Zero-Rating Harms Poor People, Public Interest Groups Tell FCC (vice.com) 205
An anonymous reader links to an article on Motherboard: The nation's largest internet service providers are undermining US open internet rules, threatening free speech, and disproportionately harming poor people by using a controversial industry practice called "zero-rating," a coalition of public interest groups wrote in a letter to federal regulators on Monday. Companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T use zero-rating, which refers to a variety of practices that exempt certain services from monthly data caps, to undercut "the spirit and the text" of federal rules designed to protect net neutrality, the principle that all content on the internet should be equally accessible, the groups wrote. Zero-rated plans "distort competition, thwart innovation, threaten free speech, and restrict consumer choice -- all harms the rules were meant to prevent," the groups wrote. "These harms tend to fall disproportionately on low-income communities and communities of color, who tend to rely on mobile networks as their primary or exclusive means of access to the internet."
can someone give the TL;DR (Score:2, Informative)
On what the fck is 0rating
Re:can someone give the TL;DR (Score:5, Informative)
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:can someone give the TL;DR (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's how you abuse zero rating. Make up an ISP plan with 1KB/mth data cap. Then charge $1000/kb overage (like a typical Verizon plan). Then go around and charge Facebook/Google/etc fat fees to deliver their data to the consumer for 'free' outside of exorbitant data plan cap. Now you have achieved total net discrimination on a plan that is net neutral. it is discriminatory because this absurd fee arrangement was created to manipulate you into only using the sites that have paid for zero rating and to abandon the rest of the Internet. Of course the ISP arranges things so that Facebook/Google/etc are yielding them more profit than when you were paying for data access. Facebook/Google/etc go along with this because it increases their profitability by driving more traffic to them.
You then say "this is cool, I get free Internet". But you aren't getting free Internet, you are only getting Facebook/Google/etc who pay paid for zero rating. You are unable to access any other web site unless you pay $1000/kb for the data. And of course you won't do that.
Re:can someone give the TL;DR (Score:4, Insightful)
Make up an ISP plan with 1KB/mth data cap. Then charge $1000/kb overage (like a typical Verizon plan).
Typical?? Verizon's lowest tier data plan is 1 GB/month. Overage rate is $15/GB.
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Whoooosh?
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And you could probably reach that 1GB in less than an hour. Possibly without your knowledge. As the GP pointed out, cellular providers and ISPs are basically engaged in racketeering. Delivering a packet has a semi-fixed cost. Telecoms have decided that they want to offload that cost to content providers. So, basically, they collect a fee from users to provide a service, then turn around to the content providers and say, "This is a pretty nice service you have here. It would be a shame if people couldn
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And you could probably reach that 1GB in less than an hour. Possibly without your knowledge.
I suppose you could, if you are clueless about the terms of your plan, ignorant about how your device works, don't set a data usage alert, don't set a data usage limit, and are in the habit of streaming high-bandwidth content without regard for the circumstances. What a nightmare!
Re:can someone give the TL;DR (Score:5, Interesting)
Zero rating causes some websites to not count towards the data cap.
Seems minor, but consider users worrying about a data cap limit and not playing Netflix streams, when another competitor isn't subject to that restriction.
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I have never not had a choice in providers - and I live in the United States, and I've lived all over the United States. Maybe it's dumb luck but I've always been able to get multiple DSL service providers, multiple dial-up providers, multiple ISDN providers, and now there are satellite, wireless, cable, etc...
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Which is why it can be a problem
Also, the problem isn't whether a given ISP in the local area gives discounts based on certain pacakages - it's that the various internet companies have to bid to the ISP in order to get the "zero factor" discount, in the same way they would need to bid in order to have normal traffic service.
So, a startup known as Hulu has a much higher barrier to entry than Youtube, simply because they aren't "zero factored".
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I thought it was for things like U-verse in that you have a theoretical data cap on your U-verse internet but U-verse television does not count towards that cap. In other words, there's no third party involved (it may be the case that AT&T does not actually check your usage since you can't ever get the data about how much you use from AT&T itself). A similar thing would happen for cable companies if their television and internet shared the same bandwidth.
