![]() What would happen if a cellphone provider said, "I refuse to upgrade my wireless network towers from 2G up to 3G or 4G"? The answer is simple, they would lose all their customers. why shouldn't they get paid for that? Let me answer that by asking a question of my own. Verizon refuses to upgrade their network because they are being greedy.īut you may ask - how are they being greedy? The Netflix's and YouTube's of the world are sending large amounts of data through Verizon's networks. Verizon isn't even intentionally reading the content of those packets we perceive as being slowed down. It has nothing to do with bytes being categorized or handled differently in some way. I equate this issue to one simple problem for Verizon: poor customer service. I see now what you're doing, and I'm not happy about it. You're intentionally refusing to upgrade your trunks for your internet service to keep up with the demand imposed by customers that purchase services from companies like Netflix, YouTube. At least not in the sense that you're prioritizing packets or providing preferential treatment to one data service over another. Or you could join the petition to put pressure on FCC chairman Tom Wheeler to reclassify ISPs as "common carriers" to exercise more control over issues like this.OK Verizon - I get it, you aren't slowing your customers' data speeds. Instead, you might want to try using a Virtual Private Network, most of which will be too slow, but some of which have proven to de-throttle Netflix traffic. Meanwhile, if you're a savvy Netflix customer who's frustrated by buffering, don't pay to upgrade your connection speed (assuming you have a decent broadband connection). Verizon could go ahead and upgrade its connections for Cogent's network traffic, and Netflix could distribute its traffic more to avoid data jams. Instead of throttling users' connections, ISPs like Verizon have delayed upgrading their networks in an effort to get Netflix to foot the bill that it's largely running up.ĭan Bowman, chief of internet traffic management company Sandvine Corp., told the WSJ that either side of the dispute could give in a little to make streaming connections better. Stressing the networks like Verizon and Comcasts' traffic that much more, those companies have asked Netflix to pay additional fees for its usage - not for the Net Neutral "last mile" but all the way up the pipe. Netflix, for example, runs through a middle-man network Cogent, whose traffic has quadrupled in the past half year after Netflix began offering 1080p streaming to its customers. But now that Netflix streaming is eating a huge amount of North America's downstream traffic every evening - nearly a third of downstream traffic as of late last year - those pro-bono arrangements are being stressed. Net Neutrality doesn't allow ISPs to mangle traffic on the so called "last mile" of internet tubing between the ISP and your house, but with Netflix streaming traffic (along with others') at an all-time high and increasing, the way business has usually been done deep in the internet is changing.Īccording to the Wall Street Journal report, the internet was historically run on arrangements where huge networks agreed to swap each other's traffic without charge, assuming that it all evened out in the end. Verizon has denied throttling Netflix and other services like Amazon Web Services, saying "We treat all traffic equally, and that has not changed" in a statement, but a dispute between Netflix and Verizon is causing streams to slow down - the connection degradation is just probably not where you think it would be. And we have been watching "too much" House of Cards and other streaming content from Netflix, if "too much" means too much for networks to handle under current arrangements. The answer to the first question is a tentative no, but a dose of skepticism about ISPs - and Netflix - is healthy. And customers of Verizon, which was the specific contender in that FCC case, have been seemingly the most affected since.ĭoes this mean Net Neutrality's (temporary?) death is already being leveraged against Netflix? Is the timing too suspicious, or have we all been watching too much House of Cards, simultaneously degrading our own connection speeds and amplifying our cynical paranoia? Federal Communications Commission's authority to regulate ISPs on Net Neutrality - the rules that previously prevented ISPs from throttling certain traffic on their networks. Now, if you're not already aware, in January, a U.S. For a lot of customers, this means HD streaming has turned into regular definition streaming, and some Netflix users are getting stuck on seemingly infinite buffer. Specifically, Netflix reports an average of 14 percent speed degradation in streaming speeds on Verizon FiOS in the last 30 days, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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