Verizon To Start Throttling All Smartphone Videos To 480p or 720p (arstechnica.com)

Verizon Wireless will start throttling video streams to resolutions as low as 480p on smartphones this week. Most data plans will get 720p video on smartphones, but customers won't have any option to completely un-throttle video. From a report: 1080p will be the highest resolution provided on tablets, effectively ruling out 4K video on Verizon's mobile network. Anything identified as a video will not be given more than 10Mbps worth of bandwidth. This limit will affect mobile hotspot usage as well. Verizon started selling unlimited smartphone data plans in February of this year, and the carrier said at the time that it would deliver video to customers at the same resolution used by streaming video companies. "We deliver whatever the content provider gives us. We don't manipulate the data," Verizon told Ars in February. That changes beginning on Wednesday, both for existing customers and new ones. The changes were detailed today in an announcement of new unlimited data plans. Starting August 23, Verizon's cheapest single-line unlimited smartphone data plan will cost $75 a month, which is $5 less than it cost before. The plan will include only "DVD-quality streaming" of 480p on phones and 720p on tablets.The new Verizon cell phone plans can be compare side by side here, along with all of Verizon's existing plans.

Comments

Net neutrality anyone?

[courteaudotbiz]

Isn't this 100% against Net Neutrality??

Re:Net neutrality anyone?

[beelsebob]

On the contrary - it is against net neutrality since it is treating some internet traffic (videos) differently to all other internet traffic (not videos). It is applying some kind of filter in the middle if and only if the ISP deems the data to look a certain way. That means that it becomes impossible for me to download certain types of data over this connection.

This is almost the exact case that net neutrality hopes to prevent.

Re:Net neutrality anyone?

[Aqualung812]

Net Neutrality is not only about throttling one particular company. It's about applying any filter that causes some data to be treated differently to another.

The "Net" refers to networks. As in, I'm neutral as to how I treat packets from network A and network B.

You may want ISPs to be neutral about how they treat packets on criteria other than their source and destination, but that isn't Net Neutrality. That's something else entirely.

ISPs can throttle and apply QoS polices to traffic and maintain network neutrality as long as the selection criteria isn't based on src or dst.

Re:Net neutrality anyone?

[TheRaven64]

That definition of Network Neutrality is the one that's pushed by ISPs, not by NN advocates. Typical NN definitions allow differentiating based on traffic type, but with some tight constraints (e.g. you can put things into latency-sensitive, jitter-sensitive, and bandwidth-sensitive buckets, but you can't treat one latency-sensitive protocol differently from another). QoS explicitly is allowed by all except for the straw-man NN definition used by ISPs.

I'd say this kills wireless replacing broadband

[QuietLagoon]

So long as the wireless vendors continue to stick it to their customers with artificial constrainst and service downgrades, wireless is not going to be the replacement for fixed-line Internet access that many have been predicting.

Why is this a bad thing?

[Nkwe]

As long as Verizon or its "select partners" don't get a pass and are not allowed to stream video faster, it's not a net neutrality thing. Prioritization by protocol (as long as the rules are the same for all endpoints) does not violate the concept of net neutrality. There is a physical limit on the bandwidth available in any radio based system and it is the responsibility of a network provider to manage that bandwidth properly for the health of the network itself. Why is it unreasonable to put limits protocols that are known to use lots of bandwidth (eg video) as long as those limits are applied universally? And from the summary, they are talking about 10Mbs video streaming bandwidth limit - that is sufficient for a high definition stream on a 70 inch television (with multi-channel surround sound), certainly it is enough for the screen size of a phone or tablet being listened to in stereo at best.

This was inevitable...

[toonces33]

Any time you have a resource where usage is unchecked, people will consume more and more of it until it is unusable for everyone. If there were no limits, then what's the downside to people streaming more and more? Nothing. Expanding bandwidth costs real money, and in some cases there are spectrum limits which prevent them from expanding much more. Ever used the free WiFi in an airport - the dopey kids sitting across from you are streaming some mind-rot and killing the bandwidth for everyone else. So the kids get the lolz, and you can barely get your work emails.

how is this progress?

[tatman]

I dont use Verizon. Every time I try to send a picture to someone I know using Verizon, I get a message that the image is too big to send because Verizon has image size caps. Now they are going to cap video resolution. This is not progress. This is a step backwards.

I suppose they (Verizon) will make the argument about screen size and perceived quality. But it should not be their decision but left at the hands of consumer.

* Unlimited data plan

[Dunbal]

* Except for the limits.