Re:can someone give the TL;DR (Score:4, Interesting)
QUIT TRYING TO GET THE GOVERNMENT TO SOLVE ALL YOUR ISSUES - THIS STORY IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS!
So let me ask you this. Who is going to do if not government involved? Let corporations make their own decision and you just keep praying that they won't screw you for their own benefit?
Any rules have work around. It just happened that corporations have found a way to work around the rules. It is expected later or sooner. Sadly, they found it so early. Now what FCC could do is either to make it a precedence (court ruling) or tighten the rules up. Not sure which one is better...
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Xfinity 0rating their own content allows them to severely cripple Netflix et al.
The argument at hand is that poor people specifically are adversely effected by zero-ratings. Are you saying that poor people should subscribe to netflix and that every middle man between netflix and them can go fuck themselves? That seems to be what you are saying.
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Quit trying to get the free market to solve all your issues for you - this is exactly what happens.
The entire set of problems that Net Neutrality is meant to address wouldn't be there in the first place if there were a competitive market for ISPs (and in the few places where there's good competition, there's far fewer problems). But we don't have a market: we have a bunch of government-granted cable monopolies, and areas of the US where there's only 1, maybe 2 viable cell phone carriers (the latter is more of a genuine market failure).
I don't like Net Neutrality - this is exactly the sort of government
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Getting rid of metering and caps is not free. When the minimum data plan costs $300/month (but has no caps or metering) that won't help poor people very much which is topic of this article according to the headline.
When incremental usage of something is "free", people will almost always consume more of it - sometimes usefully, sometimes wastefully, sometimes just to be jerks. Without caps and metering, most people would stream 4K video whenever it was available -- even if they were viewing it on a 5 inch sc
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Getting rid of metering and caps is not free.
It's not free, but it's also nowhere near as expensive as the prices carriers charge.
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Or even more to the point, Imagine if you can watch your DirecTV DVR from your AT&T phone for "free" but not a Dish DVR.
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From what I gather from the articles - I had to dig a little - zero-rating is the practice of having a data cap on your mobile data plan, and then offering certain sites/services that do NOT count towards your cap.
Net neutrality is preventing your carrier from slowing down OR SPEEDING UP certain services or sites in relation to others - everything must be on an absolutely equal level.
This breaks that by effectively creating a fast lane. So they could force, say
Re:can someone give the TL;DR (Score:5, Informative)
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I'd like to point out that Net Neutrality is specifically NOT about an "internet fast-lane" because that already exists. Not being able to prioritise packets based on content would obliterate any ability to use VoIP and destroy the only reason to buy business class internet service. I don't care that some brain-dead dreg squatting around in his underwear wants to watch his cat videos and his hentai instantaneously. Being able to teleconference and colaborate with a client\coworker [b]IS[/b] more important i
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In a properly configured network, this wouldn't be a problem. The cat hentai guy could spend his commit on videos and the business could choose to prioritize THEIR OWN VOIP packets so they spend their commit on business calls. Both would go through just fine.
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Anti-Net-Neutrality practices identify the content going through the data stream and treat some packets differently than others based on that content. Net-neutrality is about treating all packets equally, not just in terms of speed, but in terms of cost, or any other factor.
At the risk of invoking the No True Scotsman, that isn't exactly what Net Neutrality was supposed to be about. Normal QoS is acceptable; Net Neutrality is supposed to be solely with regards to source and destination. Time-sensitive data, such as VoIP, can still be prioritized over time-insensitive data, such as BitTorrent; throttling Vonage's VoIP service while prioritizing Verizon's VoIP service would be a violation of Net Neutrality.
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I like to think of it in simpler terms. It's the phone company choosing the winners and losers on the Internet. Because as a whole whatever the phone company chooses will be bad for everyone, history proves that.
