Senators Ask the FCC to Investigate Wireless Carrier Throttling
- The FCC must respond by Feb. 27, according to letter
- Wireless carriers’ disclosure of throttling is at issue
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Three senators asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate whether U.S. wireless carriers are throttling popular applications without telling customers.
The request came after Bloomberg News reported that the largest U.S. telecom companies are slowing internet traffic to and from apps such as YouTube and Netflix, citing research from Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The researchers used a smartphone app called Wehe, downloaded by more than 100,000 consumers, to monitor which mobile services were being throttled and by whom.