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

Posted by msmash on from the what-in-the-world dept.

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.

2 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Net neutrality anyone? by courteaudotbiz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't this 100% against Net Neutrality??

    1. Re:Net neutrality anyone? by Aqualung812 · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      --
      Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.