A recent study by Northwestern University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst found that every major carrier in the United States has artificially slowed down videos from places like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube.
If you’re curious whether or not your carrier is throttling your mobile video data, CNET pointed out an app this week that can help.
Rather than show the speed of your data connection in general, Wehe will show you the specific speed of different apps on your phone. Created by the researchers, the app lets you run tests on the speed you get through apps like Netflix, Hulu, Twitch, Prime Video, and Spotify.
To use it you just download the app, select which apps you want it to run a test on (or select them all) and then press “Run Tests” at the bottom of the page.
I have a grandfathered unlimited plan from AT&T that I received with the first iPhone, which means that technically AT&T shouldn’t be allowed to throttle my data at all.
Apparently that plan isn’t enough to make it stop; however, It looks like my phone has a pretty significant amount of throttling happening on the Netflix front, as well as several other apps. Although it’s leaving Hulu, Skype, and Twitch alone.
Worth noting: This can also take a while to do. Checking just Netflix takes a whole minute. Each service takes roughly the same, so if you decide to check everything you should be prepared to wait for a while.
That said, this is pretty interesting to look at, and really highlights how much I need to find a new mobile carrier ASAP, amongst other things
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