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Verizon Throttles Data To "Provide Incentive To Limit Usage"
An anonymous reader writes About a week ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asked for Verizon's justification on its policy of throttling users who pay for unlimited data usage. "I know of no past Commission statement that would treat 'as reasonable network management' a decision to slow traffic to a user who has paid, after all, for 'unlimited' service," the FCC wrote. In its response, Verizon has indicated that its throttling policy is meant to provide users with an incentive to limit their data usage. The company explained that "a small percentage of the customers on these [unlimited] plans use disproportionately large amounts of data, and, unlike subscribers on usage-based plans, they have no incentive not to do so during times of unusually high demand....our practice is a measured and fair step to ensure that this small group of customers do not disadvantage all others."
We kick you in the head because we care!
I've seen much bigger problems with cell phone internet than this. For instance, there's the tactic of selling "4G" service with the caveat that you get 4G speeds on "preferred websites" for the first 200MB, and then get throttled down. Give us net neutrality on phones first, then start working on regulating how they can sell it.
If they don't actually have the resources to offer plans to subscribers without the disincentive of additional fees, then they shouldn't be offering such plans to customers in the first place.
Of course, both fees and throttling can equally be considered as disincentives, and the entire notion behind "unlimited" plans is that you wouldn't have to deal with any unexpected disincentives to continue use.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
No, it would be like buying a bus pass but then being told you're using it too much so they won't let you on the bus as an "incentive" to ride less.
...if the government would just cut the crap, close the loophole, and apply the common carrier designation to these greedy service providers.
Unfortunately, America is the greatest country in the world that money can buy.
Getting in the car and finding that Chris Christie shut down most of the lanes to gain political leverage.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
All they need to do is state a limit (200G 500G, 2T?, ...) at which throttling will kick in, and stop lying about 'unlimited'. American corporations are so addicted to getting away with telling lies that they don't seem to even know when they're doingit.
So... In short, the company wants me to pay full price for the service and expect me to not use it? I pay for a car, but I can not use it? Ok, I give up trying to understand the humans...
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Do the top users somehow get 100 Mbps during a time when I can only get 2 Mbps? If so, why is this allowed? If not, why is it a problem?
I don't recall any wireless service claiming that unlimited data would guarantee unlimited bandwidth (which is physically impossible). They usually use terms like "up to X Mbps", based on various factors such as signal strength and usage... so during peak times, everyone's bandwidth goes down equally.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
so they won't let you on the bus as an "incentive" to ride less.
They'll let you on the bus. But they will always force you to get off at the next stop and drive away, so you have to wait for the next bus, in order to get to your destination.
So no comments?
This is a bipartisan problem. Both sides are lobbied.
tarball
I hate sigs, and refuse to have one.
If you lie about lying that's like telling the truth.
Verizon is just plain psychotic. When they were advertising the upcoming 4G LTE service years ago, their advertising copy said users would be able to stream video and download HD movies. All kinds of wonderful things that weren't possible with the new caps they'd put on 3G. Then they rolled out LTE with the same caps as 3G. So, sure you could download Air Bud in HD but that'd be your data for the month.
Now they're all excited about XLTE doubling (or more) the speed available thru Verizon's network. I've seen those speeds and they're amazing. Absolutely freaking amazing. And totally useless to anyone without an unlimited account. WTF is a new customer supposed to do with 80 Mb/s down and 40 Mb/s up? That's the kind of speed I saw near Atlanta. Holy Hell, that's fast. Faster than any wired service I've had. And totally useless if you can only move 2 gigs a month. Why are they spending all this money speeding up their network when it's wasted on their customers. It's crazy.
And the numbers Verizon is throwing around don't make a lick of sense. (Of course, I can't find the exact numbers now so I'll guestimate.) They say around 20% of their customer base still has unlimited data. They say 95% of those people use less than 5 gigs of data per billing cycle. If those two statements are true, why is Verizon upset? They should be ecstatic. They cut off unlimited data in 2010 so they're claiming an amazing retention rate. And the vast, vast, vast majority of those people are overpaying for what they use. And they're paying full MSRP for unsubsidized equipment. Why on earth would Verizon want to rock that boat?
