Brief:
- Mobile video content have been intentionally slowed down by the biggest U.S. telecom companies, according to a study from Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. YouTube is the top target for "throttling," while data from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and the NBC Sports app also have been slowed, the study cited by Bloomberg found.
- The researchers developed a mobile app called Wehe that about 100,000 consumers downloaded to monitor their smartphone data. From January through May, the app performed 500,000 tests among more than 2,000 service providers in 161 countries to find patterns of "differentiation," when one type of network traffic is treated differently than other kinds of traffic.
- Verizon Communications was found to differentiate more than 11,100 times, and most of the activity was throttling, according to the study. AT&T differentiated 8,398 times, followed by T-Mobile US at almost 3,900 times and Sprint at 339 times. The size of the networks and user bases partly influences the frequency of throttling.
Insight:
The study of mobile data throttling likely will provide proponents of net neutrality with greater evidence that service quality has deteriorated since the Federal Communications Commission repealed a rule that said carriers must treat all data on their networks the same, and not discriminate by user, app or content. The FCC approved net neutrality rules under President Barack Obama, but President Donald Trump's FCC began rolling back the regulation last year.
For consumers, throttling can degrade the experience, slowing down video viewing or downgrading the quality of the image. With AT&T, Verizon and other telecoms looking at building their own video streaming services, downgrading a user's experience with Netflix could help encourage that user to switch to a telecom's service. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile all say sacrifices in speed are necessary to keep up with user demand for video viewing on mobile but that the content still streams at DVD quality levels, per Bloomberg. Users can pay more if they want high-definition video.
Generally, tech companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Netflix support net neutrality because they benefit from a system that doesn't differentiate web traffic by content. That means that Netflix, which once claimed that it was responsible for 37% of internet traffic, sees an outsized benefit from net neutrality compared with a company that uses the internet only to send email. Companies that depend on digital ad sales also get a more open network to carry marketing messages from their customers to end users, and they don't want to see telecom giants like AT&T and Verizon favor their own content over someone else's.
The arguments against net neutrality mostly come from telecom providers that say they have no incentive to invest in upgrading networks that won't produce better income by charging customers for faster access. Since the repeal of net neutrality rules, wireless providers have made unlimited data plans more restrictive, per The Verge.
With the rollback of federal net neutrality rules, states are stepping into the regulatory void. California lawmakers last week passed a bill to guarantee net neutrality, which is now on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk for approval. The law would guarantee that video streams from over-the-top (OTT) services like Netflix or Hulu would be sent to mobile devices or an internet TV at the same speeds and quality, and that consumers wouldn't be charged extra to access websites, per the New York Times. Washington, Oregon and Vermont are considering similar net neutrality laws, per Digiday.
