HBO Max Won't Hit AT&T Data Caps, But Netflix and Disney Plus Will (theverge.com) 79
HBO Max, AT&T's big bet on the future of streaming, will be excused from AT&T's mobile data caps, while competing services like Netflix and Disney Plus will use up your data. From a report: That's the follow-up from a Vergecast conversation with Tony Goncalves, the AT&T executive in charge of HBO Max. Asked whether HBO Max would hit the cap, Goncalves said his team "had the conversation" but didn't have the answer. AT&T later confirmed to The Verge that HBO Max will be excused from the company's traditional data caps and the soft data caps on unlimited plans. According to an AT&T executive familiar with the matter, HBO Max is using AT&T's "sponsored data" system, which technically allows any company to pay to excuse its services from data caps. But since AT&T owns HBO Max, it's just paying itself: the data fee shows up on the HBO Max books as an expense and on the AT&T Mobility books as revenue. For AT&T as a whole, it zeroes out. Compare that to a competitor like Netflix, which could theoretically pay AT&T for sponsored data, but it would be a pure cost.
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Re:Net neutrality violated? (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is, more to the point, precisely why net neutrality advocates decry zero-rating as a surefire way to encourage antitrust violations. We said this would keep happening if the FCC didn't enforce net neutrality, and sure enough, it is.
Re: Net neutrality violated? (Score:1)
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The repealed rules were a joke, and we said so at the time. They were just the best thing that Congress could realistically get passed.
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They might be if that was still a thing. But it's not.
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Sure, if net neutrality were still a thing.
Net Neutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
"Killing Net Neutrality actually makes the internet better." - Ted Cruz
"Removing net neutrality will create more competition." - Donald Trump
Riiiiiiiigggghhhtttt...... and the proof is here.
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"Killing Net Neutrality actually makes the internet better." - Ted Cruz
"Removing net neutrality will create more competition." - Donald Trump
Riiiiiiiigggghhhtttt...... and the proof is here.
As a reminder, T-Mobile was already doing this while NN regulations were in place with their 'binge on' feature/service. I suppose they might have been forced to stop by now if NN had remained in place. But this exact practice was practically invented under Net Neutrality.
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Wasn't T-Mobile just doing it for content providers that installed servers into it's network?
Maybe? How exactly is that different than general paid prioritization?
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The difference here is that the option to install a server on the T-mobile network was open to everyone. There is no option here for Disney+ or Nteflix to get in on the zero rated content.
Re:Net Neutrality (Score:4, Informative)
No, it was universal to any video service, and it also rate limited them, which is how they made it possible. To be fair, wireless currently does not (and who knows if/when it will) have the capacity to stream HD content for the masses, and most people use video on such a small screen that it's not really worth having HD content anyways. T-Mobile did it in a way that was content provider neutral. The only thing that really set it apart was that video (and music as well) content was exempt from data metering.
I think T-Mobile still does that to this day, but basically everybody on t-mobile is on some kind of unlimited plan these days (people on the older simple choice plans were upgraded to unlimited data for free and still pay the older lower monthly rate,) so it's kind of moot now.
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No. T-Mobile also did it for Pokemon GO. (Not that Pokemon GO uses any appreciable amount of data.)
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T-Mobile was already doing this while NN regulations were in place [...] this exact practice was practically invented under Net Neutrality.
You seem to be unaware that wireless networks in the US have largely been exempt from NN regulations all along, hence why "zero-rating" practices such as Binge On were allowed to happen at the same time that NN regulations barred similar activities on wireline networks.
And if you want an example, you need look no further than AT&T itself. The FCC notably barred AT&T from zero-rating DirecTV to their broadband subscribers as a condition of the merger between AT&T and DirecTV in 2015 (here's the F [fcc.gov]
Re: Net Neutrality (Score:1)
Illegal under Net Neutrality (Score:2)
AT&T is giving special privileges to a content provider it has a financial stake in which would not be allowed under Net Neutrality.
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Please explain to us how exactly the next neutrality laws we had, or any proposed, would stop this.
I don't actually see what is the problem here - AT&T is giving something away for free here, not charging extra for anything else.
If Net Neutrality would stip companies from giving away some free services, why should anyone support it again?
Kendall, you must know what TINSTAAFL means? I don't know if this would have been enforced under the previous regime, but this is paid prioritization. From TFS
the data fee shows up on the HBO Max books as an expense and on the AT&T Mobility books as revenue
HBO is paying to prioritize their data. And HBO happens to be owned by AT&T. It still sounds suspiciously similar to T-Mobile's nonsense they've been doing since before the NN changes but this is what keeps NN activists up at night.