You may remember the Shannonâ"Hartley theorem from engineering class as it relates to the bandwidth of a given channel. Well with radio transmission, this becomes something you really have to think about. SNR is set by environmental noise and FCC transmission limits. Spectrum is something you only have a license to a small amount of. As such, the total bandwidth you can put out has a hard limit on it. Everyone on a tower shares that bandwidth and there's just nothing you can do to increase it. You can't "lay more fiber" or "use another laser" or anything like that which you can do on wired connections. On a given segment, there is just only so much bandwidth nature and regulations will let you have.
So the more grabby people get with that bandwidth, the less there is to go around. If someone is using as much as they can because they have their phone hooked to their computer doing torrents, that slows everyone else down, even if you are are just using it in small spurts to check your e-mail.
That's the thing with RF communications. There is only so much spectrum that is useful (different frequencies have different transmission characteristics), everyone wants a piece, so there is only so much you can get, and everyone on a given system shares the same stuff. You have to share and play nice, you can't just build out more capacity to easily solve the problem.
It is realistic to tell a cable company with an overloaded segment "just allocate more channels to DOCSIS" because they can do that. They have the bandwidth on the wire. You can't tell the phone company "just use more spectrum" because they only have so much they are licensed to use.
What I don't understand is how we're still allowing carriers to call their service "unlimited."
When I pay my water bill and I am told I get unlimited water, I don't expect the water company to decrease the flow of water to a trickle if I take too many showers.
If they did that, there would be an uprising.
When I pay the electric company for electricity I don't expect them to decrease the voltage on my line if I leave the TV on while I'm sleeping.
So... how is it that Verizon gets to tell me I am paying for unlimited data, but not provide unlimited data?
Where is the uprising for this lie?
They haven't offered unlimited plans for years now. This is about customers who are still on unlimited plans and haven't yet "upgraded" to a paid usage plan. These people are not in any sort of long term contract. Verizon could simply tell them, "Your unlimited plan is gone, pick a currently offered plan," but they don't want to deal with the PR nightmare that would spawn.
It's congress that's the problem, not so much the executive branch in this case. Congress needs to gut these bastards but then they'd lose all the free trips and whores they've been provided.
Oh, and give me a way to say "Never play a video under any circumstances, unless I explicitly say 'play this video.'" KTHXBYE.
Program Intellivision!
What I don't understand is why they don't just make everyone's life easier and sell the unlimited plans by bandwidth, not 'data limit', i.e. unlimited 1Gb/s costs X, unlimited 2Gb/s costs more etc. Pay for your speed, and never sell more than some fraction of a towers total bandwidth, so that two or three big down loaders at once don't clobber everyone else.
I know you said bad analogies, but there's bad and false. In this case the bus isn't 'full' they're stopping you getting on the bus, which has spaces, so that they can ensure there is space for other bus pass holders that have used their pass less in the last few days.
I see you need APK's hosts file :)
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Network management is a real thing. Like any network (internet, roads, trains...) you need to manage it for load/safety...
Unlimited usage simply means that you can use it as much as you want.
I can use the public roads as much as I want. It doesn't mean there are no traffic lights, accidents, speed limits, speed bumps...
Throttling is going to happen. The only thing that matters is what kind.
Throttling specific content is probably bad policy as you can run into anti-competitive practice. Things like throttling netflix traffic as a cable company.
Throttling heavy users as network capacity becomes an issue (maybe > 70%) is probably quite sane.
This allows a simple billing policy as well. You don't need to worry about overage charges or anything like that.
I was forgetting the HTML 5 part...you maybe onto something. Dummy me have not remembered it sooner. Probably it is enough to block the video tag...