Verizon Begins Throttling Wireless Users, Effectively Bans 4K Streaming
from the goodbye,-net-neutrality dept
Thanks to a little something called competition, Verizon Wireless was forced recently to bring back unlimited data plans, after spending the last few years trying to tell consumers they neither wanted nor needed such plans (narrator: they did). But all has not been well in Verizon-land since, with several network performance reports indicating that Verizon's network configuration was struggling a little under the load of these new unlimited users. That's a problem for a company that justifies its higher prices by insisting it offers the best-available wireless network.
A few weeks back, customers complained when Verizon began throttling YouTube and Netflix customers without telling anybody, only to subsequently admit they were conducting a "test." Fast forward to this week, and Verizon Wireless has announced a complete revamp of its "unlimited" data plans that severely restrict how your mobile connection can be used.
The short version: Verizon is moving away from its fairly decent, competition-induced unlimited data plan (which generally let you do what you wanted with your connection), and replacing it with three, worse "unlimited" options:
A few things of note. One, with this move, Verizon is joining the rest of the wireless sector in charging you more money to use your wireless connection as you'd like, requiring you pay $10 more just to stream HD video as transmitted. Two, the company is effectively banning 4K streaming, and no matter what kind of device you're using, won't be delivering more than 10 Mbps to any traffic Verizon's network gear identifies as video. So, if for some reason you wanted fully unthrottled video from a company server -- there's no way to get it. Verizon's not letting you access unthrottled video, period.
On its surface, this isn't something most consumers will notice... yet. The difference between 720p and 1080p on a small smartphone screen is negligible, so Verizon quite correctly assumes that most customers won't care. It's also worth noting that even under former FCC boss Tom Wheeler and his 2015 rules, the FCC was turning a blind eye to both this (charging users more to avoid having games, video and music throttled) and zero rating (exempting an ISPs own content from usage caps while hindering competitors), something we have repeatedly stated was a mistake that would come back to bite consumers eventually.
The bigger issue moving forward is of the slippery slope variety. Today, Verizon has decided that it's the one that gets to determine how much more you get to pay for higher-quality video, or if you have the option at all. With the company at the vanguard of an assault on existing net neutrality protections, you can be guaranteed that restrictions like this will only grow. The value proposition will also steadily decline as Verizon takes full advantage of Ajit Pai's quest to free some of the least liked, and most anti-competitive companies in America of most meaningful regulatory oversight .
With said oversight on vacation, that leaves it to competition to keep Verizon Wireless on its best behavior. But with those same apathetic regulators resulting in a wave of almost-mindless merger mania, there's no indication that competition will be sticking around. Once Sprint merges with T-Mobile (which most expect to happen this year), there's going to be less pressure than ever on Verizon to avoid hamstringing your wireless connection further. So while you might not care about what Verizon's doing today, the company is only laying the foundation for some truly obnoxious behavior you're going to care a lot about tomorrow.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: 4k, net neutrality, throttling
Companies: verizon
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Want to read news and articles? Consonants are free, but vowels will cost an extra $3 monthly.
Want to check your email? Subject lines capped to the first 6 letters on smartphones, 8 on tablets.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Want to download your games for XBox/PS/SteamBox at full speed? Another $10.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I also wouldn't be surprised if they also aren't already working on a way to interrupt video games periodically to show commercials...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
How does this work?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It won't directly prohibit anything, but it is making it easier to compete assuming neutrality of the REIT (REITs are forced to be very open about their economy at least, making them more vulnerable to bias-accusations since any use is good use) and it is removing some of the behind the curtain grey area from ISPs.
It is not a direct solution to anything, but it might just be in everybodys interest to walk that way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Use a VPN!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Use a VPN!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Use a VPN!
Practically speaking, there are a limited # of activities one can utilize a mobile phone for that will consume as much data as a video stream on a sustained basis.
If you run a 1080p or better video stream over your mobile device for any real length of time, Verizon will be able to make some very intelligent guesses as to what you're doing without having to know the specifics.
Cue Rate Limiting.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Use a VPN!
It's possible to set up a VPN on an in home wireline internet connection and VPN to it. I fondly remember setting up something like that to get around the proxy at my high school back in the day.
I also somewhat less fondly remember having to use something like that to deal with the school proxy over-blocking things when I went back there to help with an after school robotics program a few years later so my knowledge, unfortunately, isn't exactly out of date on the subject.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Use a VPN!
Yes, you can tunnel everything except the metadata.
Having worked on the telco engineering side: Metadata is pretty much always sufficient to perform whatever network management function is needed. If Verizon wants to rate limit video traffic encapsulated in an IPSec, SSL, l2tp, or whatever tunnel technology tunnel, it's a safe bet that they can.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Use a VPN!
