Image: Fox/Cult of Mac
There’s a good chance watching video on your iPhone is about to get better. Net neutrality rules passed by the FCC this week reportedly forbid U.S. wireless carriers from lowering the quality of streaming video to throttle the amount of data its consumes.
So if you watch Apple TV+, Netflix, etc. on your iPhone, your carrier is no longer allowed to reduce the video quality.
Wireless carriers currently throttle streaming video
Streaming video uses loads of bandwidth. Analysts at Sandvine estimate that, in 2022, 65% of internet traffic was video.
Wireless carriers have a limited amount of wireless bandwidth to offer their customers. When the FCC killed net neutrality in 2017, they began stretching it by throttling streaming video for some customers.
Top-tier wireless service plans might not put limits on video quality, but Verizon’s starter plan, for example, draws the line at 480p. AT&T’s low-cost plan limits video to 2 Mbps.
Those days are almost over.
Net neutrality forbids throttling streaming video
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted to restore net neutrality on Thursday. That means internet providers, including wireless carriers, are not allowed to single out certain types of data for special treatment.
Ryan Singel teaches about net neutrality at Stanford Law School, and he explained to Marketplace what the rule change means for mobile streaming video.
“If you go and look at the pricing plans for Verizon and AT&T and T-Mobile, if you are not on their most premium plan, the video quality you get on your mobile connection is throttled. Like you get lower quality video, regardless of how much data you have. So those kinds of things will no longer be legal and I expect that the FCC will move rather quickly to prevent that.”
Cult of Mac checked and the websites of major wireless carriers still indicate they throttle wireless video. But if Singel is correct, that’ll change once the FCC steps in to order a change.