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An ongoing new study by researchers at both Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts has found that the Sprint Corporation is slowing traffic to Microsoft Corporation’s Internet-based video chat service Skype.
The researchers created the Wehe smartphone app to allow individuals to test internet connections for the service. More than 100,000 consumers have participated, and the app aggregates the information from the tests, sending it to the researchers to analyze. The researchers then review the data to determine if data speeds are being slowed or throttled by specific mobile services.
Based on the data analyzed by researchers, which looked at the leading US carriers, the study found that only Sprint was throttling the performance of Skype.
According to 1,968 full tests – which are defined as those where a user ran to tests in a row – they detected that Sprint was throttling Skype in 34 percent of those tests. The tests were conducted between January 18 and October 15.
Not only did the researchers find that Sprint was slowing Skype, but it happened regularly. Further, the slowdown wasn’t limited to specific regions, but was geographically spread throughout the US.
Among mobile platforms, Android users in the US were affected more often than users of Apple Inc.’s iPhones.
“In the case of a video call, which is what we were testing, the video quality would be much poorer — poorer than what the network supports,” according to David Choffnes, one of the researchers who developed the testing app.
“If you are a telephony provider and you provide IP services over that network, then you shouldn’t be able to limit the service offered by another telephony provider that runs over the internet,” Choffnes added.
Prior to the FCC scrapping pre-existing net neutrality rules, carriers were required not to discriminate by user, app or content. All Internet traffic was required to be treated equally.
In terms of network operation, there are occasions where providers have to temporarily reduce bottlenecks and congestion by slowing Internet speeds. However, the 34 percent occurrence that the researchers found appears to go beyond such needs, given the nationwide distribution of throttling events.
A Sprint spokeswoman named Lisa Dimino, who spoke to Fortune, said that the company doesn’t “single out Skype or any individual content provider in this way.” Fortune also reached out to Microsoft, who declined to comment.
