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Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

news.northeastern.edu

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Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#111

Post by Nasrudith »

MrEfficiency wrote: post #109
Nasrudith wrote: post #105

The physics limit is a misleading talking point that always comes up when justifying throttling and not providing what was promised. If physics were truly the limiting factor dense cities would have the worst data quality and rural areas the best. Instead cities have the best short of overwhelming events like tech conventions and disasters. The cell footprints are adjustable. A localized network of smaller area cells…

Tmobile has become Verizon screwing people over with claims of UNLIMITED, but in reality is just another marketing tactic. Source: Got throttled and couldnt load my school's website let alone upload a 500mb file.

I meant it more that they disrupted the pricing model shift they wanted to pull off than they were saints or anything. Capitalism works ideally when being selfish benefits others sort of thing. Per data pricing is something that doesn't seem too viable given lack of user control over it and ability to know ahead of time.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#112

Post by Cthulhu_ »

close04 wrote: post #103
nbhuik wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just how the Internet works. Everyone is selling and buying access to networks. Whether directly or in the form of agreements. And most people are of course trying to get more for less. One could certainly wish that things would be different, but it isn't like they are doing something especially nefarious.

Right... until you grandma can’t Skype with you because Microsoft didn’t pay the “decongestion” tax to that neighborhood IP she’s using or every ISP along the way. Or when the firefighters get throttled because their unlimited data is consumed and your house goes up in smoke.

I really hope firefighters and other emergency services don't depend on the unreliable mobile network. Those will be some of the first things to go down in case of an actual emergency, along with the power grid.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#113

Post by TheCoelacanth »

lobsterloga wrote: post #104
joncrocks wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine that you have a delivery service. You pay your local delivery company $X per month and they promise that they'll deliver you 1 package a day from their local depot. But it turns out that although you're ordering a package a day from Amazon, you're not receiving a package a day. You get your stuff, but it's delayed and backed-up somewhere. And so as an experiment you sign up for a service that will receive a p…

That's not how Internet works. At all. Please stop spreading this misinformation. Your post totally ignores peering agreements and interconnects that are key to understanding this issue.

Peering agreements and interconnects are the ISP's problem, not the customers'.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#114

Post by standerman »

pas wrote: post #76
close04 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of throttling is done to squeeze more money from anything crossing their network. All ISPs want a piece of the pie so they will charge at both ends anything coming in and anything going out to you.

Can customers/subscribers of the ISP sue for damages? I guess the ISP has a pretty defensive ToS though. :(

Almost every large business has a forced arbitration clause now.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#115

Post by resters »

This article inadvertently supports why stopping Net Neutrality was a good idea.

If it takes a deep investigation to discover "throttling", and there has been no outcry from consumers, then the throttling did not cause any harm.

Net Neutrality bans many sensible forms of traffic shaping. What we are seeing is network capacity being greatly increased through sensible traffic shaping, with no downside for consumers. That's why Net Neutrality is a bad idea in the first place!

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#116

Post by shoguning »

belorn wrote: post #52
sbr464 wrote: post #25

Years back, I operated a small ISP to serve a need until cable broadband arrived in the community. I had to monitor overall usage and throttle clients frequently with high torrent/video usage. It was also an issue with hotspots in RV Parks/campgrounds where there was a higher ratio of video usage. There are technical limitations to spectrum/bandwidth, I'm curious why this isn't mentioned more in discussions like thes…

The article brings up that. The throttling was not done in order to ease congested network traffic. It is not a response to hotspots of high traffic, nor is it even classification of data types such as torrent and video usage. If you use Boost ISP and watching sports on NBCSport it will work fine but watching the same match later on youtube is not. If you sit at CSpire and watch a paid movie on Youtube Red you will g…

Interesting, but isn't it also a potential bottleneck at the other side of the network? I.e.: NBCSport has fatter pipes/less congestion than YouTube?

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#117

Post by jakebasile »

resters wrote: post #115

This article inadvertently supports why stopping Net Neutrality was a good idea . If it takes a deep investigation to discover "throttling", and there has been no outcry from consumers, then the throttling did not cause any harm. Net Neutrality bans many sensible forms of traffic shaping. What we are seeing is network capacity being greatly increased through sensible traffic shaping, with no downside for consumers. T…

So, if something can be done and no one notices it can't be a bad thing?

"I would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids!"

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#118

Post by Finch2193 »

resters wrote: post #115

This article inadvertently supports why stopping Net Neutrality was a good idea . If it takes a deep investigation to discover "throttling", and there has been no outcry from consumers, then the throttling did not cause any harm. Net Neutrality bans many sensible forms of traffic shaping. What we are seeing is network capacity being greatly increased through sensible traffic shaping, with no downside for consumers. T…

I'm confused. Do you really think this outweighs all the other downsides of losing net neutrality?

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#119

Post by resters »

kristoffer wrote: post #42
DougBTX wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument would go that if the radio has total capacity x and each user is allocated capacity y, then only x / y users should be allowed to join the service, otherwise it is "over selling". It is a super straight forward model, but obviously much more expensive to provide. I imagine most users would be happy to pay 1/10 of the cost to get a service that might drop to 10% performance in the worst case, as long as i…

If cell providers advertises their services as "Always 100 Mbps guaranteed" that would be a problem, but do they really? Because that is not how wireless communication works. E.g. in LTE the user is scheduled both in frequency and time. The operator has a certain frequency spectrum that gives a certain maximum transmission rate (one user getting all frequencies and time). The scheduling happens based on (amongst othe…

This is precisely correct, and well put. Advocates of Net Neutrality are trying to solve what is an antitrust issue, but not using antitrust law to do it.

I think it's because most NN advocates have a bias that regulation is a good thing, so of course regulating ISPs will be the right way to make the internet better.

However keep in mind that it is regulators who have granted the last mile monopolies to their crony firms and who have helped prevent last mile competition.

Notably one thing the FCC has done of late is to remove restrictions on reconfiguring wires on utility poles that benefitted incumbents. Now under the new rules, an ISP who is adding lines to existing utility poles is authorized to move/modify the equipment already on the pole when doing the installation.

Previously the rules allowed incumbent firms months to schedule a technician to go out to move the equipment around, which caused many delays for new firms trying to compete.

My internet service is pretty bad (XFinity) and Net Neutrality is not the solution, the solution is more ISPs to choose from. I'd much rather have three or four fiber providers to choose from than the (bad) choice between XFinity and AT&T. There are only two choices because of regulators, not in spite of them.

Re: Research shows that nearly every U.S. cell provider is doing throttling

#120

Post by resters »

jakebasile wrote: post #117
resters wrote: post #115

This article inadvertently supports why stopping Net Neutrality was a good idea . If it takes a deep investigation to discover "throttling", and there has been no outcry from consumers, then the throttling did not cause any harm. Net Neutrality bans many sensible forms of traffic shaping. What we are seeing is network capacity being greatly increased through sensible traffic shaping, with no downside for consumers. T…

So, if something can be done and no one notices it can't be a bad thing? "I would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids!"

Traffic shaping does exactly that. It prioritizes traffic in a way that makes sense for each protocol. So yes, the point is that being aware of the protocols lets the shaping create more perceived bandwidth out of thin air.

This is the reality as long as we have "residential quality" broadband, which is more like a finance product arbitraging bandwidth, intended to lower cost and minimize (but not reduce) the impact of congestion. If you want dedicated bandwidth the price is significantly higher.

I wish I could afford a dedicated high bandwidth circuit as my residential connection. I can't, but I think that ISPs are better able to choose what QoS makes sense than regulators are.

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