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Netflix Admits To Capping Video Streams On Wireless Networks (variety.com)
An anonymous reader cites a story on Variety: Company says it plans to launch feature to give users control over mobile-video usage in May. Netflix has enforced a maximum limit on the quality of video streamed over AT&T and Verizon wireless networks for years, the company acknowledged Thursday. But Netflix also said it's working on a way to give users control over how much bandwidth they wish to use to access the service. The No. 1 subscription-streaming service said its default bit rate for viewing over mobile networks has been capped at 600 kilobits per second. That's 'in an effort to protect our members from overage charges when they exceed mobile-data caps,' according to a Netflix spokeswoman.
According to the article, Sprint or T-Mobile aren't limited because those ISPs don't charge customers for overage. Maybe what needs to change are Verizon and AT&T's fee structures.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
For what its worth, Netflix was among the net-neutrality supporters back in 2014... According to TFA, they were already deliberately degrading videos for certain customers then.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I don't see this as a bad thing. They were only doing it on providers that normally charged for data overages, so it seems likely that they were doing it for the right reasons.
It is a problem that they weren't disclosing it, but it's not a *huge* problem. This change they're making is what they should have done to begin with, but still - as a user I'm *glad* to see they were dynamically adjusting their data usage when I was on mobile. I wish more applications would do that.
First they should have disclosed they were doing this. Then, there should be an opt-out and/or control so the user can select what bitrates/resolutions they want from the start. Just because someone is on AT&T or Verizon doesn't mean they don't have an older unlimited plan. It also doesn't mean they will be viewing the video on a tiny screen phone (access point mode). Someone else commented they were NOT doing it on Sprint or T-Mobile, and yet the same (in reserve) applies to them... both will THROTTLE when the "unlimited" plans are used up.
Oh, and I think it is probably more about (or at least as much about) conserving bandwidth and its cost than doing users a favor.
I only stream Netflix though mobile hotspots and tethering. I use T-Mobile and have unlimited, but tethering is not unlimited. The problem is Netflix essentially gives you two options for quality, standard 480p which is something like 700MB per hour, and looks bad, or HD, which jumps up to 4-5GB per hour. This is Netflix issue, as I can stream Amazon and Hulu in HD and have it not take anywhere near that much bandwidth. I never understood why they don't offer a 720p HD option which is pretty standard on YouTube and takes around 1.5 GB per hour.
But Netflix also said it's working on a way to give users control over how much bandwidth they wish to use to access the service.
For the love of God please implement this. There is no reason for my kids to eat hundreds of gigs of data so that they can watch Power Rangers Dino Thunder in full 1080P on their Kindles. The Disney Jr app has this feature and you can't tell that Doc McStuffins is on the lowest bandwidth setting.
--fatboy
I mean, what kind of story would have been written when new Netflix 4k streams burn through 18 gigs of wireless data for 1 movie?
I think Netflix was doing only what was needed to maintain a acceptable level of quality. We all know nothing is more frustrating then streaming and having pauses while the data feed catches up. In my experience from using cellular data and testing speeds. The service on all carriers is very much hit or miss. I have always experiences significant speed variations even with good signal. I have never believed cellular was that good for streaming high quality video. Besides, just imagine how many teens would burn up their parents data caps watching movies and porn in HD?
If you torrent Netflix shows, then you don't need to worry about the bitrate, throttling, etc. Just let it take as long as it takes, using whatever ISP offers you the most bytes per month (not bytes per second). Then copy it to your crippled wireless-only device over wifi (or sd card sneakernet) and you're ready to play at full quality and without any hiccups.
Some day, Netflix may decide to have these customers, and then they'll sell the files. Until then, though, bittorrent is the best way to remain hassle-free.
Netflix needs to add stream quality options for everyone. Even when I'm watching via cable modem, that doesn't mean I want Netflix to suck up my connection's entire bandwidth. Combined with the problem of buffer bloat, watching Netflix means that no one in the house gets to do anything on the internet.
The best solution I've found is to use "quality of service" controls to limit Netflix, with the result being that other people in the house can use the internet and Netflix frankly looks no different than it did before. However, even this method is a pain in the ass, since no router firmware programmer seems to realize that I don't want to prioritize services, what I want to do is divide the total bandwidth among several users. I don't care if my roommate uses his internet for bittorrent or for VoIP, either way he's entitled to half and only half of it, unless I'm not using my half at the moment.
Users should have an option they can opt in or out, but if there was no limit by default how many users would pick 1080 playback on their 480x800 phones ?
Can someone explain to me what a bandwidth cap is? I think I saw one of a cave painting once but I can't be sure.
TL;DR - America is broken. UK 4 lyf.
That is 1.006 GiB every 4 hours.
If you're watching Netflix on the desktop using their (excellent) HTML5 player, you can actually set the streaming quality directly.
Hit CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-S to open up a settings dialogue. You'll get a list of different bitrates (and I think servers - don't have an active subscription at the moment so can't check) for video and audio streams.
(I watched a shitload of Netflix in the last year and most of it was in a tiny window on my deskop, so I always felt a little guilty about using so much bandwidth. I'd drop it to the lowest quality bitrate to save both me and them bandwidth.)
Manage your own network's bandwidth usage. I use HFSC+CoDel in PFSense and I can keep my bufferbloat about 1-2ms for both up and down in most situations. If you use one of the WRTs on a router, you can use fq_Codel or possibly Cake soon. Or blame your ISP. Even if I disable all traffic shaping and buffer management on my firewall, my ISP will not let my ping go over 30ms-40ms. I can play my favorite FPS game while letting torrent saturate my connection and my wife watching Netflix with no buffering issues.
Ever since Netflix blocked my VPN access, I've cancelled and am back to exclusively torrenting my TV and movie content, so I'm choosing my own data bandwidth speeds.
dd-wrt lets you limit by device as well as service
http://www.bufferbloat.net/pro...
Cake is kind of a pseudo-stateless traffic shaper that doesn't need anything configured except the bandwidth. It can evenly distribute bandwidth while keeping latency isolated among flows. It is still being polished, but it is looking really good and promising to be a turn-key simple never worry about bandwidth hogs or latency again. At least on your own bottleneck of an Internet connection. Of course you can't do anything about upstream bottlenecks, but they're hoping to get Cake or similar buffer managers integrated into commercial routers and firewalls. DOCSIS3.1 should support RED, which is similar to CoDel. A big win over a dumb FIFO buffer.
I'm sure my ISP doesn't care. Indeed, I imagine it's a "feature" in that I'm subscribed to their lowest tier of service and so they want it to feel slower than it is so that I'll upgrade.