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Charter Launches Mobile Service, Throttles All Video To 480p (arstechnica.com)
Charter Communications launched its mobile broadband service on June 30, and it's throttling all video streams to DVD quality. From a report: "DVD-quality video streaming is supported. Video typically streams at 480p," Charter notes in the "Pricing & Other Info" section of its mobile sign-up page. The quality limit is similar to one just imposed by Comcast, which previously did not impose any video quality limits on its mobile service. Comcast is letting existing customers get 720p video streams "on an interim basis at no charge," and the company announced plans to charge extra for longer-term access to HD quality. But Charter hasn't announced any plans to let customers stream in HD over its mobile service, for free or otherwise. HD video "is not currently an option for Spectrum Mobile," a Charter spokesperson told Ars. Wirefly has a Spectrum Mobile review.
Was anyone expecting otherwise?
They are throttling all video. So perfectly compliant with NN.
Get off your pulpits.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This is good. Small mobile screens with higher than perceivable resolutions are fucking retarded and the average phoneposter is on average more cancerous than laptop and computer posters, there's also a higher prevalence of underage on phones than on laptops and desktops.
All in all, limiting phoneposters from Internet features not only helps websites and servers but also helps the quality of the Internet because phoneposters are worthless scum and need to be put down. Phoneposting is a sin, and i hope Charter Communications continues limiting the abilities of phonecancer and all other companies take up its philosophy as well.
In the previous article reporting on the downfall of the internet, I asked a simple question: Would the Net Neutrality rules in place before the recent rollback have prevented this?
I got both "yes" and "no" (*) answers.
So let me ask the question once again: would the Net Neutrality rules put in place during the Obama administration have prevented this?
(*) Answer phrased as "probably not"
If my provider, AT&T, reduced video streaming to my phone to 480p I wouldn't care. I don't see HD on mobile as an essential service. Though I imagine there may be cases where it is.
i think dvd was 480i so this is better
Two or three HD streams destroy bandwidth for any given cellular tower.
Have you ever tried to use LTE in a crowd that's all uploading or watching video? It's typically dial up speeds. MVNO's have it worse due to default deprioritization, but even 1st party, post paid verizon and AT&T throttle to shit under any amount of congestion. Video throttling is the only answer until the FCC gets off their ass and deregulates the airwaves.
But the people have spoken, they'd prefer an demagoguery over consumer protection. We have a broadly supported pro-oligarchy contingent that works hard to paint the opposing centrists are far-left Marxists. Propaganda obscures truth, and a culture of identity politics thwarts reason.
We're making our bed and we will soon lie in it.
It wasn't consumer protection, it was citizen protection.
Don't forget that NN wasn't repealed because of its technical merits - everyone largely agreed that NN was a good thing to have.
You can hypothesize and opine about peoples' motivations and thought processes, but in the final analysis it was protecting citizens from runaway government agencies making up law out of whole cloth.
It has been proposed several times that congress should pass a net neutrality law, and it has been proposed that tech companies could come up with a draft bill (*) to submit to congress, and it has been proposed that whining and moaning efforts could be better spent by taking these simple actions.
Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the the other big players are four-square on board with Net Neutrality.
Where is their proposed solution?
(*) Many companies make draft bills that are introduced into congress, it's not at all uncommon.
I prefer my resolution at a rate where you can't see facial blemishes under the makeup.
That's where this becomes an issue. There's areas near me where the only provider available is a shitty dsl provider whose service isn't much better than dialup. People are paying for 4Mb but get closer to 1 or less. So people use their cell phones for internet. Would this include streaming video going through a hotspot? If so that's a problem.
Some manufacturers and Google have clearly been preparing for this with the Go edition and the low cost hand-sets. FWVGA displays are the future!11!
I don't really understand these articles. What video streaming are they talking about?
Are they actually manipulating data to such an extent, that if I load up youtube, they perform some kind of man-in-the-middle manipulation of the youtube UI so that the options for higher quality video are removed?
Cable companies....need I say more. Well yes, if you are stupid enough to still be doing business with them you get the shitty service you deserve.
If you don't like to the service don't buy it. Net Neutrality is a scheme for Google and Netflix to get "free" internet to consumers. They use more than 90% of the internet's bandwidth, if the consumer can get cheaper internet by being capped to 480p that's good for the consumer. More choices.
With all these stories about video being throttled to a specific resolution, I am curious if they actually mean that, or if what they really mean is that video is throttled to a specific bandwidth, and any HD content that can fit that bandwidth will still play as HD.
Can you even tell 480p video from 720p on a four inch phone screen?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Xfinity and Charter haven't deployed their own cell towers. Instead they've formed MVNOs which provide service by piggybacking on towers of the big four carriers.
Now if only someone would craft some legislation so third parties could also access all the infrastructure ISPs have laid out...
This is definitely not about data usage because if it was then they would be restricting bit rates. But they're instead restricting resolution.
Comcast is letting existing customers get 720p video streams "on an interim basis at no charge."
No additional charge.