Major ISP Cox Communications has begun throttling the connections of entire neighborhoods for what the ISP deems “excessive usage.” More specifically, the ISP has begun severely throttling the upstream connections of internet users who consume too much bandwidth for the ISP’s liking, even if those users have paid the company extra for faster, unrestricted service.
Despite ISPs making it repeatedly clear that their networks are handling COVID-19 related strain very well, complaints about the new restrictions have been popping up at Reddit over the last month. While Cox confirmed to Ars Technica that it had started throttling the upstream speeds of entire neighborhoods, it wasn’t willing to clarify how many neighborhoods are impacted and just how much data is deemed “excessive” by the cable giant:
“Cox responded by lowering the upload speeds on the gigabit-download plan from 35Mbps to 10Mbps for the customer’s whole neighborhood. Cox confirmed to Ars that it has imposed neighborhood-wide slowdowns in multiple neighborhoods in cases like this one but didn’t say how many excessive users are enough to trigger a speed decrease.”