Wireless Carriers Are Slowing Down Connection Speeds For Customers Watching Streaming Services

This was the reason the big telecoms wanted the end of net neutrality: so they could charge more for streaming services.

While they deny it, a growing body research shows that they are doing it consistently, though whose service gets slowed appears to depend on which corporations have alliances with each other. JL

Lisette Voytko reports in Forbes:

"Wireless carriers are doing it 24/7, and it’s not based on networks being overloaded." AT&T, according to the report, throttled Netflix 70% of the time and YouTube 74% of the time, but didn’t slow Amazon Prime video at all. T-Mobile throttled Prime video 51% of the time. Wireless carriers usually claim that heavy online video usage can lead to slower speeds, but the research seems to show that throttling happened consistently, regardless of peak user times.
Wireless carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile appear to slow down connection speeds for customers watching Netflix and other online streaming services, according to newly released research.

• Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Northeastern University ran 650,000 tests within the U.S. from 2018 to 2019 to see if wireless carriers were slowing down (or “throttling”) streaming services.
• AT&T, according to the report, throttled Netflix 70% of the time and YouTube 74% of the time, but didn’t slow Amazon Prime video at all. Meanwhile, researchers discovered T-Mobile throttled Prime video 51% of the time, but didn’t bother with Skype and only occasionally slowed down Vimeo.
• The study ran between January 2018 and January 2019, before and after the repeal of net neutrality regulations. 
• The report will be peer-reviewed at SIGCOMM, an annual data conference. 
• Wireless carriers usually claim that heavy online video usage can lead to slower speeds, but the research seems to show that the throttling happened consistently, regardless of peak user times.
• Alphabet, Google’s parent company, along with Amazon, Verizon, the National Science Foundation and French telecom ARCEP, contributed funding to this study and others by David Choffnes, an associate professor at Northeastern. 
• AT&T provided a statement to Forbes: "We are committed to an open internet. We don't block websites. We don't censor online content. And we don't throttle, discriminate, or degrade network performance based on content. We offer customers choice, including speeds and features to manage their data. This app fails to account for a user’s choice of settings or plan that may affect speeds. We’ve previously been in contact with the app developers to discuss how they can improve their app's performance."

Crucial quote: "[Wireless carriers] are doing it all the time, 24/7, and it’s not based on networks being overloaded," said Choffnes.
Key background: U.S. senators and other critics have questioned whether wireless carriers treat all internet traffic equally, which had been required under net neutrality regulations repealed last year by the FCC. The rules were enacted by the Obama administration in 2015 and required internet service providers to give equal access to all websites, without giving preferential treatment or blocking them.