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Businesses Communications Media The Internet Technology

US Telcos Are Slowing Internet Traffic To and From Popular OTT Apps Like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video, New Research Finds (bloomberg.com) 168

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.
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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

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  • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @02:05PM (#57252172)

    Especially if you can point out that they are not throttling their own services such as the Direct TV app.
    The reason for Net Neutrality was at the time all the Media Companies were forming ISP's before that ISP were separate entities.

    • by saying that it's both legal and allowed? After all, we ended Net Neutrality.
    • by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @02:18PM (#57252258) Homepage

      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.

      • by jd ( 1658 ) <imipakNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @02:23PM (#57252288) Homepage Journal

        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.

      • Wrong tense (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @04:35PM (#57252978)

        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.

        The ISPs already got the Supreme Court to agree that the FTC couldn't regulate NN, and that only the FCC did. Unsurprsingly, they took advantage of this to start fucking with sites, including blocking mobile payment systems they didn't own. Surprsiingly, a few months later, the FCC did put NN regulations in place. Note, this all happened several years ago.

        See also, why all the "things weren't so bad pre-FCC NN" comments were bullshit. Because the FTC was allowed to regulate them for a while, and it trended hellish when neither agency did

        • Re:Wrong tense (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Jane Q. Public ( 1010737 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @08:11PM (#57253988)
          Most people have no real idea about the actual history of Net Neutrality.

          We had de facto net neutrality regulations for 6 of about the last 7 1/2 years. And not was so bad that hardly anybody even noticed.

          We also had Title II coverage when the internet was all done over phone landlines.

          Which means that actually, during the majority of the history of the Internet in the United States, it was covered by one or another version of Net Neutrality.

          When cable companies started offering Internet services, the FCC agreed to not try to regulate them as long as they voluntarily agreed to certain Net Neutrality rules. So while it wasn't a matter of law, there were conditions for FCC keeping its hands off.

          But over a period of about 15 years or so, the cable company lobbyists chipped and chipped and chipped away at these provisions until by 2015, there wasn't much left.

          That's why a separate Net Neutrality regulation was passed in 2015.

          And it should have stayed there. This notion that they will all play like nice competitive capitalists given lack of regulation is demonstrable BS. They cheated on the rules even when they were regulated.

          EFF has a very good history of Net Neutrality on their website.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      The telco's doesn't have there own "services" even AT&T's big network (LTE) does not control the DirectTVNow company and the other 3 carriers doesn't even have that much.

      More than likely these supposed "researcher's" have no idea how to add LTE bottle-necking into there very limited study. There's a reason why streaming services gets throttled on LTE verses a wired home/office connection. Regular Mimo (LTE) just doesn't have the density on the front end radio's to handle modern heavy streaming service

      • by Cederic ( 9623 )

        The telco's doesn't have there own

        Read this far, burst into tears, closed the browser.

    • You think this was "different" during Net Neutrality? Service throttling has been happening for a long time, and is needed for certain applications to functions properly. Traffic is being shaped all the time.

      • >"You think this was "different" during Net Neutrality? Service throttling has been happening for a long time, and is needed for certain applications to functions properly. Traffic is being shaped all the time."

        Indeed it is/was. But people are desperate to somehow make these things "Net Neutrality" issues because it fits with their agenda to show how the world is now ending.

        Net neutrality had to do with slowing down traffic to or from specific places based on paid or other agreements with those sites or

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @02:12PM (#57252224)

    And they had no plans for paid prioritization. [arstechnica.com]

    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!

    • Curious what exactly the trump admin has to with your lack of choice with regard to ISPs in your community? This is a problem that not only predates Trump, it likely predates Obama, Bush'43, and maybe even Clinton...

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Remind me, when was Net Neutrality rescinded?

  • Wireless vs. wired (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PuddleBoy ( 544111 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @02:12PM (#57252228)

    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.)

    • lol. What ever happened to a simple "land line"?! (or hard line as it was called in the Matrix...) Heck some of my friends have started calling their cable internet service (which is absolutely "terrestrial") "wifi" because they have no hard connections to the router.
  • FCC vs FTC (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bigpat ( 158134 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @02:15PM (#57252240)

    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.

    • Re:FCC vs FTC (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @02:42PM (#57252402)

      that telecoms which have regional monopoly power are not using that power to extend their monopolies or colluding to restrain trad

      The states already have an agency which does exactly this. When the government awards a monopoly contract for some type of service, its operation and rates are monitored by a public utilities commission [wikipedia.org]. The PUC makes sure the monopoly company cannot abuse the monopoly by providing subpar services or charging excessive rates.

      Because cable ISPs are awarded government monopolies, they are for all intents and purposes a utility. But because they're not called a utility, they're not regulated by the PUCs.

      • But because they're not called a utility, they're not regulated by the PUCs.

