
Verizon Plans to Throttle Its Heaviest Data Users - acconrad
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/in_preparation_for_the_iphone_verizon_plans_to_thr.php
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modeless
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.

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eli
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?

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ars
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).

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eli
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/>

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tyhjnmyh
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.

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mdasen
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...](http://www.att.com/gen/press-
room?pid=17991&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=30854&mapcode=financial|wireless)

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jcr
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.

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

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amalcon
Oh good, Verizon _Wireless_. I have other reasonable choices than Verizon
_Wireless_.

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daten
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.

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p90x
"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.

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jorgem
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>

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sukuriant
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?

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harshpotatoes
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.'

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Cadsby
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.

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

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kyleslattery
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.

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mdasen
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.

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jcr
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.

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jcr
Seems I failed to proof read...

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

and a few other mistakes.

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shareme
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

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jorgem
Oh Canada!

