When Verizon was examining this throttling recently many users saw that use of a VPN directed to avoid the constraints, and with the throttling now live, organizations like NordVPN tell us that VPNs still work, for now.
“Since the story spread that Verizon might be choking streaming speed, we at NordVPN have got some customer inquiries, asking if utilizing a VPN would allow them to run at regular speed,” said Marty P. Kamden, CMO of NordVPN in an e-mail.
“While a VPN can slow down Internet traffic in unusual cases, it’s a good choice to use when an ISP interferes with regular streaming speeds,” Kamden adds. “Without a VPN, a user will more likely get insufficient speeds from their ISP, which forms buffering, delays and lower quality videos. A VPN provides to stream videos with fewer delays.”
To be clear, most users won’t actually care that Verizon is now suppressing all video by default, given the disparity between 720p 1080p and 4K is negligible on the small screen of a smartphone.
That said, the real worry here between customer advocates and many customers is the model Verizon is setting.
Verizon has a long-thirty year story of anti-competitive behavior and is now asking additional money just to run videos at rates many customers believe should be decided by the end user and the server they’re entering. They’re not alone; Sprint already opened the door to this practice by charging users a premium to avoid the throttling of videos, games, and music.
And while preventing 4K and selling more to avoid throttling isn’t the end of the world, with Verizon at the forefront of killing net neutrality protections, anybody remotely close to the company’s practice should be asking themselves what kind of conclusions, caveats, or other value-killing limitations will be coming down the pike.
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