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HBO Max, AT&T's big bet on the future of streaming, will be excused from AT&T's mobile data caps
Re: Net Neutrality (Score:1)
This was the point of repealing net neutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
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So binge 20 hours on HBO Max, no problem, then a half hour on Netflix and you get overage charges even though HBO took up most of the allotment.
Need some rule changes I think (Score:5, Insightful)
A company shouldn't be allowed to own both the pipes that deliver it and produce / provide the content since this will always create a situation where they will give preference / priority to their own data.
Re:Need some rule changes I think (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, this is a clear case for anti-trust enforcement.
But the regulators found out a long time ago that you can get people to view these laws as ineffective by not enforcing them, creating an initiative for people to ask for more regulation. Funny how that works out right?
People literally begged government for this, and now act shocked that it has come to pass... and that cherry on top is that they still do not understand how they were begging for it... a fool and their liberty are soon parted just like a fool and their money!
Re: Need some rule changes I think (Score:1)
Re:Need some rule changes I think (Score:5, Insightful)
I've said before and I'll re-iterate here; if you own the infrastructure, that should be your business. If you supply the service/connection/media, that should be your business. You should not be allowed to do both because there will always be a conflict of interest that goes against the common good. Capitalism will always favor personal (company) greed over the well being of anyone else. Anyone who does both (eg. AT&T) should be separated into two companies: one that owns the hardware, one that owns the software. The hardware company should sell access fairly to anyone who wants to use it. The software company handles the service itself and sells access to their service using whatever physical system they license for connectivity.
A bit more nuanced than that (Score:3)
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It's also worth noting that even when government-granted monopolies are lifted, the overwhelming majority of second cable companies go out of business within the first couple of years, because it simply isn't profitable to have multiple companies maintaining so much expensive infrastructure, and it is very easy for incumbent providers to price the newcomers out of business, then raise rates again.
The only way that ISP or cable competition can work well is if the infrastructure is owned by a single nonprofi
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Or...or...compel them to provide the pipe at-cost and without any discriminatory practices to their competitors, just as AT&T was forced to do with long distance calls back in the day or how NN operated for most of its time.
I'm fine with a company having a vertically-oriented business—customers frequently benefit because it can lead to a higher quality, more tightly-integrated product—but if there is any exclusivity to the pipe or platform (e.g. the city will only let one company lay wire, t
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The moment of truth has come. (Score:5, Insightful)
As I recall, Ajit Pai said anti-trust laws should be used to prevent this very type of thing from happening. I certainly hope they weren't a bunch of lying bastards and are in fact going to hit AT&T with some antitrust litigation that will blow their panties off.
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lol... that is just one of the reasons I said this is a bunch of false outrage.
The false hood does not stem from the fact that people are upset just the false direction they are going to point it.
Projection is the way for most folks around here!
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The outrage is absolutely justified regardless of what is supposed to protect them from this. Net neutrality was explicit in it's protection while anti-trust laws are implicit. As a result it could easily be years before there is a decision one way or the other while explicit protections could quickly yield a rapid injunction to prevent further damage.
I certainly hope you are correct in your analysis but I won't be holding my breath.
Of course they should. (Score:3)
Of course anti-trust laws should apply. But, Ajit is not in charge of the SEC or the Justice Department.
So sad. I'm sure he feels your pain. He would surely do something about this tragedy if only he could.
HBOMax won't affect caps (Score:1, Insightful)
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Well most of their content is coming from the NTSC broadcast days, so yeah, 4k isn't gonna do much for you besides send you upscaled garbage at the cost of network congestion.
May as well just let the hardware in your TV upscale it and save the bandwidth.
It's OK (Score:3)
My ISP tacks a fee onto HBO Max but allows Netflix and others to bypass data caps.
Re:It's OK (Score:5, Insightful)
My ISP tacks a fee onto HBO Max but allows Netflix and others to bypass data caps.
Ah something the powers that be promised would never happen if they were allowed to kill Net Neutrality. And yet here it is.
Oh really? (Score:4, Funny)
People still actually watch HBO? GoT kinda made sense even though they fucking ruined it. There is literally nothing worthwhile on that network.
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Westworld?
Frankly with all the buffering HBO is nearly unwatchable by streaming though.
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Westworld fell apart at the end of Season 1. Season 2 was a joke. Season 3 is a damned meme.
Just watch the first few half of Season 1, then watch the movie (and Futureworld).
