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New study, based again on Wehe test results, indicates mobile operators are strangling video content, regardless of location or time of day, and different applications are being affected at speeds variables.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Northeastern University, analyzed more than 620,000 crowd-sourced measurements made in the US from the Wehe app in January and May 2018 and in January 2019.
The results showed that different operators were strangling different video applications at different rates.
The study revealed that T-Mobile was strangled by Amazon Prime (51% of the time), NBCUniversal (64%), Netflix (61%) and YouTube (67%), but Vimeo was strangled only 5% of the time , and Skype not at all during the tests. The researchers also discovered that T-Mobile's byte-based restriction policy differs from one application to another, with the study detecting 7MB of delayed limitation for Netflix and NBC Sports, 6MB for Amazon Prime and none. delayed limitation for YouTube, which is limited to the beginning.
In the meantime, AT & T did not seem to limit Amazon Prime, Skype or Vimeo video content, but Netflix was strangled in 70% of the tests and YouTube (74%). It was found that Verizon was strangling at two different speeds, 2 Mbps and 4 Mbps, which the researchers attributed to different shots, such as the Beyond Unlimited plan that allowed 720p HD streaming.
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It should be noted that the researchers acknowledged that the dataset did not include information on service plans, including levels that do not limit the streaming of video and that do not allow users to downgrade the video resolution. Most operators offer unlimited data pricing plans with different video limiting strategies based on the price paid by consumers. For example, Stream Save from AT & T, which, when enabled, limits the speed of video data to 1.5 Mbps or is generally equivalent to standard definition quality of about 480p.
The researchers also found that while limiting limits video resolution, the default settings for streaming video applications, such as Netflix and Amazon, are an important cause of low-quality streaming resolution.
One of the authors of the study, David Choffnes, associate professor at Northeastern University, told Bloomberg that errors could hinder the limitation of video services, as operators could not detect and limit certain video applications after changes techniques.
To make things fair, operators may try to limit all video, but are unable to dictate how content providers are broadcasting the video, Choffnes told the news conference. "Then you have some content providers who get strangled and others who do not," he said.
While operators have previously acknowledged that they can slow down in the event of network congestion or to effectively manage traffic, Mr. Choffnes indicated that the limitation rates were observed 24 hours a day, not just in hours of business. point.
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"They do it all the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and it's not because the networks are overloaded," Choffnes told Bloomberg.
At the end of 2017, the Federal Communications Commission decided to abolish the so-called rules of internet neutrality and reclassified Internet service providers so that they are no longer bound by the rules of Title II put in place in 2015. It is not illegal for operators to restrict users or specific applications, but service providers are expected to disclose such practices to the public.
Concerns about the limitation and controversy over the results of the Wehe test platform are not new. Last year, senators raised questions about the data-limiting practices of the country's four major carriers, following the publication of previous research based on tests conducted on the Wehe platform.
In October 2018, CTIA published a blog in response to concerns about network management and how the Wehe application detects variations.
"The Wehe application compares the data transmission speeds of clients with and without content provider metadata. If the Wehe application detects a difference in speed, it sees it as a "differentiation" and implies that it is a violation of "network neutrality," wrote Tom Sawanobori, CTO of CTIA. "What the Wehe application really detects is the basic management of the wireless network (based on consumer choice) or the data management practices used by content providers. This is because content providers have implemented data practices, outside the control of providers, that reduce the video resolution of data traffic passing through their sites or applications based on the consumer's mobile device. "
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