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Referring to "services" is a little ambiguous. It should be made clear that net neutrality does not prohibit ISPs from discriminating based on protocol (e.g. HTTP vs. VOIP); that's just QoS and is still perfectly reasonable. The key is that the throttling cannot discriminate based on the origin or destination.
A complex game? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: A complex game? (Score:5, Insightful)
So ban datacaps?
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If that's what the wireless operators think they're doing, they're just beyond stupid. What do they think will happen? Every web hoster in the world buys their service? No, they'll buy their place on Facebook, and Facebook becomes the ISPs' only client, with obvious effects on negotiations. They don't like to compete for the millions of customers because we're all cheap bastards who want more bandwidth for almost no money? Just wait until they have to compete for a handful of gatekeepers who can ruin them w
free informed choice is expensive (Score:3)
basically on one side we have,
limited content, mostly preselected by others, offered at zero cost.
on other side,
unlimited content, which must be selected by consumer expending time and effort(esp brain), offered at a price.
economics of mass acceptance of 1st could eventually lead to limitation of all content even for those making 2nd choice, or at least ever higher prices in 2nd choice
but should government(fcc) decide to ban the 1st prevent that? or let the consumer decide (even if most will choose them 1st)? that is the question. harder to answer than it appears.
Not just poor people (Score:3)
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They don't charge a cent for
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And, in fact, Rhapsody is T-Mobile's music streaming partner; you get a free Rhapsody subscription with T-Mobile's JUMP! service, and that's zero-rated as well. Which, honestly, is fine, because they offer a free zero-rating option to any other music streaming provider who asks.
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Oh, shut up... (Score:3, Funny)
Like an 800 number (Score:3)
Zero-rating is the new 800 number. Remember when you had to pay for long distance phone calls by the minute? Companies who wanted you to use their services would set up 800 numbers so you could call them for free. The receiver of the call paid the bill.
Zero-rated services likewise have to pay, or have to comply with certain rules, to be included in the zero-rating program.
800 numbers didn't kill the "neutrality" of phone calling, and I don't think zero-rating necessarily will kill off net neutrality. As long as every business has the same opportunity to become part of the zero-rating tier, and the costs aren't prohibitive, a form of neutrality is preserved. On the other hand, if the carrier only exempts its own services, and doesn't let other in, or makes it cost-prohibitive, then we have a problem.
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800 numbers didn't kill the "neutrality" of phone calling,
800 numbers don't substitute for talking to your friends and relatives.
Racist? (Score:2, Insightful)
"communities of color"
Can someone explain to me why this policy has a racial bias? Or is this just along the lines of "terrorists and pedophiles" and "think of the children" type arguments?
World ends, poor and minorities disproportionately (Score:2, Troll)
World ends, poor and minorities disproportionately affected...
Why does *everything* have to be filtered through an SJW lens?
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Re:"Free" is harmful? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the argument is basically that the poor make bad choices and the world should be re-arranged to accommodate those poor choices.
Government exists (in the best case) for the sole purpose of stopping people from making too many antisocial decisions. We can argue about how far that influence should reach, but when the majority of people say they want something and then work against that thing, perhaps there is some merit to the notion.
The government governs best which governs least, but how little you can get away with is a sticky debating point.
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Re:"Free" is harmful? (Score:5, Insightful)
So by NOT charging people for what can be a sizable amount of data usage, we're harming poor people?
Yes. The data usage is not "free", it is just incorporated into the base monthly fee and higher charges for other data. So the ISPs are charging you more to view content they do not own, in order to promote content that they do own.
It is sort of like Trump's Mexican wall: The ISPs are building the wall around their garden, and making YOU pay for it.
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So by that logic, if Comcast want's to offer their own streaming video without caps while counting the data usage of Netflix toward the caps, that's acceptable.
Believe it or not, I'm okay with that. I just want to make sure that the customer isn't accessing Comcast's own services through the Internet connection. If you're selling Internet access, then everything you sell over the Internet service connection should count the same.
