YouTube and Netflix mobile apps are found to be limited in speed from major telecommunication carriers

by Vanessa Huang

Movie distribution services such as YouTube and Netflix tend to increase the amount of traffic users use due to the nature of handling movies. It seems that individual users do not communicate in large quantities, which is undesirable for telecommunications carriers. In 2017, Verizon , one of America's leading telecommunication carriers, says, "We silently shut down users and narrow the communication band for YouTube and Netflix It was discovered that it was fussed by researchers, "It is revealed that many communication carriers in the United States are limiting the communication speed of YouTube and Netflix mobile applications".

YouTube and Netflix `Throttled 'by Carriers, Research Finds - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-04/youtube-and-netflix-throttled-by-carriers-research-finds

Netflix and YouTube are most throttled mobile apps by US carriers, new study says - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/4/17820508/netflix-youtube-throttled-att-verizon-t-mobile-net-neutrality-violations

Researchers at Northwestern University asked about 100,000 users who installed " Wehe " Internet neutrality checking application, saying, "When a mobile operator using a mobile application, Does it control the traffic of the line? " Measurement of traffic volume by Wehe application is conducted in 161 countries worldwide, and it is monitoring over 2,000 telecommunications carriers.

As a result, from January 2018 when we began collecting data to the beginning of May 2018, Wehe found many "discrimination in communication". Many US major telecommunications carriers have limited the speed of mobile applications on YouTube and Netflix, among which Verizon recorded over 11,000 speed limits. For other major telecommunications carriers, it has been found that AT & T was about 8400 times and T-Mobile had discriminated speed limits of about 3900 times.

Verizon and other telecommunications carriers claim that "it is necessary to sacrifice the communication speed in order to allow people to play movies freely on smart phones" We also need to restrict communication to the application. In the terms of use of the communication service, the phrase "speed limitation is applied when exceeding a certain upper limit" is stated, and limiting the communication speed itself is a state where the communication carrier is free.

by Andres Rodriguez

On the other hand, there is a problem from the viewpoint of net neutrality that "all communications on the net should be handled equally" to speed limit only for specific applications. David Choffnes , one of those involved in the development of the Wehe application, will continue to collect data on the relationship between the application and the communication speed for one year and want to announce the results of the survey at major technical investigation meeting "In the future we would like to introduce tools to monitor communication conditions into the market."