Verizon Wireless is in a bit of hot water this week.
Earlier this week, Verizon customers began complaining on Reddit that their speeds were topping out at 10Mbps. This speed appeared when using Netflix’s Fast.com speed test service, but when using Ookla’s Speed Test app, Verizon’s network was much faster.
There are similar complaints about viewing YouTube videos on Verizon’s network. When viewing YouTube’s “Stats for Nerds”, many users report that their speeds are being throttled to 10Mbps.
Today Verizon responded to these reports, telling Ars Technica that it was performing “network testing” this week to optimize video app performance. The carrier’s full statement:
"We've been doing network testing over the past few days to optimize the performance of video applications on our network. The testing should be completed shortly. The customer video experience was not affected."
This is notable because it’s happening to customers on unlimited and tiered data plans, and while Verizon says that customers’ video wasn’t affected, some folks say that their YouTube videos buffered when at 1440p. Netflix streaming on mobile doesn’t appear to have been affected by this throttling, but if you’re tethering your Verizon phone to a computer to watch Ultra HD video, your playback could be affected.
Verizon does say that its testing should end soon, so hopefully VZW customers streaming Netflix and YouTube will soon see their speeds return to normal.