Article: Here's what happened to the internet one year after net neutrality
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Disregarding the "source" of the article, the only real issue I've seen since NN protections expired Five Months Ago, is Verizon wireless is clearly prioritizing business users over individual users on their congested network in my area. There isn't even an option to pay Verizon to get better service as an individual. I'd essentially have to incorporate myself to get priority, which is ridiculous. I am lucky enough to have real home broadband competition where I live, so I don't expect it to affect me personally in that regard.
What I do see happening is the stifling of competition for new online services, effectively creating a hegemony of large corporations which control what we can see and do on the Internet, which is at odds with free speech. I am no liberal (although many would probably see me that way because I am anti-authoritarian), but NN was never a political thing in my eyes, it was a freedom thing. Telling telcos they can control whose content loads faster while they compete with their customers restricts freedom and is wrong.
I have Verizon and I haven't noticed that (yet). However, I HAVE noticed more frequent deprioritizing after the 22Gb soft cap.
Maybe your area isn't as congested? My boss has a company-supplied Verizon phone, so I compared speeds with him simultaneously. He was getting like 45Mb down, while I was getting 6Mb. 6Mb is at least usable, but I often times wasn't even getting that when I checked.
I will say, Title II wasn't the right answer. Congress needs to define how traffic is handled on the Internet in a way that makes sense in 2019, not use some antiquated regulatory apparatus as a band aid.
I have a Tax ID number. Maybe I should convert my VZ residential account to a biz account... Hmm
I think this may be another case of physical broadband versus wireless. Up to this point, they've been two different animals with their own performance quirks yet they seem to be globbed together come time to gather numbers.
Of course at some point, how fast you can consume one or the other is likely to reach a ceiling.
For wireless traffic, I'd imagine latency and other statistics typically aren't as important as if you're a hard core gamer where all the numbers matter. You don't need 80Mbps to Skype or Facetime.
The real test will be which method can be expanded to meet the needs of the subscribers.
The major issue I have with speed tests is that they tend to last no longer than the "turbo" period of anyone's service. My "boost" speed with Comcast may be upwards of 70Mbps, but the sustained speed seems to be closer to 12Mbps that is only 20% of the claimed "up to" performance of my package.
Of course at some point, how fast you can consume one or the other is likely to reach a ceiling.
For wireless traffic, I'd imagine latency and other statistics typically aren't as important as if you're a hard core gamer where all the numbers matter. You don't need 80Mbps to Skype or Facetime.
The real test will be which method can be expanded to meet the needs of the subscribers.
The major issue I have with speed tests is that they tend to last no longer than the "turbo" period of anyone's service. My "boost" speed with Comcast may be upwards of 70Mbps, but the sustained speed seems to be closer to 12Mbps that is only 20% of the claimed "up to" performance of my package.
Why wouldn’t and shouldn’t a business customer get higher priority then a normal home user? Happens all the time in tangible goods. An HP Pavilion Best Buy special laptop is a lot lower quality and costs quite a bit less then an HP ZBook mobile workstation that is targeted for business use. As a private individual, I pay a decent about of money for the flexibility and customization for Symantec Endpoint Protection versus the consumer grade Norton stuff. Business and enterprise grade products and services are typically priced well above their consumer equivalents for a reason. My friend who is a regional manager at Charter told me many times that a Business Class cable modem subscriber gets higher priority versus a residential account. Makes perfect sense to me.
As for your speed tests with personal versus company owned devices, was it a true apples to apples comparison? Was it two of the exact same devices, testing using the same method, from the same test server, and did you go into the hidden service menus of the phones in question to verify that they were both connected to the same band? I have seen two of the exact same devices on Sprint right next to each other, one connected to LTE band 25, one connected to band 41. Band 41 is 2.5 GHz and will provide a much higher speed then band 25.
I can tell you, as some one who’s had high end Android phones on Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile for personal use, supporting company iPhones on those same carriers at the same time, the iPhones were always considerably slower and had weaker RF performance. Last year when we used T-Mobile, there was an area of the building where company issued iPhones could only get one or two dots of service (whatever the dots mean). On my Pixel 2 XL I could do an Ookla test and get 60Mb+.
As for your speed tests with personal versus company owned devices, was it a true apples to apples comparison? Was it two of the exact same devices, testing using the same method, from the same test server, and did you go into the hidden service menus of the phones in question to verify that they were both connected to the same band? I have seen two of the exact same devices on Sprint right next to each other, one connected to LTE band 25, one connected to band 41. Band 41 is 2.5 GHz and will provide a much higher speed then band 25.