Therein lies the problem though. Internet service provider companies want to us
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Or, perhaps they are charging you more to view the content they do not own because they actually have to pay for it... because, you know, they don't own it in the first place... where if they own it already, then it is theirs to do with as they see fit and charge for it... or not.
No, that's not how this works at all. We aren't talking about a TV bundle here. Youtube doesn't charge AT&T for their content. As for cost to deliver it, well the last mile is the most expensive, especially for wireless providers, so it costs the same no matter who owns it.
This is just a different approach to break net neutrality. Instead of "pay us or we will put you on a slow lane" it's "pay us and we won't charge our customers to use your content." It has the same effect, pay the carriers or lose
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Stop thinking of it as "content"... and just think of it for what it is.
BIts.
Data... nothing more, nothing less. It's just zero's and ones in the end... and that's what you are paying for... not "content".
Once they already have the data they are going to send to you, it doeesn't cost them any more to provide to you if they got it from somewhere else than it would from their own network, it *CAN* cost them more to get it from somewhere else in the first place so they can send it to you at all. The
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Or, perhaps they are charging you more to view the content they do not own because they actually have to pay for it... because, you know, they don't own it in the first place... where if they own it already, then it is theirs to do with as they see fit and charge for it... or not.
So take your own advice.
Like I said, the last mile, especially when you are talking about wireless is exponentially more expensive than what comes before it, especially when many of these carriers already own backbones, or backbone providers, in the first place. This has nothing to do with cost to provide these bits vs those bits, it's about trying to skirt net neutrality rules to get money from companies to allow those companies bits to cross over the prov
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Breaking news, companies are marking up their services to the highest price point that the market will bear! Film at 11.
If a company wants to mark up charging more for accessing data outside of their prearranged purview, the only people who are really in a position to debate that point are people who can *actually* provide access to the same content for less.
And really, if it's so cheap to provide access to it, why don't you form your own ISP and charge less?
Oh, wait.... it's not really that simple
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Yes, in other words, the market is sufficiently unhealthy that the "invisible hand" cannot do it's job.
It is very much the government's job (in the public interest) to cure the disease or at least contain it.
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More like you should pay the same per KW/h for your air conditioner no matter what brand it is.
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Or, perhaps they are charging you more to view the content they do not own because they actually have to pay for it... because, you know, they don't own it in the first place... where if they own it already, then it is theirs to do with as they see fit and charge for it... or not.
Sounds like a good reason that single companies that control both the content and the access should be smacked around with the antitrust hammer.
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They can get their upstream bandwidth for pennies/Mbps. If they're tier 1, it literally costs the same as internal bandwidth.
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Why should you disagree? Or do you want the ISPs to prop up their other lines of business that otherwise can't compete toe-to-toe?
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If they have the means to offer services that people actually want, sure. If people don't want the services that the ISP offers which don't count towards their data quotas, they will just use the regular internet service that does, which is what they are paying for in the first place.
The single stance on network neutrality I have is that an ISP should not ever actively degrade the quality of service of any connection in terms of data throughput below the levels that its network is otherwise capable of
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Nobody's claiming streaming to be an inalienable right. They're just seeking to prevent ISPs from leveraging a monopoly into multiple monopolies.
Consider, what happens when the ISP sets the cap too low to make video streaming practical UNLESS it is their video streaming, which doesn't count towards the cap.
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Next up, forcing Google to start charging you for web searches because "free" is bad.
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Next up, forcing Google to start charging you for web searches because "free" is bad.
Google is not a monopoly. If you don't like their service, use a different search engine.
ISPs are mostly local monopolies. So they are subject to more regulation.
Personally, I would rather see the regulators promoting competition, rather than micromanaging the ISPs, but as long as those monopolies exist, we need to ensure they are not abused.
Re: "Free" is harmful? (Score:2)
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You'll have to pay for Android OS too. Free is bad. For poor people. This make sense, really.
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It's also possible to recognize that popular service X eats a lot of peered bandwidth and raises huge costs, and so you partner with service provider X to provision a service point inside your network in a way which minimizes the costs. Then Netflix and Spotify pay less for outgoing bandwidth through their ISPs, Comcast and Verizon pay less for peering said data (because it's not coming across a peered connection), and both the ISP and service X experience a cost savings.