        Sorry to burst your bubble, but PUCs *do* regulate cable companies, telcos and their ISP arms - the PUCs approve rate increases, for example.

        • Sorry to burst your bubble, but PUCs *do* regulate cable companies, telcos and their ISP arms - the PUCs approve rate increases, for example.

          In California, for example, the CPUC only regulates the video services provided by cable companies. They have nothing whatsoever to say about data.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    That's the real question. A 1080 HD stream on Netflix needs about 5Mpbs. It can either constantly such 5mbps, or do peaks of 40mbps every 35-40 seconds. I've profiled that on my routers. If the carries are not slowing down beyond 5mbps which still deliveries the same full HD quality there is no problem - they are just optimizing their wifi spectrum. For all I know LTE likes steady traffic much more than peaks and then nothing in order to manage latency a bit better. Remember, when on LTE your voice calls a

  • No surprise (Score:2, Informative)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 )
    Phone systems have to place priority on phone and emergency services, that means sometimes entertainment data gets throttled to preserve space for those priority services. Thems the breaks. Now if this was happening on a wired land line then I would consider this news. I still think the whole smartphone thing is ridiculous, everywhere you go someone has their eyes addicted to that little screen.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Phone systems have to place priority on phone and emergency services

      *cough* https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... [nytimes.com]

    • by jd ( 1658 )

      The Internet is being run on wired land lines. That's how it works.

      There's a difference between setting up dedicated bandwidth (say, via a protocol like RSVP) for an emergency phone call or telerobotic surgery (and, yes, space has been cleared for the latter on the public Internet) and confiscating bandwidth you've bought because you're successful.

      Not confiscating because someone else needs it (I've pointed out elsewhere how to do weighted round robin and other fair service management) but because you're se

    • Oh you really think it's the emergency services that are causing this throttling? Too many forest fires perhaps?

      It would have to be a really thin pipe in the first place for that to be true.

    • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      Creating a rule like "All services are lower priority than phone and emergency services" is quite reasonably and is a good neutral QOS rule. If this is all they've done they we are in good shape. Hopefully we will not see rules like "My competitors streaming services are throttled but mine aren't."

    • Yeah, like they placed a priority on the California firefighters during the forest fires in Mendocino last month. I don't believe Verizon was throttling in violation of net neutrality, I think it was stupid customer service and ancient billing systems that led to that idiotic tragic situation. Full disclosure, I once worked for a former telecom that is now part of VZ, and I know about the disparate disconnected nature of telco billing systems. It doesn't surprise me that they goofed up supporting the firem
  • by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @02:20PM (#57252270)
    AT&T has the "bandwidth economy" setting where they "save" you data when you stream videos by downconverting the stream to 480. Is this actual throttling or a side effect of the conversion process?
    • If the AT&T feature you describe is anything like T-Mobile's "Binge On" feature, then it's throttling video to 1.5 Mbps, and the video provider is expected to detect that and switch the viewer to the SD stream.

    • by mOzone ( 1447147 )

      I have at&t fiber at the house and 3 at&t phones and only apps that slow down or go into SD mode are the at&t app for direct TV .. youtube netflix and pornhub i can open 4 HD streams and get 0 buffer or slow downs .. but god help me if i try and bring up a direct tv movie on tv or any device

  • att has TV and owns content. Verizon has cable tv.

  • There is a difference between throttling and overloaded peering connections. Does this testing make this distinction? A choke point along the path is not throttling.
    • Unless they're deliberately routing certain traffic through a narrow peering pipe...
      • by thule ( 9041 )
        Well, yeah, that's my point. The traffic could be treated exactly the same, but the peering might be constrained. This is not a violation of NN.

        Weren't wireless companies allowed to exempt some services from NN? From what I have read about T-Mobile's technique is that because they peer with Netflix, etc, they limit the per customer rate over that peering connection. This is shaping, but it provides better overall performance on their network. The customers were able to get the videos they wanted, but the
        • by Agripa ( 139780 )

          Well, yeah, that's my point. The traffic could be treated exactly the same, but the peering might be constrained. This is not a violation of NN.

          It is a distinction without a difference when the ISP controls the routing. It is an old peering strategy to deliberately route selected traffic through or away from a specific peering or transit connection to achieve a desired result.

  • OTT? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 )

    What the fuck does OTT stand for?
    Over The Top?
    Object Type Translator?
    Off the Truck?

    Serously, what the fuck? https://www.acronymfinder.com/... [acronymfinder.com]

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Over The Top - It's riding "over the top" of their infrastructure and therefore not an inhouse streaming service.

      • Over The Top - It's riding "over the top" of their infrastructure and therefore not an inhouse streaming service.

        That may be all well and good, but that's not funny at all!

    • Over The Tubez, natch.

  • I'm savvy on tech terms, yet this is the first I've heard of OTT. One True Turd?

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