Tag: AT&T

Netflix caught secretly throttling traffic on AT&T and Verizon for the past 5 years

Staff Writer
A message Netflix gave Verizon home Internet customers during a money dispute in 2014.

The Wall Street Journal last week confirmed a researcher’s findings that the video giant had been secretly throttling traffic reducing the default bitrate to 600kbps in order to help users stay under their data caps on Verizon and AT&T’s mobile networks, and has been doing so for the last five years.  The practice does not extend to Sprint or T-Mobile , who Netflix feels are more “consumer friendly.” Netflix’s admission comes only a week after T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere said that AT&T and Verizon deliver Netflix video at a resolution of…

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AT&T hit with a $100 million fine after slowing down, “throttling” its ‘unlimited’ data

Staff Writer

Washington Post reports that the Federal Communications Commission slapped AT&T with a $100 million fine Wednesday, accusing the country’s second-largest cellular carrier of improperly slowing down, throttling Internet speeds for customers who had signed up for “unlimited” data plans. The FCC found that when customers used up a certain amount of data watching movies or browsing the Web, AT&T “throttled” their Internet speeds so that they were much slower than normal. Millions of AT&T customers were affected by the practice, according to the FCC. The fine, which AT&T says it will fight, is the largest ever levied…

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Germany cancels Verizon contract over spying anxiety

Staff Writer

The German government has cancelled a contract with Verizon over concern that US firms may be giving data to US authorities. Verizon has provided internet services to a number of German government departments and the current contract was due to run out in 2015. The firm did not comment on the move. There was anger in Germany over allegations that a US agency bugged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone. Earlier this month Germany announced an investigation into those allegations which were made by a former contractor of the US National Security…

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Tim Wu,The Father of Net Neutrality Returns to Do Battle With Comcast

Staff Writer

Tim Wu saw firsthand how people can mess with the internet. Fifteen years ago, he landed a marketing job with a network equipment maker called Riverstone Networks. Riverstone made network routers, among other things, and it sold many of these to Chinese internet service providers who then used them to block traffic on their networks. After about a year, he left Riverstone, disillusioned but wiser. And today, Wu says that the time he spent there helped cement the idea that has made him famous: net neutrality. First proposed in a…

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Internet Providers Persuade FCC Panel Against Cybersecurity Recommendations

WASHINGTON—Big Internet providers seem to have talked their way out of unwelcome new recommendations on cybersecurity. Danny Yadron has specifics of how Internet providers oppose proposed cybersecurity measures put forth by an FCC panel. Photo: Getty Images. An original draft of a report by an advisory panel to the Federal Communications Commission, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, endorsed a list of concrete suggestions for major telecommunications and cable companies to tackle the cybersecurity problem. Those measures—which included steps such as controlling which employees have administrative privileges on company networks—weren’t…

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