Chairman Wheeler thinks that T-mob's new "customers can get uncapped media
stream data, but only from the people we like" service called Binge On
is pro-competition.
My take on this is that the service is *precisely* what Net Neutrality
was supposed to prevent -- carriers offering paid fast-lanes to content
providers -- and that this is anti-competitive to the sort of "upstart
YouTube" entities that NN was supposed to protect...
and that *that* is the competition that NN was supposed to protect.
And I just said the same thing two different ways.
Cause does anyone here think that T-mob is giving those *carriers* pride
of place *for free*?
Corporations don't - in my experience - give away lots of money out of
the goodness of their hearts.
What I read was that as long as a video offerer marks its traffic and
is certified in a few other ways, anyone can send video content
cap-free. No I don't know what the criteria are. Does anyone here? I
also think I remember that there is no significant cost to
certification, i.e. this is not a paid fast lane. If this is all
true, this doesn't bother me, and could do everyone a favor by getting
definitions clearer and getting traffic marked.
T-Mobile claims they are not accepting any payment from these content providers for inclusion in Binge On.
"Onstage today, Legere said any company can apply to join the Binge On program. "Anyone who can meet our technical requirement, we’ll include," he said. "This is not a net neutrality problem." Legere pointed to the fact that Binge On doesn't charge providers for inclusion and customers don't pay to access it." http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/10/9704482/t-mobile-uncarrier-binge-on-netflix-hbo-streaming
I believe there may be a catch though: I don't think they can pick and
choose which streaming providers they allow their customers to stream
for free. As long as their streaming program is a "catch-all" for
streaming video, they can claim they are doing what they can (within
reason) to exempt streaming video from their data caps and are
probably fine with the FCC. For instance, using the "streaming video"
filter in Procera or a similar DPI product.
If it is found they are picking and choosing which content is free
(intentionally) they might be in trouble for that part.
They are not paying for this feature with the content providers (no
paid prioritization) and it's good for consumers. It probably sucks
for WISPs until those cell sectors start getting filled up though
That is much better than I thought. Although, I don't think the person who wrote this understands what UDP is.
"Use of technology protocols that are demonstrated to prevent video stream detection, such as User Datagram Protocol “UDP” on any platform will exclude video streams from that content provider"
Considering T-Mobile's proposal is intended to favor streaming music and video services, I think it clearly violates net neutrality which is intended to not only promote competition in existing applications, but also in new (possibly undeveloped) applications. This proposal simply entrenches streaming video/music by artificially reducing the cost to operators in these fields while leaving costs the same for operators in other fields - medical imaging, video conferencing, online backup, etc. I believe the sum affect is a reduction in competition and growth of the internet as a whole, the antithesis to the spirit of net neutrality.
This proposal, and ones similar, stifle growth of applications. If there are additional (artificial) burdens for operating in a field it becomes harder to get into. Because it's harder to get into, fewer operators compete. [Note, we just reduced open competition, one tenet of Net Neutrality] Because there are fewer operators there will be less competition. Less competition increases prices and fewer customers take the service. Because few people use the application, the network operator has no incentive to support the application well. [Note, we just reduced the freedom to run applications] Because the network doesn't support the application well, few people use the application. It's circular and it slows growth.
Just because there may be inherent challenges to offering an application (bandwidth, for example), doesn't mean that adding another one (per application bandwidth caps) is desirable.
This is just the start. Providers will push the limits slowly and will
eventually get to where they want to be. t-mob is doing this in such a way
that consumer's will not object. When the general public doesn't object
(because they are getting "free" data) that makes it a lot easier for the
FCC to look past the fact that this is a violation of basic net
neutrality. Reminds me of the boiling frog analogy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog).
Logic tells me that, if the major incumbents content doesn't count against
the cap, this leaves more bandwidth for other applications. What am I
missing?
It leaves more data available to use within your data plan, but may reduce bandwidth available to you to actually use. In other words, you may find your billed usage unusable due to lack of usable bandwidth.
'Oh it's free, I will set my phone to stream all Monty Python movies continuously.'
But I think this answer is more in line with the intent of your question, why would someone want to try to startup a new service that doesn't fit within the guidelines of these 'free' services.
It’s a full page of standards in a relatively large font with decent spacing.
Given that bluetooth is several hundred pages, I’d say this is pretty reasonable.
Having read through the page, I don’t see anything onerous in the requirements. In fact, it looks to me
like the bare minimum of reasonable and an expression by T-Mo of a willingness to expend a fair amount
of effort to integrate content providers.
I don’t see anything here that hurts net neutrality and I applaud this as actually being a potential boon
to consumers and a potentially good model of how to implement ZRB in a net-neutral way going
forward.
Not that I mind getting significantly more service at little additional cost - as proposed by T-Mobile. But I would have preferred to simply get unlimited data usage (or a much larger monthly allotment) and had the freedom to use that data how I see fit. Comparing the two options, I think one is more neutral than the other.
Once upon a time, Blake Hudson <blake@ispn.net> said:
Not that I mind getting significantly more service at little
additional cost - as proposed by T-Mobile. But I would have
preferred to simply get unlimited data usage (or a much larger
monthly allotment) and had the freedom to use that data how I see
fit. Comparing the two options, I think one is more neutral than the
other.
So, lucky you: most T-Mobile data plans are doubling in size as well
(same announcement). They do also offer an unlimited data plan (don't
know the caveats, probably some apply).
Other than the usual cellular caveats of coverage sucks in lots of places and data
rates can be slow when you’re in a densely populated area, congestion, oversubscription,
etc… Doesn’t seem to have any problems. I’ve been on that plan for most of a year now.
The biggest problem I have (other than occasionally terrible call quality) is that due
to religious stupidity, they refuse to support IPv6 over LTE for iOS.
