How Is This Not A Net Neutrality Violation, Sprint?

This is an automatic summary, original reduced by 69%.

It's also saddled with caveats, such as the fact that tethering is throttled to 128 kbps, 'unlimited' technically means 26 GB, and by default all user video is throttled to 480p or 1.5 Mbps by default.

Tethering is forbidden, "Unlimited" actually means about 23 GB before your full connection is throttled, and by default all video is throttled to 1.5 Mbps, all games are throttled to "Up to 2mbps" and all music streams are throttled at "Up to 500kbps." That's a god-damned generous definition of unlimited by any measure.

"This plan provides a premium quality mobile streaming experience with HD streaming videos at up to 1080p+, HD music streaming at up to 1.5 Mbps and streaming gaming at up to 8 Mbps."Again, so we're clear: this is an ISP forcing users to pay more money if they want the services they consume to actually work properly.

If Sprint and T-Mobile can charge users premium to avoid video, game and music throttling, what prevents Comcast from charging users a premium if they want 4K video streaming to actually work? What stops AT&T from charging users a premium if they want their Steam games to download at full speed? The answer? Nobody, apparently, since the FCC has made it abundantly clear it believes that usage caps, zero rating, and pay-to-avoid-throttling schemes are just creative market experimentation.

The FCC's Open Internet Order is chock-full of "Rules" that don't apply if you provide a bullshit-laden technical justification about how you're only throttling "For the health and security of the network." But congestion has always been used by the telecom industry to justify all manner of bad behavior, including unnecessary usage caps on captive customers.

What we don't want is the telecom sector with a generation of documented anti-competitive behavior under its belt dictating just how well services perform based on how much users are willing to pay.

Summary Source | FAQ | Theory | Feedback | Top five keywords: throttled^#1 T-Mobile^#2 Users^#3 net^#4 neutrality^#5

Post found in /r/technology and /r/Newsbeard.

NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic only. Do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot here.