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Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

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Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#21

The title should say "US Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study" The article doesn't suggest that this problem exists outside the US. Perhaps it does.

The second sentence of the article links to the paper cited, which shows the international data.

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#22
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It surprises me that most people in the US wouldn't have at least one cable and one DSL option. After all, cable TV is available most places, and everyone has a phone line (or is at least wired for one). Or is the issue rural locations which were never wired for cable because they all just got satellite dishes?

I live 3 miles from downtown Austin, which has numerous internet options (Google Fiber, Spectrum, AT&T, and Grande), but the options in my apartment complex are: * Spectrum (up to 400mbps) * AT&T (5mbps dsl) I technically do have some choice, but given that one of these is close to 100x faster than the other, and the pricing is fairly similar... I think wireless isps and 5g are our best chance at disrupting this.

Oh gross, yeah, multi-unit buildings are a funny case where the choices are severely reduced due to factors outside your control. And it's not like a condo building where your HOA can demand better options— as a renter, you really do have no say in the matter.

I wonder why the cable option is so bad? Is it just because it's a single coax entering the building shared by all residents? Where I am (Kitchener ON), I can get 200mbps cable.

I have family living in a motor home, and they deal with something similar at RV resorts; they're stuck with the wifi available to them there, and little ability to use an alternative (short of cellular).

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#23
post #17

Wireless is a medium that is severely limited because of the laws of physics. I 100% support QoS. And by QoS I don't mean limiting video even if there's available bandwidth, I mean limiting it if other people are trying to use their connections reasonably.

Now, please explain why, in the case of contention, the user using video should get less than their fair share of the available capacity?

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#25

On the one hand, I can see needing the ability to throttle for network traffic handling because you'll always have that one person who goes into an all you can eat, grabs 10 plates and all the chocolate pudding because they have to feel like they got one over on ... well, everyone. On the other hand, doing this 24/7? That's just not right and I think this runs afoul network neutrality legis... oh, wait.

> On the one hand, I can see needing the ability to throttle for network traffic handling because you'll always have that one person who goes into an all you can eat, grabs 10 plates and all the chocolate pudding because they have to feel like they got one over on ... well, everyone.

So, you want to allow companies to not fulfill contracts because the company has failed to fulfill contracts?

Mind you, if customers in this scenario of yours don't get to eat as much as they can eat, that has absolutely nothing to do with the other customer that happened to eat as much as they can eat, and everything with the company not being able to fulfill the contract that they entered into. It is the company's fault, and only the company's fault, if they enter into contracts with multiple people that say "N bucks for as much as you can eat", if they then don't have enough food to feed all those people.

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#26
post #17

Wireless is a medium that is severely limited because of the laws of physics. I 100% support QoS. And by QoS I don't mean limiting video even if there's available bandwidth, I mean limiting it if other people are trying to use their connections reasonably.

Now, please explain why, in the case of contention, the user using video should get less than their fair share of the available capacity?

Because in case of congestion the user watching video is abusing the system. It's like going to a congested public road with a convoy of lorries just because you can. Really, don't be a dick.

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#27
post #4

I keep thinking I see this on my wired (Comcast) connection too. Stuff just behaves too strangely for it to be anything else. One video provider will get slow. Switch to the mobile connection and it's fine. Switch to another site on the wired connection, that's fine too. They've made it perfectly clear they're unhappy I won't pay them an extra $100+/month for 900 channels of crap over and over.

This is your ISP being sneaky, but probably not in the way you think. This is what Netflix has been complaining about for years.

Your ISP is purposely providing a too-small link to your video provider. So when a lot of people are using that provider, it gets slow. When you switch to another provider, or a VPN, you get to use a fast connection to that other VPN that isn't overloaded, and then a fast connection back to your video provider.

This way your ISP can claim they are not throttling traffic because they aren't inspecting the packets for traffic shaping, they are just using physically poor connectivity to certain providers for traffic shaping.

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#29
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, please explain why, in the case of contention, the user using video should get less than their fair share of the available capacity?

Because in case of congestion the user watching video is abusing the system. It's like going to a congested public road with a convoy of lorries just because you can. Really, don't be a dick.

> Because in case of congestion the user watching video is abusing the system.

Why do you think that a user that is using exactly the same amount of bandwidth as any other users (i.e., their fair share) is abusing the system?

What would you say if some user was watching a video stream that used only half as much bandwidth as their fair share? Would that still be abusive?

Re: Wireless Carrier Throttling of Online Video Is Pervasive: Study

#30
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It surprises me that most people in the US wouldn't have at least one cable and one DSL option. After all, cable TV is available most places, and everyone has a phone line (or is at least wired for one). Or is the issue rural locations which were never wired for cable because they all just got satellite dishes?

I live 3 miles from downtown Austin, which has numerous internet options (Google Fiber, Spectrum, AT&T, and Grande), but the options in my apartment complex are: * Spectrum (up to 400mbps) * AT&T (5mbps dsl) I technically do have some choice, but given that one of these is close to 100x faster than the other, and the pricing is fairly similar... I think wireless isps and 5g are our best chance at disrupting this.

Wireless is already getting too congested for this to be a viable alternative
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