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US Telcos Are Slowing Internet Traffic To and From Popular OTT Apps Like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video, New Research Finds (bloomberg.com)
The largest U.S. telecom companies are slowing internet traffic to and from popular apps like YouTube and Netflix, according to new research from Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Bloomberg: The researchers used a smartphone app called Wehe, downloaded by about 100,000 consumers, to monitor which mobile services are being throttled when and by whom, in what likely is the single largest running study of its kind. Among U.S. wireless carriers, YouTube is the No. 1 target of throttling, where data speeds are slowed, according to the data. Netflix's video streaming service, Amazon.com's Prime Video and the NBC Sports app have been degraded in similar ways, according to David Choffnes, one of the study's authors who developed the Wehe app. From January through early May, the app detected "differentiation" by Verizon Communications Inc. more than 11,100 times, according to the study. This is when a type of traffic on a network is treated differently than other types of traffic. Most of this activity is throttling. AT&T Inc. did this 8,398 times and it was spotted almost 3,900 times on the network of T-Mobile US and 339 times on Sprint's network, the study found.
And they had no plans for paid prioritization.
I'm so glad that the ISPs and the Administration didn't lie to us. And I'm glad that this all benefits me, the consumer, and allows me to get my money's worth.
After all, paying $50 a month for 1.5 Mbps down/.25 up at AT&T and having people in Third World shithole countries laugh at my connection let's me know that America and our Capitalist system is the best in the World!
I can just vote with my dollars and have no internet connection. Because of our free markets, I have the same number of choices as a communist country - and the privilege of paying more for less service.
Trump! Making America Great Again!
Interesting that when the summary says "U.S. telecom companies", it assumes that we will all think wireless, rather than terrestrial. I wonder how the throttling compares on the two media....
(I do the bulk of my surfing on a terrestrial circuit.)
FCC should be regulating to make sure that the telecoms are providing enough bandwidth and interconnection to meet the demand. Those are technical issues.
FTC should be regulating the business practices to make sure that telecoms which have regional monopoly power are not using that power to extend their monopolies or colluding to restrain trade in violation of the law.
Meanwhile, the ISPs are trying to claim that the FTC doesn't have jurisdiction. They pushed for the FCC to push it off to the FTC and now are trying to push the FTC off. They also want the FCC to rule that states can't make their own rules. If the ISPs succeed, then they'll be immune to any regulatory agency.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
According to Ars Technica, ISPs like Comcast have no problem destroying the equipment of rival ISPs. And I don't mean figuratively.
In that case, they already see themselves as above the law.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I really want this question answered
The answers are in the article and you could have read them with just a click and a few seconds of skimming through the article for numbers. Instead of doing that you took a longer time coming up with and posting reasons to doubt what the summary said.
Fucking astroturfer.
Or, Pornhub.com isn't being throttled. Kind of a large gap in your reasoning there. Remember, YOU aren't being throttled. The web site is.
If I pay an ISP for 20Mb/s, where do they get off by limiting my connection to some services to 5Mb/s and not others?
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What the fuck does OTT stand for?
Over The Top?
Object Type Translator?
Off the Truck?
Serously, what the fuck? https://www.acronymfinder.com/...
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.