This net cost savings would trans
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No, the argument is that a downloaded file isn't necessarily a lost sale. That argument came about not as a justification of piracy, but rather it shoots down the claims the RIAA made that billions of songs were being pirated a month so they should be getting new laws passed. Fun fact: During that period while all those crazy numbers of downloads were happening, their profit levels were higher, not lower.
Since all that 'piracy' happened, iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and a bunch of other media services
Re:"Free" is harmful? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't give a rat's ass about the socio-economic status of the people affected.
I do care about net neutrality.
The idea that penalising certain data sources is harmful to a free internet seems well accepted. The fact that our retarded legislators couldn't figure out what so many were shouting at them is the real problem. There is no goddamn difference between penalising source A and "helping" every source *except* A. These zero-ratings is the exact thing we said would happen. It's penalising the companies that do not pay for "premium" services.
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But government micromanagement of content, content delivery, and business models isn't harmful to a free internet?
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micromanagement
You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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It's like how some states outlawed credit card surcharges, so businesses offered cash discounts instead. It's the same dang thing!
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It's like how some states outlawed credit card surcharges, so businesses offered cash discounts instead. It's the same dang thing!
Actually, those are the payment network rules (like Visa) for merchants. It's basically an image thing. They don't want a direct penalty attached to using the card, even though it amounts to the same thing.
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So by NOT charging people for what can be a sizable amount of data usage, we're harming poor people?
Think carefully... what phone company offers a Netflix-sized data plan for $8/month? Or do you think Netflix pays them more than $8/month for you to get "free" Netflix?
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Without knowing what AT&T's actual marginal cost to transfer that data is, you're only guessing. If it's effectively free to them because of i.e. peering agreements, CDNs within their own network, other contracts, or any number of other reasons, then your entire argument is moot.
I actually thought the most expensive thing, bandwidth-wise, is the wireless last mile, not the multi-Gbps fiber from the base station. So those people enjoying zero cost of certain services could easily mean that I'd be paying for their last mile with my own traffic.
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Because the cost differences are below the noise level of their cost structure? Seriously, do you think that Comcast would not allow Netflix (1/3 of ALL traffic) to install their CDN boxes that would make the Netflox packets cheaper to transport if the savings for Comcast were significant?
This zero rating is an anti-competitive move that
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What kind of phone contract do you have which charges more for long distance? I haven't seen that for a long time.
A more relevant example would be when long-distance and mobile companies charged more to connect calls to other networks. But in those cases, the cost to connect those calls at that time was not trivial.
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This zero rating can be an anti-competitive move that is unrelated to costs.
Fixed that for you.
In Comcast's case, zero-rating their own services while not upgrading backbone links to allow Netflix traffic was most certainly anti-competitive. In T-Mobile's case, not offering their own streaming services and not collecting a single cent from their zero-rated "partners" (look up how to become a partner; you can enroll your personal media server if it can provide a stream at less than 1.5Mbps), not so much.
Comcast's actions prevented a competitor from providing decent service, with
Re:SJWs must in league with the ISPs... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm struggling to find the argument for network neturality here
I'll help.
A company decides to give people unlimited data use on preferred, highly popular services. Services that those same communities really, really want.
A company decides to limit customer's access to the internet, while giving unlimited access to their business partners. This is done so that the companies can make more money. The term for this type of business practice is called racketeering. "Racketeering is the act of offering of a dishonest service (a 'racket') to solve a problem that wouldn't otherwise exist without the enterprise offering the service.
The companies benefiting from zero rating are also engaging in a business practice which is an attempt to keep their own income higher than they would be in an unrestricted market. The consumer is the one who has the least control of the situation and is thus the one most harmed.
