Study Reveals U.S. Carriers Throttle Online Video on Their Mobile Networks Even When Not Congested

Home / News

Study Reveals U.S. Carriers Throttle Online Video on Their Mobile Networks Even When Not Congested

By CircleID Reporter
August 19, 2019, 6:12 pm PDT Views: 10,795 Add Comment

A new study conducted by researchers at Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst involving 650,000 tests indicates U.S. carriers are throttling online video on their mobile networks regardless of whether or not those networks are congested. While U.S. wireless carriers have long insisted that the slowing down of video traffic on their networks is to avoid congestion and bottlenecks, throttling is occurring all the time this study has found.

A large-scale study of net neutrality violations and their implications is long overdue, says the group that conducted the research. They wrote: “In the intervening decade, the Internet has evolved in two key ways that require a new approach to auditing. First, today’s dominant source of Internet traffic is video streaming from content providers, not BitTorrent. Second, users increasingly access the Internet from their mobile devices, often with a spectrum-constrained cellular connection. There is a need to conduct a study of net neutrality violations that takes these changes into account. We address this need using 1,045,413 measurements conducted by 126,249 users of our Wehe app, across 2,735 ISPs in 183 countries/regions.”

NORDVPN DISCOUNT - CircleID x NordVPN
Get NordVPN [74% +3 extra months, from $2.99/month]

By CircleID Reporter — CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.
Visit Page

Filed Under

Comments

The Weekly Wrap

More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.