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Businesses United States

Charter Launches Mobile Service, Throttles All Video To 480p (arstechnica.com) 101

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
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.
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Charter Launches Mobile Service, Throttles All Video To 480p More

Charter Launches Mobile Service, Throttles All Video To 480p

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  • Was anyone expecting otherwise?
    • do you relly care watching your video on a 5 to 6 inch screen. putting these 4k displays in these phones has to be the biggest wast of money ever,
      • Agreed. Who the fuck can watch TV on those tiny screens? WTF?!

      • do you relly care watching your video on a 5 to 6 inch screen. putting these 4k displays in these phones has to be the biggest wast of money ever,

        Remember, this is a generic internet service. While it may mostly be used by mobile devices a lot of rural areas are forced to use these connections for their home internet connections and that includes providing service to the 70" UHD internet connected, voice activated television that knows when you're fridge ran out of beer.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 )

        well..

        mobile should just be data. if it's metered you're getting fucked up the ass.

        and yes I regularly stream 1080p over mobile connections.. both in finland and in thailand. it's not that I "need" to, it's just that it's 2018 and it was something to be expected in 2010 already.

        somehow yanks are still believing the crap about their being so unique market? well it's unique only in that people are willing to pay up the ass for inferior service - while living in the most money per square km market. and fy

  • They are throttling all video. So perfectly compliant with NN.

    Get off your pulpits.

    • They are throttling all video. So perfectly compliant with NN.

      Get off your pulpits.

      That's debatable... At the very least it probably would have been cause for a lawsuit; and Charter might not have risked a potentially expensive legal defence for this.

      • Debate it then. You're wrong BTW.

        Anybody can sue anybody else for anything at any time. Means nothing.

        The fact remains NN put the government in charge of the definition of QoS. What could go wrong, putting such a group of competent, trustworthy, freedom loving people in charge of a technical definition that has the potential to break the internet?

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by MasseKid ( 1294554 )
          Video data is treated differently than data. Treating any data differently than any other data violates the principle of net neutrality.

          • Video data is treated differently than data. Treating any data differently than any other data violates the principle of net neutrality.

            Not when you throttle only your own data.

          • Re:Not network neutrality issue. (Score:5, Informative)

            by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Thursday July 05, 2018 @04:05PM (#56897930)
            How did this get modded up? Net neutrality is the principle of treating data equally regardless of originating source on the Internet. e.g. You can't throttle Netflix while prioritizing your own video streaming service.

            What you're proposing is content neutrality - treating all data the same regardless of the type of data. If we mandated content neutrality, the Internet would die a horrible death as filesharing, spam, and DDoS attacks got equal priority to video streaming, web browsing, and online game traffic. The only reason the Internet is able to function despite the terabytes of illegitimate traffic being dumped on it is because ISPs and backbones are allowed to lower its priority via traffic shaping to give legitimate traffic first crack at the available bandwidth.

          • This is why we don't want the government in charge of NN.

            Morons like MasseKid don't understand that without QoS the internet breaks, thinks he 'knows'.

            The government is _full_ of technically clueless twits like MasseKid. They would have fucked it all up.

        • Debate it then. You're wrong BTW.

          Well, a legal case could easily be made that by restricting only certain types of data that they are not treating all data equal. They would not be treating video content providers with the same full access as they are other content providers.

          It would be up to the courts to decide; I happen to think they would most likely rule against the company trying to throttle HD video stream if net neutrality were still in place.

          • And... in addition; Charter being a cable company and throttling video, the clear motive behind their actions would be to act in a way to deny access to competing services. This would help push the decision in favour of ruling that Charter was acting against net neutrality.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by EvilSS ( 557649 )
              So they are throttling their home users video too? Because the article says mobile users, of their new cell service (which is really Verizon that they are reselling).

              • Throttle phone video to make people use cable instead. If you only get crappy video on your phone then you're more likely to break and spring for cable.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          If I paid for the bandwidth, then how I decide to use it should be up to me. If an ISP overprovisioned their network, then its up to them to make it right by upgrading their equipment. I personally don't have issues with a blanketed throttling of all video services, as long as their upfront about what I'm paying for. The problem is, in a year time, they'll probably come back and say you can now get HD quality video on selected services.

        • What could go wrong, putting such a group of competent, trustworthy, freedom loving people in charge of a technical definition that has the potential to break the internet?

          At least we can all agree that the USA has some of the best, and cheapest, internet in the western world, and has the most options when it comes to service providers, right?

          Thank god NN was repealed. That means by this time next year I'm going to have 5 ISPs knocking down my door, begging me use their gigabit fiber. I mean, they haven't done it over the last 10 years, but I'm sure it's coming. We just need to let the free market sort it out.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )

        They are throttling all video. So perfectly compliant with NN.

        Get off your pulpits.

        That's debatable... At the very least it probably would have been cause for a lawsuit; and Charter might not have risked a potentially expensive legal defence for this.

