AT&T will lower the quality of most video to 480p starting next year

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/t-lower-quality-most-video-192210655.html

by doener • 10 years ago

68 56 10 years ago

finance.yahoo.com

darkhorn• 10 years ago

This is another reason to use HTTPS.

toomuchtodo6• 10 years ago

HTTPS doesn't mask the source IP block of the content. Pretty easy to throttle Youtube, Netflix, etc based on their CDN blocks.

mdorazio• 10 years ago

Yup, this is more a reason to use a VPN.

TazeTSchnitzel• 10 years ago

It doesn't mask the domain either, at least where SNI is involved.

ryandvm• 10 years ago

The original comment is absolutely correct in that if the video stream is delivered via HTTPS it is impossible to downsample it. Now, whether YouTube et al actually use HTTPS for the video stream, I don't know...

mikeash3• 10 years ago

The HN title is missing two key words: "by default." You can turn it off. I'm not particularly happy with what they're doing, but there's a fairly big difference between forcing it on everyone and allowing people to opt-out.

gcr2• 10 years ago

T-Mobile started the slippery slope and legitimazed the idea of limited video with their "Binge On" program. If you turn on "Binge On", you only get down-sampled, bandwidth-limited video. The trade-off was that they agreed not to charge you for watching downsampled video. They also let you turn this feature on or off, so there's an upside.

But. There's a trick.

T-mobile now offers a single plan, "T-Mobile ONE." All videos are downsampled by default and you can't disable that without paying extra.

The customers' wallets have spoken.

izacus• 10 years ago

The customers' wallets have spoken.

Customer wallets are very silent in cases of natural monopoly like telecommunication services.

chipperyman5733• 10 years ago

Out of curiosity, if I subscribe to T-Mobile ONE (as close to "true" unlimited data we're going to get) and use a VPN, then video will stream in HD, without paying for the HD Pass (or whatever it's called), right?

shostack3• 10 years ago

Ie boiling the frog. There are few better examples for why telecoms need to be regulated into dumb pipes.

dogma11382• 10 years ago

How can they override the video quality over HTTPS? even if they point you to their CDN can't you just DNS hack through this?

Hnrobert42• 10 years ago

HN titles are so frequently clickbait lately that this site becoming unreadable.

mratzloff• 10 years ago

How? Specifically, I mean. I'm looking at my AT&T console and don't see any option to opt out.

mikeash3• 10 years ago

They haven't started yet. I assume the option will show up when they do.

molecule• 10 years ago

The feature will be enabled by default for users of its wireless service, but the carrier says customers will be able to turn it off in the myAT&T app whenever they’d like, at no cost.

mmanfrin• 10 years ago

T-Mobile offered an opt out for a year, and then it became a $25 "HD video upgrade".

walterbell2• 10 years ago

At least they grandfathered those who opted out.

noja• 10 years ago

It should be opt-in not opt-out. AT&T saving cash by messing around with peoples' video streams is the opposite of what a good ISP should do.

samfisher83• 10 years ago

Customers can choose to disable it. Given data caps it might not be a bad thing to have it on.

Whether you think they are good or bad tmobile has had a massive impact on the cellphone industry. They were the first to remove subsidies which all the carriers copied. Now the carriers are copying their throttling model.

shostack3• 10 years ago

Yes, it is good at helping with data caps that carriers imposed. So you pay them extra for more bandwidth at a ridiculous rate or pay them for the "privilege" of getting higher quality video like T-Mobile.

They win through higher fees both ways and consumers are once again screwed through artificial constraints and lack of competition.

gorbachev• 10 years ago

If AT&T wished to be consumer friendly, they'd implement this in an opt-in manner.

errantspark• 10 years ago

This seems like something that's really easy to get mad about; but given it's optional nature and the fact that you're watching these videos on a tiny phone screen actually seems like almost universally a good thing.

shostack3• 10 years ago

It is optional for now while they get things in place to follow T-Mobile and introduce a plan where this is the default and you have to pay more to unlock higher quality video. Then you remove plan with the free unlock option or just increase its price to make sure to instead ARPU to the desired level.

Classic boiling of the frog and T-Mobile is a glimpse into the future of where at&t is going with this.

shmerl3• 10 years ago

It should be illegal. Same as unnecessary data caps.

op00to3• 10 years ago

Why?

shmerl3• 10 years ago

For a range of reasons, from violating Net neutrality, to anti-trust.

ams6110• 10 years ago

480p is as good as the best pre-HD analog TV, or standard DVDs, and better than VHS which everyone was happy to use back in the day. And certainly fine for most things on a screen as small as a mobile device. I don't really see what there is to complain about, especially as it's optional.

I'd gladly trade higher bandwidth costs, pixelation, freezing and skipping HD video for smooth 480p for most things.

fegu• 10 years ago

I agree there are benefits as well. But regarding the quality, I have a 4K mobile screen (Sony Xperia Z5 Premium). For others, full HD is practically the norm for higher end phones now. 480p is noticeably worse in some applications, e.g. screencasting.

tinus_hn• 10 years ago

It is not the job of the communications provider to decide what the users get to transmit. And they most certainly shouldn't be in the business of manipulating the users' communication which is what they are doing to change the video resolution.

Anyway this whole discussion will soon be moot as everything moves to SSL and AT&T can only decide wether to transmit it completely or not at all. As they should.

chipperyman5733• 10 years ago

One typical solution to this is just to limit ALL bandwith to youtube.com, nflxvideo.net (Netflix's CDN), etc. Then, you rely on the app to intelligantly downgrade video quality for you. SSL won't solve this issue, only a VPN will.

op00to3• 10 years ago

I can't wait for this feature. I know unlimited (reliable) mobile data is pretty much done for in the US, so anything that lets me economise is awesome. You can turn it off. This is a positive thing for me.

chipperyman5733• 10 years ago

This move seems pretty pro-consumer (even if ATT did it for their own benefit).

Data caps on wireless transmission (not fiber to your house) are a technical requirement. There's only so much bandwith space, and it's being demanded more than ever before. So, carriers create incentives to use less data, including data caps/limits. If grandma wants to watch House of Cards on her phone, she might not realize that, for whatever reason (poor reception, the power cable fell out of the router, etc), her phone switched over to 4G. This will protect users like her from using up ALL her data at once.

AT&T will lower the quality of most video to 480p starting next year

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