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Verizon To Throttle High-Bandwidth Users
tekgoblin writes "Verizon has enacted a new policy today that allows them to throttle 'high' bandwidth users on their network. We're not sure exactly what 'high' means but it is probably over 2GB of data per month. This comes as the iPhone launches on Verizon's network. The policy is said to only affect the top 5% of data users on the network. When these 5% of users hit the soft limit they will be throttled during peak times of the day. From the note sent to customers: 'Verizon Wireless strives to provide customers the best experience when using our network, a shared resource among tens of millions of customers. To help achieve this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand. Our proactive management of the Verizon Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95% of data customers aren't negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few users.'"
Also known as: We don't want to look like AT&T when a shit ton of people start using their iPhone on our network.
The problem isn't the protocol, it's wireless bandwidth. Even with better hardware and better compression, there's only so much data you can cram in the airwaves.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
What i don't understand is why the network providers keep pushing mobile video and tethering.
T-mobile is pushing their video chat... Sprint is saying you can upload live video directly to the web etc.
The networks already can't handle the level of data usage they currently get, yet they're pushing these very high bandwidth services. Don't get me wrong, i like that my t-mo G2 with stock firmware can do wifi and USB tethering. But i would also like it if my "4G" phone on the "4G" network got more than 400kbps download rates (in one of their 4G launch cities). If there's any level of adoption of this stuff it'll bring their networks to a halt and not due to any top 5% users.
Most people understand that there's not enough licensed RF spectrum to let millions of users treat their cell phone as if it were a portable 20 Mb/sec cable connection running uTorrent and Netflix 24/7 at 100% saturation. So why don't the carriers advertise their service with a flat rate, but with terms like "3 Mb/s for the first 2 GB transferred per billing period, 500 kb/s for the next 2 GB, and 128 kb/s after that"?
Seems this would allow them to stick to the spirit of the law when it comes to "unlimited" service offers, while keeping the network from being either too congested or too expensive.
Have two queues: Low latency and Bulk. Use the ToS field is decide which one to put it in. Give customers two quotas, say 2gb bulk and 500mb low latency. Charge more for extra low latency traffic and less for extra bulk traffic. Don't use IP addresses, transport protocols or port numbers to decide what is real time and what is bulk. That would be a fair system for making the best use of limited network resources.
Assuming usage stays fairly constant for each user per month... wont think eventually bring down their average usage over time? The first month, top 5% are scaled back, and you assume as the throttling continues into the next month, they will no longer be the top users. So then there is a new top 5%... and these users are using less than what last month's top 5% used... as they get carried over in the next billing cycle, this continues until it hits some threshold...
insight through the mind
Look at this way. Verizon is already giving the user a slower data rate than iPhone users have come to expect. Now they are saying if you use 'too much' as defined by them, you may be effectively cut off. After all, the definition of 'too much' and 'throttling' is defined completely by Verizon. Previously 'too much' was 150 MB, and who knows what throttling is. Maybe Edge?
This reinforces my previous expectation that though Verizon has the best network in the US, they will never give the average customer a square deal or straight answer.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
What I never understand is how all those companies can get away with showing ads with happy people who use tons of video streaming, internet radio/music/video download shops and other highish bandwidth stuff, claim "sign up here and enjoy all these awesome things!", when the reality is that if you actually DO use all this stuff every day, you are told to stop doing that because you are an asocial bandwidth hog.
Either advertise it and let people do it, or don't advertise it. And especially do not advertise it if you know from the start that it is not technically possible for lots of people to use these options because your network is not good enough.
5% - It seems small at first, but when you realize that they have 94.1 million subscribers in the US, that's 4.7 million people they're throttling. If they identify that number of people as using "extraordinary amount[s] of data", I'd say that there's a more fundamental problem here.
And note the part where you get throttled for your entire next billing cycle too.
I'm not a Verizon subscriber, and I still use a "dumb" phone without a data plan, but this still seems that they need to change what they're offering up front instead of giving everything and then taking it back if you dare use it.
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems.
(Jamie Zawinski, maybe?)
Anyway, you might be wondering why I would put that there. And that is because you wrote this:
There needs to be a little Federal oversight of these practices. Or a lot of Federal oversight...
Now you have two problems.
