Verizon is throttling Netflix and YouTube during ‘optimization tests’

Over the past few days, many Verizon Wireless customers have noticed that their network speeds have been throttled when trying to view content from either Netflix or YouTube.

The users who have experienced the issue have run their own diagnostics and network download speed tests from a variety of sources, and each discovered that when trying to watch content from Netflix or YouTube, their download speeds were throttled to 10Mbps. When viewing content from other sources, though, their network speeds go back to normal.

The issue eventually grew thanks a mega thread on Reddit, where Verizon users congregated to express their concerns over the issue. Many users are on Verizon’s unlimited data plan, which means that they should not get throttled until they surpass 22GB of data downloaded in a month’s time. And even then, only if the network is seeing heavy congestion.

Now Verizon has admitted to Ars Technica that some customers will be seeing throttled data while trying to watch Netflix and YouTube, but that customer’s video experience should not be affected by it. At 10Mbps down, Netflix can display 1080p HD content on a mobile device. However, if you’re using a mobile hotspot to watch content on a device that supports higher resolution, you’d run into a problem.

Those trying to watch content on YouTube, however, have said that they’ve noticed degraded video quality even with the throttled 10Mbps. In those cases, the users have switched to using a VPN which has fixed the issue altogether.

For its part, Verizon says that the video optimization tests are temporary, but doesn’t say when they’ll be completed. And while this is still frustrating for subscribers who are experiencing the issue, it’s at least a better reasoning than Verizon just simply throttling data for no discernible reason.

Have you experienced the issue?

source: androidandme