        Pretty sure mobile networks (and please don't forget that's what we are talking about here, Charter's new mobile service, not their home service) were exempted from certain provisions to allow for network management. Video throttling was happening under NN rules in the US before they were repealed.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Network neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally

      In this case, video traffic is not being treated equal to other traffic, failing the NN test

      It is considered "discrimination by protocol"

      Discrimination by protocol is the favoring or blocking of information based on aspects of the communications protocol that the computers are using to communicate

      I'll refer you to Comcast's intentional throttling of BitTorrent traffic for another example.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mlyle ( 148697 )

      They are throttling all video. So perfectly compliant with NN.

      Whaaaaat?

      As Wikipedia puts it:

      > Network neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. Internet traffic includes all of the different messages, files and data sent over the Internet, including, for example, emails, digital audio files, digital video files, etc. According to Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu, the best way to explain network neutrality is that a public information network will end up being most useful if all content, websites, and platforms (e.g., mobil

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cfalcon ( 779563 )

        The "2015 FCC Open Internet" thing has this under their clear bright-line rules:

        "A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service, insofar as such
        person is so engaged, shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or nonharmful
        devices, subject to reasonable network management."

        The question, then, is whether throttling video- which is a very high bandwidth application- counts as "reasonable network management". That seems very likely. A web page is a large burst of transfer,

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mlyle ( 148697 )

          You're ignoring the whole next 3 pages which talk about what is "reasonable network management", and the cited rulings that occurred under the previous 2010 regime. You're further ignoring the enforcement actions that the FCC undertook against mobile operators for treatment of video, which the mobile operators settled...

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Actually throttling all video is still a violation of NN concepts.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by luther349 ( 645380 )
      watching 480p on your 6 inch phone your not going to see the difference.
    • Nope. If they were throttling all data of any sort, you might have an argument. But throttling a particular type of data is very much against the Net Neutrality principle of treating all data the same, regardless of what that data comprises.

      • Do you even want your gaming packets treated the same as your video streaming or FTP packets?

        Just in case you ARE that clueless, no you don't. Ping matters for gaming packets, doesn't for streaming video.

        It's called QoS, break it and you break the net. It has never been illegal.

        Your personal definition of NN is broken, simplistic and childish.

  • Good (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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 Chart

  • 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"

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      For Comcast, yes, NN would thwart what they are doing. Their plans include services stream HD at an additional charge to customers, which in itself doesn't violate NN but the selectiveness on which service providers are permitted to stream HD under that plan is what violates NN.

      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,

      • 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

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          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.

          True.

          Congress, however, wasn't going to take action due to lobbying efforts. While the U.S. Senate is more prone to political party levers and controls, they occasionally get things right. The other, lesser branc

    • nn never covered the mobile space.

  • 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.

  • 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.
  • 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.

    • Re:It's just one way to get mobile internet. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mystik ( 38627 ) on Thursday July 05, 2018 @02:06PM (#56897220) Homepage Journal

      Google + Netflix do not get "free" internet.

      They pay handsomely for their interconnects, infrastructure, caching edger servers + what not.

      Consumer ISPs do not get to charge them twice for connections + data customers are requesting.

      • Google + Netflix do not get "free" internet.

        They pay handsomely for their interconnects, infrastructure, caching edger servers + what not.

        Consumer ISPs do not get to charge them twice for connections + data customers are requesting.

        I think consumer ISPs get to try to do that. What I am really hoping for is the day Comcast or one of the others tries to charge their own customers more for access to Youtube and then Alphabet announces "In the future, we will only work with neutral platforms. Google's products and services -all of them, from Android to Youtube-, will no longer be available via Comcast."

    • Citations on Google and Netflix getting free internet access please.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tighe_L ( 642122 )
        Are they paying the ISPs for their customers to access their services? If you are a cable company and you are losing TV subscriptions to Netflix and Youtube through connections you built? Did Youtube and Netflix run wires to the customers homes? Internet, Phone and TV as a package offset the actual costs of operating all the equipment and employing the people necessary for this business, meanwhile Netflix and Google are siphoning customers off all they have to pay for is their connection to the internet.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by AvitarX ( 172628 )

          And here I thought I was paying for the wires to my house.

          I should pay for my heavy peak use, sure, but it shouldn't matter what I'm doing with it, be it Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, some other on demand.

        • First don't answer a question with a question. Answer ,mine then i will answer YOURS. So again Citations on Netflix,Google getting free internet access..
    • most mobile providers do the same. relly nobody throws a fit because its easy to get around and on your 6 inch phone 480p looks just fine.

  • Can you even tell 480p video from 720p on a four inch phone screen?

    • no sir you cant. its like buying a 19 inch 4k display you just threw your money away.
    • If you tether your phone you could use the extra pixels. People shouldn't have to be forced a certain quality when they can chose their GB limit also. Is charter say "unlimited internet, as long as we tailor it to minimize data" That's just silly. Charge for what people need, don't limit everyone's quality.

  • Not about data usage (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ddtmm ( 549094 ) on Thursday July 05, 2018 @02:46PM (#56897448)
    This is definitely not about data usage because if it was then they would be restricting bit rates. But they're instead restricting resolution.

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