Authors:
Alessio Botta
1
;
Aniello Avallone
2
;
Mauro Garofalo
2
and
Giorgio ventre
1
Affiliations:
1
University of Napoli Federico II and NM2 srl, Italy
;
2
University of Napoli Federico II, Italy
Keyword(s):
Network Neutrality, Internet Video Streaming, Network Performance.
Abstract:
Network neutrality is a hot topic since a few years and involves different aspects of interest (e.g. economic, regulatory and privacy) for a wide range of stakeholders, including policy makers, researchers, economists, and service providers. When referring to video streaming, a killer web service of the Internet, much has been discussed regarding if and how video providers violate or may violate neutrality principles, in order to give users a “better” service compared to other services or to other providers. In this paper we provide a contribution to this discussion analyzing the performance of three main video hosting providers (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion) from an user viewpoint. We measure the throughput and RTT experienced by users watching real videos of different popularity, at different day hours and at several locations from around the world. We uncover the performance differences of these providers as a function of the different variables under control and move a st
ep forward to understand what causes such differences. Our results allow to understand what are the real performance users currently get from these providers and if the performance differences observed can be due or to considered as a violation of network neutrality principles, providing a ground for people interested in legal and regulatory issues of web applications and services.
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