Most metadata would enter the tunnel in encrypted form, including addresses and likely QOS bits. Detecting that it's video traffic in the tunnel would have to be based on packet timing/sizes, and video streaming should look a lot like a download (a constant-ish rate data stream with minimal return traffic).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Use a VPN!
If the telco sees multiple sequential constant-ish rate downloads with minimal return traffic, lasting either 20-23 minutes or 45-49 minutes (standard 30/60 minute US tv time block, minus commercials) and they can be reasonably certain it's video.
Coupled with many VPN platforms being trivially fingerprinted and identifiable by the types of network equipment in use by telco's, and it gets to be pretty easy to either QOS the user or the VPN platform down to an "acceptable" rate by the telco.
They don't have to be exact, just close enough. And since 3rd party VPN performance is generally pretty lacking, being locked to a 10mbps stream may not actually be noticeable to the user.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wait....
If they can intercept, decrypt and reformat THAT data, they could probably do it with online bill payments and retail transactions. I sense a new internet tax / revenue stream coming.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wait....
They're going to limit video services to 10 Mbps, which may make the apps/sites switch to lower resolutions themselves. That leaves the question of how they'll detect the services (traffic analysis of some kind?), and whether we can trick them.
Some ISPs have caches for Youtube, Netflix, etc. Those companies cooperate to make sure their apps choose the local caches, which are supposed to be fast--but it would be easy for an ISP to put all those boxes on a separate network and rate-limit all streams to them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wait....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wait....
I don't know whether Netflix does that automatically when the connection is slow; I'm fairly certain that YouTube does.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Wait....
This makes sense because Netflix wants do do everything they can to keep you happy and your not going to be happy if your watching a video buffer, instead they just lower the quality till you can watch without buffering.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Wait....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wait....
The Netflix client registers packet loss and sends feedback to netflix, which then downgrades video quality until the client no longer reports dropped packets. This results in a graduated step-down in video quality from 4k -> 1080 -> 720 -> 480.
On the Verizon side, it's just math: determine how much bandwidth is needed for each video tier and drop anything above that value.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Verizon: "Beyond Unlimited:"
Does anyone else see the similarity?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Their marketing team is trying to figure out a way to sell you on the idea that their service is "better" than unlimited.
George Orwell wrote about this kind of manipulation of reality.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Holy Fuck my cell service spends more time on 3g than 4g as of late .
Seems Verizon is of the fuck all the customers as of late
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Oh Boo hoo!
Is this really a big issue?
If you want a big issue, let's discuss total possible bandwidth for a cellular tower. It isn't an unlimited resource. There is a limit. From what I could find, you are looking at about 100mbps per "sector", with most towers having three sectors. Each one maxes at 100, so a total of 300 per tower. 4G video would be 10mbps or more, so that would be 10% of a sector to service a single stream.
It's not intelligent to assume that this is something they would support.
I don't have a problem with a wireless carrier putting limits on all things as a group to handle network load. Video is a big user and it makes sense. It's not a net neutrality issue if it's applied evenly to all video providers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Oh Boo hoo!
This is a direct attack on video streaming over the Internet, as it throttles the stream even if it is the only data passing through the tower, like for example in the early hours of the morning, and no other user of the service in that area is using it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Oh Boo hoo!
If video is solid capped at 10meg a second, no matter what, you never create the expectation of more. Someone might be up at 3AM and suddenly they are streaming 4k video because the network is relatively quiet. The next day, they try to do the same and it no longer works. Yeah, they are calling their provider names. But if the video last night ran at 10meg, and runs today at 10 meg, they have the same expectations over time.
The levels they are capping at are VERY high, more than enough for HD quality video.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Oh Boo hoo!
Of course, actually investing in network development (and using all those pocketed subsidies) would be better for the welfare-queen ISPs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Oh Boo hoo!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Oh Boo hoo!
"not creating expectations that you cannot meet"
So you mean like not selling Unlimited service to more people than they can provide Unlimited service to?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Size doesn't matter...
Preface: I'll never be a Verizon Wireless customer again and I've been trying to explain for years that there is no such thing as "unlimited" and Verizon et al shouldn't be selling it because they can't provide it.
I wouldn't have thought this was a big deal a few weeks ago. I'm normally an advocate of "Stop. Think. Your screen isn't big enough to warrant 4k." That's because you probably don't sit close enough. But my wife just got a new phone and a vr headset came with it. I assumed it was a gimick, but I tried it out with a few videos. WOW. I was blown away with the effect, and as we get displays with higher PPI there will be a need for higher resolution content. Frankly, a 5 inch device strapped to my face needs higher resolution than a 10 inch tablet on my lap. Default policies based on device size isn't a good way to prioritize network requirements.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
US Cellular has been doing this for a while
Sooner or later, all of them will be doing it, and good luck suing them for false advertising because the policy is in the "fine print."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: US Cellular has been doing this for a while
[ link to this | view in chronology ]