Verizon Plans to Throttle Its Heaviest Data Users | Hacker News Reader

Verizon Plans to Throttle Its Heaviest Data Users

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30 pointsacconrad30 comments

I think the worse news is the transcoding proxies they are announcing, not-so-transparently lowering the quality of any JPEG and MPEG files you download. This is why the Internet needs end-to-end encryption on by default.

My weekend project is setting up OpenVPN on my desktop computer. Android and/or CM supports VPN.

I've always been curious with these transcoders and copyright law. Why are they allowed to alter and redistribute content without the permission of the author?

Could I set up proxy that strips flash ads out of other people's content and replaces them with my own tasteful text ads? How is that different from scraping their content and reposting it on my server?

If it is just transcoding then a) they are not storing it permanently, it is just in a "buffer" b) they are not changing the content any more than converting 16bit PCM audio to 8Khz voice quality (for instance for a music on hold application) is.

That is, it is not "alteration" in that the song or image is still recognizably the same - they are not changing the rhythm of the song or the height of the buildings in the image.

If copyright only protects content that is stored permanently, doesn't that mean I can stream whatever I want without paying for it?

For copyright to take effect the work must be "fixed" in a tangible form.

See here: http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/obtaining.html#fixation

That leads to a question of whether storing it in RAM counts as "fixed". I can't find a reference right now, but I remember reading that congress recently clarified the issue that storing in RAM does not count as fixed (and prior to that it was either an open question, or it did count).

Seems like it's got to be a lot fuzzier than that.

So if Verizon replaced all banner ads on all sites you visit while using their network with their own ads, that would be legal?

And I could create a website that appears to republish all the content from NY Times without ads so long as in the background I'm proxying requests back to their server and storing the results in RAM?

Edit: I found a piece on the legality of web scraping in general http://www.galvanilegal.com/is-web-scraping-legal/

Computer programmers are used to exact rules, but copyright law has a large subjective component, and it depends on what you do with it.

So the exact same technical action can have varied legality depending on what the end user does with it and the intent of the person doing it.

So striping ads in order to save bandwidth may be legal while stripping ads because you protest the concept of ads may not be.

Or stripping ads (in order to save bandwidth) may be legal for your ISP but illegal for a 3rd party.

In the UK British Telecom set up an ad service called Phorn that monitored your browsing and replaced ads with targeted ones from it's own suppliers.

A huge public backlash when it replaced charity "save the children" ads with ones inviting you to buy interesting videos of schoolgirls, caused it reconsider what had only been 'a trial concept'

The courts decided it had broken just about all the privacy/wiretapping laws but nothing to do with copyright. Naturally it got off with a warning under the 'laws don't really apply to big telecoms companies" amendment.

Agreed, SSL should be the default.

AT&T has stated that 98% of its users use less than 2GB per month. If Verizon is going to throttle the top 5% of its users, Verizon is probably anticipating throttling a good bit below 2GB for a couple reasons. First, data usage is exponential. According to AT&T, 65% of data users use under 200MB meaning that only 33% use between 200MB and 2GB. So, capping the top 5% might mean throttling at 1.5GB or 1GB. Second, Verizon has fewer heavy smartphone users (for now). Verizon has stated that it sold 9M Android phones in 2010. AT&T sold more iPhones in half a year. AT&T has also been selling these high-data devices for longer. Much of Verizon's smartphone population consists of RIM and WiMo users who didn't have another option on Verizon until late 2009. So, it's likely that Verizon's average smartphone and top 5% data usage is below AT&T's simply because their mixture of devices is skewed toward devices people use less data with.

I was really excited that Verizon was going to be offering unlimited data with the iPhone. However, they've just said that they're actually going to be offering less data. The difference is that they're throttling while AT&T is offering full-speed with the risk of overage. I guess Verizon is worried about a ton of high-usage iPhone users degrading their network and has decided that they'll simply degrade service for high-end users.

It's disappointing, but I do appreciate that there are realistic concerns about keeping networks running. The introduction of the iPhone on Verizon is likely to double the number of high-data smartphones on their network and that will mean that the shared bandwidth available will become scarcer. I understand that networks are shared resources, but I'm disappointed in Verizon. After saying that their network had the capacity, they announce that they're going to be throttling at amounts less than AT&T's plan.

Information from AT&T comes from http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=17991&cdvn=news...

mdasen, your speculation is incorrect, but it's really not your fault since Verizon is not very forthcoming about how their plans actually work. Please see my other post in this thread. I've had a Verizon Wireless data plan for more than half a decade, and I monitor it constantly.

The fact that they're going to continue throttling through two billing periods modifies this from "network management" to "unjustifiably punitive conduct".

Oh good, Verizon Wireless. I have other reasonable choices than Verizon Wireless.

Right, I paniced when I thought the headline refered to Verizon Fios. My next thought was, what if the heavy fios users are the ones paying for higher bandwidth plans?

Maybe the poster should have kept the first half of the original title for context.

"may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand."

"Verizon says it will only do this if you fall in the top 5% of the company's data users"

To me this sounds fair to users and good for business. I'm part of the 95% and would prefer to do business with a company that puts my needs ahead of the 5% heaviest users.

Good for business?

<Sarcasm>Yeah, and when those 5% of users quit the service, you can get rid of the next 5%. Keep repeating until you have no customers.</Sarcasm>

You might just end up with less than 20 customers. It realy all depends on whether this is the ceiling of 5% or the floor of it. What is 1.3 customers, anyway?

