July 2017

Recently, Verizon was caught and subsequently admitted to throttling all video traffic on its network. July 25, the company is finally addressing the potential network neutrality issue. Verizon said that its actions represented “reasonable network management,” which is an exception carved out under the 2015 net neutrality rules. "Video optimization is a non-discriminatory network management practice designed to ensure a high quality customer experience for all customers accessing the shared resources of our wireless network,” a spokesperson said.

It’s pretty expected that Verizon would argue this. It said last week that its video throttling was a matter of “network testing” that would be “completed shortly,” and speeds since appear to have returned to normal. The trouble is, the order is a little vague on what constitutes “reasonable network management,” since the commission assumed it might take many different forms. But it has a handful of guidelines of what might and might not violate the exception. One important limitation: the practice must be “primarily motivated by a technical network management justification rather than other business justifications.”