It's not so much that the phone companies are such great stewards of our spectrum that they don't need oversight or regulation, but moreso that there is already a lot of oversight, and it seems to be accomplishing only one thing: keeping the existing carriers entrenched as virtually unassailable monopolies. Any regulatory scheme you can propose to fix things must address that, and have some measures in place to prevent or mitigate the possibility of "regulatory capture" as it relates to the public's interest in the regulation of the carriers.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Bullshit. If there's 1000 customers in a given area and you only have 1gig of bandwidth, either give everyone 1mb or less connections or only sell 500 phones with 2mb connections. This idea that any ISP can only pay for 1/100th the bandwidth they actually need, sell all their customers 25mb/sec connections that they know their infrastructure can never support and then when no one can get their advertised speeds blame the problems on the users "over using" the very thing, no, the ONLY THING they actually paid for is absolutely insane.
Imagine if all the car companies started putting 1000hp engines in the cars they sell and advertising their top speed at 200mph all without ever upgrading any of the other components in the car. Then when peoples transmissions failed a week after they bought the car the car company stated that a shameful 5% of their customers were abusing the 1000hp engine and they were going to have to put a strict limit of 25miles of travel per day on the car or the warranty were void. The other 95% of their customers would not be affected by this policy because they'd simply never find out they had been ripped off.
My wife purchased her Droid Incredible from Verizon last summer. She is totally thrilled with it and her unlimited data plan. With it, she is able to look up facts and answer questions where ever she is. It has proven to be a real assist.
She uses it to listen to Pandora while she is at work. Her employer allows 0 bandwidth for personal uses, so she spends the entire 8 hours per day listening to Pandora on 3G.
At 128Kbps, 8hours/day * 22 days per month works out to 10GB/month, and that is just listening to music, not watching any video or doing any web browsing.
2GB/month is totally inadequate for anything but browser lookups. It is not sufficient for any of the media-rich apps for which Verizon advertised the device.
I'm reading this while downloading a windows 7 iso over my G1's 3g connection at 4mbps. The image is well over 2 gigs. No caps for me. :)
zosxavius photography
I mean, they are having a massive upgrade to their infrastructure to handle their customers properly, right? Surely they don't expect to add many more customers with increasing bandwidth demands without upgrading their infrastructure.
Just sayin'. Verizon has lots of home users at 25/15 Mbps down/up, I hope they aren't throttling us to 2 GB/month.
rooooar
High-bandwidth users to throttle Verizon.
if i PAY for something, i expect to be able to USE it.
if you sell/rent a car to me, and then tell me that i can not use it on mondays, i shove the keys up your ass. if you drop a shady clause in the contract saying that you can modify the terms of the contract at any point at your leisure, then do the mondays thing after that, i still shove up the keys up your ass.
so at this point, i am at a loss to understand, how can american corporations violate the very BASE mechanics of trade and business, and get away with it.
Read radical news here
Maybe you didn't get the memo dude, but mobile phones are, like *mobile*.
When 30,000+ people all get within one square mile, like at a sporting event, large conference, or a downtown area like Mahattan, etc what are they to do? They can't magically shit more airwaves in order to give everyone what you claim they paid for.
I don't think you understand what net neutrality means.
Net neutrality and monthly data transfer limits are orthogonal.
Net neutrality means that ISPs don't discriminate between packets with different sources or destinations. In other words, they treat packets from Google with the same priority as packets from the search engine that your neighbor just started from his house. However, once you use your monthly allowance, then the ISP shuts you off, or slows down all packets* going to your device.
* When I write "all packets" obviously, there may be reasons to treat media streams differently from emails, but again, according to net neutrality principles it should not matter who is providing the video stream or the emails.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Either advertise it and let people do it, or don't advertise it. And especially do not advertise it if you know from the start that it is not technically possible for lots of people to use these options because your network is not good enough.
No, see you aren't supposed to do that *all the time*!
You're just supposed to watch Youtube videos while riding on horseback with your girlfriend on the beach, or while at work as a bellboy at a nice hotel. The commercial was pretty clear on this.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
FYI -- the 94.1M subscribers includes many people without a data plan, i.e. I seriously doubt 4.7M people will be subject to throttling.
Further, I think this is actually a great idea and I already bought some iphones from verizon. I'd much rather have a responsive and reliable connection and be within a 2 gb limit than have no limit and tons of dropped calls (in certain markets at least) like with AT&T.
In certain markets, even without a limit, the poor quality of AT&T's network wouldn't even allow a user to get to 2 gigs.
my 1.5 cents