agoVerizon denies it to the Washington post: "We treat all traffic equally, and that has not changed," the statement read. "Many factors can affect the speed of a customer’s experience for a specific site, including that site’s servers, the way the traffic is routed over the Internet and other considerations. We are looking into this specific matter, but the company representative was mistaken. We’re going to redouble our representative education efforts on this topic." Although in the comments there's a guy who differs: "Chris Walsh wrote: Verizon is absolutely doing this, at least in Silver Spring. I stumbled on the daveblog's post via a facebook friend and was amazed because if finally explains what has happened to my home FIOS connection over the last few weeks, even down to the exact 40 kbps speed. ..." http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/05/verizon-denies-using-net-neutrality-victory-to-sabotage-netflix-amazon/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/05...
- saskiah 13y agoHas anyone else tried duplicating some simple tests? Ping google and netflix while connected to a verizon network. Repeat on a network with a different provider, see if the speeds are proportional, or if there is a larger % decrease for netflix than for google when on the verizon network. I know this doesn't explicitly prove anything, but if several people all get this result that starts to compile more evidence.