SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
YouTube, Netflix Videos Found to Be Slowed by Wireless Carriers
The largest U.S. telecom companies are slowing internet traffic to and from popular apps like YouTube and Netflix, according to new research from Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The researchers used a smartphone app called Wehe, downloaded by about 100,000 consumers, to monitor which mobile services are being throttled when and by whom, in what likely is the single largest running study of its kind.
Among U.S. wireless carriers, YouTube is the No. 1 target of throttling, where data speeds are slowed, according to the data. Netflix Inc.'s video streaming service, Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime Video and the NBC Sports app have been degraded in similar ways, according to David Choffnes, one of the study's authors who developed the Wehe app.
From January through early May, the app detected "differentiation" by Verizon Communications Inc. more than 11,100 times, according to the study. This is when a type of traffic on a network is treated differently than other types of traffic. Most of this activity is throttling. AT&T Inc. did this 8,398 times and it was spotted almost 3,900 times on the network of T-Mobile US Inc. and 339 times on Sprint Corp.'s network, the study found. The numbers are partly influenced by the size of the networks and user bases. C Spire, a smaller privately held wireless operator, had the fewest instances of differentiation among U.S. providers, while Verizon had the most.
Also at Marketing Land.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 14 2018, @01:53AM (2 children)
I don't dispute any of the facts, but this covers primarily (or exclusively) cellular internet. Cellular internet was never covered by the net neutrality rules in the first place. So it's misleading at best to imply that the change in the regulations is responsible, or even relevant. T-mobile in particular has had their "binge on" plan, where you get "unlimited" data except they limit it, for some time before the regulation repeal. And the other cellular providers were likely to adopt similar policies before long.
This isn't to say that the regulations were bad or ineffective or whatever. But let's leave the strawmen and the half-truths to the bad guys.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday September 14 2018, @03:00AM
Parent is correct. Wireless providers were explicitly excluded from NN, as they fall under a different purview within the FCC. Additionally, NN was not designed to prevent throttling, but instead to make sure throttling was applied evenly and without pay to play.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 14 2018, @03:48PM
Don't let facts get in the way of a good narrative.
Anything terrible that companies do regarding internet access is the fault of net neutrality repeal. Even if it happened regularly before net neutrality was repealed. And anything terrible that hasn't happened yet is because the effects of the repeal will take years to show, even though net neutrality only existed as a law for three years.