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Senators Ask Four Major Carriers About Video Slowdowns (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Three U.S. Senate Democrats today asked the four major wireless carriers about allegations they've been throttling video services and -- in the case of Sprint -- the senators asked about alleged throttling of Skype video calls. Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent the letters to AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile, noting that recent research using the Wehe testing platform found indications of throttling by all four carriers.
"All online traffic should be treated equally, and Internet service providers should not discriminate against particular content or applications for competitive advantage purposes or otherwise," the senators wrote. Specifically, the Wehe tests "indicated throttling on AT&T for YouTube, Netflix, and NBC Sports... throttling on Verizon for Amazon Prime, YouTube, and Netflix... throttling on Sprint for YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Skype Video calls... [and] delayed throttling, or boosting, on T-Mobile for Netflix, NBC Sports, and Amazon Prime by providing un-throttled streaming at the beginning of the connection, and then subsequently throttling the connection," the senators' letters said.
"All online traffic should be treated equally, and Internet service providers should not discriminate against particular content or applications for competitive advantage purposes or otherwise," the senators wrote. Specifically, the Wehe tests "indicated throttling on AT&T for YouTube, Netflix, and NBC Sports... throttling on Verizon for Amazon Prime, YouTube, and Netflix... throttling on Sprint for YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Skype Video calls... [and] delayed throttling, or boosting, on T-Mobile for Netflix, NBC Sports, and Amazon Prime by providing un-throttled streaming at the beginning of the connection, and then subsequently throttling the connection," the senators' letters said.
seems when I am just surfing the Internet all is fine.. but if I go to YouTube and watch a 14 minute soccer game clip -- quality degradation to the highest and I switch networks to my business network on Allstream | Integra and all is fine. ;-) switch back to Charter and all is bad.. seems funny huh?? oh well, at least I can make out the ball and the players, and the grass is green.. No 1080 or 4K but at least the audio is ok, and the video(s) are jerky... blurry.... just started about 30 days ago... I have noticed... we'll keep an eye on them...
they just don't want me to watch too much TV -- I get it...sounds like my parents.
>"They need to upgrade their effin network then. Just like they pledged to do."
I agree. But no matter how much bandwidth is upgraded, people can quickly suck it all away. Now 4K video. Now 8K. Now 3D 8K with surround sound. Etc.
There is always a limit to bandwidth, which if hit, will affect other people on the network. It isn't evil to try and manage congestion to keep things working well. It *is* evil to try and manipulate the traffic for other "agendas".