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If an ISP wants to offer zero-rating for services fitting a given set of technical specifications (e.g. video streams under 1.5Mbps which can be detected as such) at no cost to participating providers, given the user's ability to enable or disable the service, what's the problem? More to the p
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I did. In fact I read your post a few times. Essentially what you've done is said "your argument amounts to X" without making any connection between X and my argument. That's called a strawman argument, but I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt and a chance to actually make the argument you skipped.
To quote you:
While most of what you've said here is correct, none of that is relevant to this discussion
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Your argument amounts to "we shouldn't be allowed to have nice things that might be able to be abused, whether or not they're being abused"...
You oversimplify the situation. You also bias toward what they do by using the word "nice things" in place. I somewhat understand it is "nice" for you because you are a part of the situation. However, this does not mean there is no consequence or is nice to others.
A good example has already stated by jbmartin6 about Pandora (music service). Your argument toward the example is, however, unreasonable. You said that just telling the provider what you prefer to use, then the provider will lower the cost for you
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I somewhat understand it is "nice" for you because you are a part of the situation.
Then you understand incorrectly; I have unlimited LTE data on two devices and uncapped internet at home. Zero-rating provides literally zero benefit to me.
You said that just telling the provider what you prefer to use, then the provider will lower the cost for you.
No, I said (and specifically relating to T-Mobile, as jbmartin6 had mentioned) to contact the streaming provider you prefer to use and pressure them to participate in T-Mobile's (free and open to any provider who wishes to sign up) Music Freedom program. Currently, there are 40 providers participating, not including personal servers registered by individu [t-mobile.com]
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Problem: Zero-rating (can be used to hinder competition)
Solution: Require that no fee be charged for zero-rating and that it be voluntary for all parties involved and open-access for any providers wishing to participate. Bar companies who fail to uphold this standard from using it at all and fine them heavily.
I think we're in agreement on that last bit; your proposal simply lacks resolution. I may be wrong, but I'd as
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The argument is "because I'm rich, I can watch video from any site on the Internet I want (anything from Ted.com to $porn_site) without worrying about data caps, but poor people can only afford to use sites that are zero-rated which limits and/or censors them." Why should only rich people be able to watch Ted talks?
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If the solution is only a few people can have it, thus nobody should have it, and nobody should be better off because of other people being hurt, then you're just harming society.
It's okay for rich people to have toys the rest of us couldn't afford anyway *even if we took those toys away*.
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Great, we'll ensure that rather than having access to some video sources, they have access to none.
Mission accomplished.
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The argument is "because I'm rich, I can vacation anywhere I want (anything from Aspen to Bangkok) without worrying about airline or hotel costs, but poor people can only afford to vacation at public parks" Why should only rich people be able to vacation in Aspen?
The argument is "because I'm rich, I can eat anything I want (anything from fois gras to Beluga caviar) without worrying about grocery bils, but poor people can only afford to eat at McDonald's off the dollar menu" Why should only rich people be ab
Re:Legislating pricing is doomed to failure (Score:4, Insightful)
"Legislating pricing" is not what's happening here. You imply that net neutrality is some sort of government subsidy; it is not. In reality, it's basically just a rule that ISPs have to provide the whole Internet instead of picking some subset (often "coincidentally" controlled by them) to provide at the base cost and then charging extra for the rest.
Re: Legislating pricing is doomed to failure (Score:2)
The root of the problem is pricing. Unlimited flat rate data plans permit maximum data use with predictable and acceptable cost to the user. The provider finds they either exceed expected costs or determine the market will bear higher prices /limited bandwidth, and we get either higher prices or throttling /caps.
Forcing providers to abandon caps /throttling leaves them only with pricing.
When providers determine that their customers are both end users and services (like Netflix or Yahoo!) then they may exe
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That'll be $3,240 per sustained Mbps. We take credit cards.
(Show your work: 86400 seconds per day, times 30 days per month, times $10 per GB, times 1 GB per 8000 Mbit)
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Thats not a bad price for a 1GBps dedicated symmetrical line with SLA.
At least out not out here in the sticks anyway.
I could get a 2GBps dedicated line with SLA for $12K/month