Bandwidth throttling, as I prefer to call it, began most apparently with Comcast – only because they got caught – of course their valiant effort was in order to prevent what they deemed to be abuse by bandwidth hogs (paraphrase and allegedly) – their outward guise to prevent mass data transfer of illegal music, stolen movies and potential pornographic material of a lascivious nature.

AT&T allegedly filed last Friday with the FCC a “usage-based pricing” model as a form of network management. Streaming service providers and viewers question the impact on HD streaming media quality and accessibility; However, in my mind, the caustic effect will be the ever widening codec /player gap we had hoped to shrink through partnership and collaboration.As a producer of streaming events, I fear that availability of low budget options for encoder to server transmission is at threat.

The reason it is a bad thing, is that it allows the ISP’s to decide who is using their service appropriately or not – this means not even the FCC is drawing the line when the cable company is deciding who the abusers are.  Decide for your self – listen to the FCC Hearing Broadband Digital Future .

Here are some other resources that hit on the “dark side” of bandwidth throttling and impact on the world of web video:

Giz Explains: How Broadband Usage Caps Will Kill Internet Video

10 Things to Know and Hate About Metered Broadband

AT&T Trials Tiered Broadband in Nevada