I can tell you, as some one who’s had high end Android phones on Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile for personal use, supporting company iPhones on those same carriers at the same time, the iPhones were always considerably slower and had weaker RF performance. Last year when we used T-Mobile, there was an area of the building where company issued iPhones could only get one or two dots of service (whatever the dots mean). On my Pixel 2 XL I could do an Ookla test and get 60Mb+.
I'll turn it around and as why should they, especially when they actually tend to pay less due to bulk rates? My employer's deal is $45/month per line for unlimited data, and they give new lines free phones (currently Samsung S8 or iPhone 7 I think). I cannot get that deal as a regular consumer. In my opinion, the answer to why no one should receive prioritization of telecommunications (other than things like emergency services) is the first amendment. Business interests are not more important than my personal pursuits, just because they pay more, in aggregate, than I do. If Verizon wants to attract more business, build a network that can handle the traffic, and, you know, actually compete for the business. They should not intentionally hamper my use of the product I am paying for in favor of others for non-critical uses. This country was founded on the ideals of individual freedoms. Businesses are not individuals, and are not entitled to the same freedoms as actual people, IMHO.
We did not do a fully scientific, synthetic test, but we both used Ookla's app and the same server at the same time. I got similar results with DSLReports' test, but my boss didn't test on that. We have a DAS system in our building, which provides "full" signal for everything but T-Mobile. My boss was on a Samsung S9, and I on an iPhone 6s Plus, so yeah, his should be faster. My coworker has an iPhone 7 on the business account. He doesn't get quite as good throughput as my boss's Samsung, but still way better than me. If I hadn't seen plenty of other examples of slowness with full signal over the period I had Verizon, I might put less stock in the testing. Also, if other people around here on personal accounts hadn't reported the same issues, I might think it was unique to me or my equipment.
Business customers pay alot more than residential..not that it matters to you
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Mostly what business pay more for, if they pay more at all, is better support. I've managed plenty of telecommunications contracts as a IT exec for a large media company. Yes, we paid $1200/month for Gigabit Internet connections, but those also had guaranteed uptime of five nines and they paid us back if they couldn't meet the SLA. For wireless, we always got a better deal per line than the consumer from Verizon and AT&T. We didn't however, get any assurances that our data would be faster than anyone else on their network. I've been working on Internet tech since the very early 90s, before most people had ever heard the term. These telcos got billions in government money to build out the infrastructure on the condition that all traffic would be treated the same. Why should they get to change the arrangement now? Their networks are essentially all our networks. If they want to behave otherwise, they need to give us our money back with interest.
With a couple dozen pro net neutrality lawsuits still pending against the FCC's ruling, I suspect the carriers are taking a wait and see approach before making any significant changes.
It is interesting to me that some ISPs are much more vocal about supporting an "open Internet" than others. Comcast and AT&T spell out that they will not treat different traffic differently. Charter is still under their post-merger conditions that require NN. Verizon has said they support it, but only because their business requires it. If they decide they can make more money by not doing so, I have no doubt things would change. Also, wireless is a different beast than home Internet, and I get that, but seriously, a failure to plan for capacity on Verizon's part should not result in poor service for some customers but not others. This is especially true when Verizon actually has more spectrum in my area than anyone else, including both A and B side cellular.
How is any of that First Amendment related? ISPs are private companies can block, censor and throttle whatever they want. The only time it may be a First Amendment issue is if you are in the disturbing situation where you are a part of the of the socialist internet aka municipal broadband. I would assume blocking or throttling would be a violation for tax payer/government funded access. Since as we all know from second grade History, the First Amendment only applies to the government restricting your freedom of speech, right to assemble and so on.
The unit rate at $45/line may be cheaper then you can get on the consumer side, but how much is the bill total? Probably thousands of dollars. I’ve always been one to believe that the more you spend, the better you should be treated. Money talks. Yes, a corporate account with a hundred phones on it totaling thousands of dollars a month is more valuable then a family plan on the consumer side for a family of four and thus should be catered to more. That’s what I believe, and that’s how it works. The world is not a fair place, things are not equal, money talks.
Capacity will always be a problem with cellular internet. Perhaps the mobile industry should move to a speed tier based model like their land-based counterparts do. Or do both monthly allotment and speed tier. My HughesNet is rated for 10 x 1 with 10 GB of usage. The cellular companies could do the same. The other day I hit almost 180 Mb Down/60 Mb up on my phone on T-Mobile. Why should I be allowed to hit such high speeds on a mobile connection? Network management is the key.
Because telecommunications are regulated by the FCC (Government), they are responsible for making sure that speech is not hampered or restricted. By allowing it to be restricted, they are de facto responsible.
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