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand it's only the top 5% users, obviously the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. On the other hand, they haven't mentioned any specifics at what usage they'll begin throttling. For example, my data plan is an unlimited plan (with a 5gb cap). Hypothetically, it seems possible for the top 5% users to be using less than 5gb (especially if AT&T is to be any insight), meaning it seems possible for my data to be throttled while I am still following my contract. I think that is the part that seems unfair/worrisome. Additionally, with 4g networks being rolled out, it seems I'm getting messages of 'use our data, it's so fast' and 'but not too much else we'll throttle you.'

In theory this seems like a reasonable network management practice except for at least two factors -

1. Roughly speaking, what amount of data would put me into the 5% user range?

2. Will you throttle at time specific intervals or just in general? Throttling my speed during peak traffic times seems reasonable, but doing it at 3am seems pointless and doesn't increase anyone's QoS.

It's also a sign in my opinion that Verizon is not nearly as confident over the medium-long term about their network's ability to cope with new iPhone users as they pretend to be if they're already taking these kinds of steps before the phone has even reached consumers hands.

I wonder what kind of activities constitute the top 5% of data users? Anyone know of data usage stats and associated activities?

Talking to a co-worker, who used to work in customer service at a different US wireless carrier, this is common practice. His example was customers who use terabytes of data a month would get throttled for the remainder of the period, similar to what Verizon's proposing.

It'd be interesting to know how much data the top 5% of users use.

Your post is overly optimistic, but your oversight of "terabytes" is entirely due to Verizon refusing to elaborate on the details of their data plans or how they work in practice.

On plans sold as "unlimited" there is actually a usage cap. When the cap is exceeded, bandwidth throttling is employed through the end of the monthly billing cycle. For the newer $50/mo data plans, the cap is 5GByte/mo. For the newer $80/mo data plans, the cap is 10GByte/mo.

The data transfer tech currently deployed by Verizon is EVDO Rev.A in most places. Some areas only have the older EVDO Rev.0 deployed. The new new Verizon LTE ("4G" I hate that definitionless acronym) launched in December 2010 is only available in some areas, but they're still building out that network.

The typical download throughput I see with EVDO Rev.A is 1.1Mbit/s. If I hit the bandwidth throttle point by exceeding the cap, the download throughput drops to 200Kbit/s.

I think that the post you're replying to may have confused the target of the throttling. The comment would make sense in the context of Verizon FIOS rather than Verizon Wireless.

Yes. Though he specifically mentioned "wireless" he probably confused land-line broadband services with wireless services. In the case of "Verizon" (parent company), "Verizon Wireless" is an entirely separate company from their other broadband and landline holdings. I actually have both "Verizon Wireless" service and a "Verizon" landline phone, but there's no way to get just one bill for both.

It's impossible for a user over a 3G connection to pull terabytes a month. Assuming 1Mbps, you would be able to transfer 8.6GB per day or 259GB per month if it was always on. Even if you hit the 3.1Mbps theoretical max of EV-DO every second of every day for a month, you'd be shy of a terrabyte. I've had friends who have worked on a network and it isn't unusual that the top 5% of users use 50% of the capacity, but 3G devices can't transfer terrabytes even in theoretical scenarios.

I'd estimate that the top 5% of users starts between 1GB and 1.5GB. AT&T has said that the 65th percentile is below 200MB and the 98th percentile is below 2GB. Usage is likely exponential, but even plotting linearly gets you to 1.6GB for the 95th percentile. So, at most it's 1.5GB, but it's likely considerably below 1.5GB. 1GB, 1.25GB: those figures seem to be likely.

If you sit down and thing about it from the perspective of a service provider building and maintaining a network with limited wireless spectrum, you'd see how a limiting the "Top X%" of users would work very poorly. Overall usage continually increases, and typically increases faster than network capacity can be added.

In the specific case of Verizon Wireless "broadband" data plans (e.g. the plans based on EVDO rather than 1xRTT), back in 2004-6 Verizon (mistakenly) sold the plans as "unlimited" only to start terminating customers who actually used it as unlimited and creating new cap-limited plus paid-overage plans. This resulted in a lawsuit where the old "unlimited" customers were allowed to keep their "unlimited" contracts (without being terminated or paying overages), but if excessive use was detected, the connection would be throttled back until the end of the current monthly billing cycle.

This arrangement with old customers actually worked out surprisingly well for both Verizon and its customers. The customers don't need to worry about surprise bills for "overages" and Verizon can still manage their network resources and investments reasonably.

The new Verizon iPhone4 "unlimited" plans are essentially the same deal offered to the old "granfathered-in" customers. If you exceed the 5GB cap, the bandwidth is throttled down to 200Kbit/s for the remainder of the monthly billing cycle (and potentially the next billing cycle). Assuming full-time/full-capacity usage, the 200Kbit/s throttle means you're reduced to roughly 1GByte/mo.

The problem is, many people mistakenly believe a cellular-based wireless data network is only used with phones. This isn't true. It's understandably tough to imagine someone using a phone to transfer many GB of data each month, but since the wireless network is used for a lot more than phones, particularly backhauls and personal computers, bandwidth varies a great deal between customers depending on their needs/situation. The result is, the "Top X%" metric is entirely misleading due to the variance in use-cases.

Pulling "X%" numbers out of thin air is misleading at best. Worse yet, LET has a theoretical maximum speed 1Gbit/s, so 5.4 TERABYTES is possible per month. Of course, neither Verizon nor any other commercial LTE network is currently running near theoretical max, but that's beside the point.

Seems I failed to proof read...

s/Worse yet, LET has/Worse yet, LTE has/

and a few other mistakes.

Here is the problem with the message..

On Mobile Networks its not bandwidth usage that impacts other users..

its heavy bandwidth usage on a network of cells that are overloaded. So basically this is move by Verizon to manage network growth by lying to the consumer.

Now if Verizon said we are throttling heavy usage in the Chicago metro area than they are in fact not lying to the consumer.

Its a plain BS move

Oh Canada!

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