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>> In part, because if the throttle all bulk data transfers over some minimum size, all the time, most people are only going to notice on video streaming, since videos are the most frequent bulk transfers. >How is that a reason for anything, and what is it actually supposed to be a reason for? I was unclear. I'm suggesting that carriers are in fact, throttling all bulk data, but reporting is focused on video. Allow a sizable burst of data at the beginning of a connection and then start rate limiting, and most people won't notice except for on videos. This was probably the simplest, least noticable, least costly intervention to reduce peak congestion and provide a consistent experience across the carrier network. Is it fair? Maybe, if applied to all traffic Is it clear and transparent? No, clearly not. Does it allow for the network to be used to capacity? No, not unless the limits were modulated based on current use, which doesn't seem to be the case. Is it good for customers? Unclear -- to the extent you can watch good enough videos using less of your data quota, that might be a good thing; to the extent that you spend more time downloading updates, that's probably not good, but would need analysis of battery impact traded off with better push latency if the radio is kept on for other reasons. Also, to the extent that this throttling provides better availability in congested area, that's a plus for users. |
Seems unlikely to me, but who knows ...
> Also, to the extent that this throttling provides better availability in congested area, that's a plus for users.
If you are being throttled, that's obviously not increasing availability in any meaningful sense, so, no, it's not. What would be a plus for users would be adding capacity. Not performing the contractually agreed service is the exact opposite of "increasing availability".
Overall, the problem with all of this is that it borders on fraud. There would be no problem with selling low-bandwidth plans, if that is the only thing you can offer at economical prices. Or offering the user the choice to throttle certain services so as to conserve bandwidth. The problem is that carriers kinda-sorta sell a service and then don't do what they kinda-sorta promised. And a big part of the problem is that everyone frames this as "trying to help the customer by limiting abusers", or something similar, when really, the only abuser is the carrier selling a service they don't intend to perform, because they would have to spend money to do that.
The important part is not whether some traffic is throttled, the important part is who makes the decision as to what gets throttled. If I buy 1 Mb/s mobile IP access, and then the carrier throttles my connection to 1 Mb/s, that's my decision. If I buy "LTE full-speed IP access", and then the carrier throttles my videos to 1 Mb/s with no option to opt out, it is not.