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The only thing worth while is Last Week Tonight, and that's only worthwhile because John Oliver shits over HBO and AT&T in almost every episode.
This is not the internet any longer (Score:2)
The internet doesn't work like this. If companies pay the ISPs to get around data caps (I think they are really paying to colocate their servers in places that get around the data caps), then we are returning to the 1980s/1990s design of services like Prodigy, Compuserve, and AOL. Let me remind everyone of how that model worked:
Those "Big 3" ran banks the modems, stored all the data, and ran the "web sites." So if a department store wanted to have their merchandise available on AOL, the department store
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Of course they want a fixed price. Can you imagine the uproar against autoplay video ads if they directly cost you money? All their tracking they sell to build better ad targeting profiles would be worthless!
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net neutered (Score:2)
This is why we had net neutrality. bewm.
It does NOT zero out. $20 billion / year 5G (Score:1)
First, of course legally and politically there are antitrust concerns with this type of thing, with vertical integration in large companies. I want to be very clear I'm NOT saying "this is no problem". It's something for the antitrust division and others to maybe look into.
That said, let's not get sloppy with artithmetic and accounting and make mathematically false statements in order to support a legal or political position. It is NOT true that the bandwidth costs them nothing. There is a very good reaso
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Bandwidth doesn't cost them nothing but throughput does cost them nothing. However, with usage-based billing, they are charging for bandwidth and then again for throughput, which is, at best, completely dishonest (but they get away with it because every other "ISP" does too now. In a large part because people are fucking idiots who think mobile should cost by the minute.)
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At your house, the difference between bandwidth and throughput is whether you are using it right now.
Once you have more than 1,000 users, there is always somebody using it and throughput at peak times and bandwidth are the exact same thing.
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Which is why attempting to bill them as just bandwidth is fraud.
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You can (and I do) buy bandwidth that is for 24/7 dedicated use. It costs around $80 per Mbps, depending on volume and quality (jitter, latency, packet loss). So for example I used to have 20 Mps from a cheap provider, Cogent-style bandwidth, for about $600/month.
At home, you're not downloading full speed 24/7, so it would be wasteful to have that bandwidth sitting unused 99% of the time. In order to get good speed foe the several minutes per day that you are actually downloading, without paying $1,500/mon
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I don't need someone with a 7-digit SID explaining how the internet works. Thanks.
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Is that really dishonest? Is that not the same as the water company charging for infrastructure and for actual water usage as separate items?
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I also don't believe that water should be commercialized so...
Forget net neutrality. (Score:3)
The real crime here is charging for bandwidth and also for usage. Bandwidth is bandwidth and shouldn't change over time based on how much you pay.
That's bullshit, and the fact that we allowed this broken and nonsensical model to become the norm means that net neutrality is already dead.
common carrier exceptions? (Score:2)
To what degree this affect their stand on "common carrier" provisions?
Anti-trust is the solution to every problem (Score:2)
From "information services" (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Google..etc) censorship to NN and giant eyeball network monopolies vertically integrating content services there is one magic solution that fixes everything without ever having to get into the weeds of addressing individual symptoms.
Break them up into bite sized bits. Don't allow continuous runaway aggregation into the hands of fewer and fewer. Don't allow previously halfway functioning markets to devolve into defacto monopolies and duopolies. Insist u
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"Break them up into bite sized bits. Don't allow continuous runaway aggregation into the hands of fewer and fewer."
Forgive my cynicism, but...yeah, like that's going to happen.
I Don't Get the Big Deal (Score:1)
Canadian carriers tried this and failed. (Score:3)
Canadian carriers (which are even more vertically integrated than American carriers) tried this exact thing, trying to exempt their own video streaming services from data caps. Consumers objected, and complaints were filed with the regulator that they were in violation of net neutrality regulations. The regulator agreed with the consumers and ordered the carriers to stop.
Welcome to the FCC's Post-Net-Neutrality world... (Score:2)
... this is EXACTLY what net-neutrality would have stopped:
Technical favoritism of a internet provider's content business over that of it's competitors.
I'm sure we can all see how stopping this would be inhibiting "innovation" in internet services.
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It would be nice ... (Score:2)
All these "streaming" services need to let you stream at the highest bandwidth and resolution they support, notwithstanding the resolution of the display device. They are all getting into the "compressed all to ratshit" quality wars. And decent audio would be nice too. NetFlix has lately started streaming in "postage stamp" SD with a so-called 1080p stream. They need to stop that shit. As far as I can tell, all the other "streaming" was already sending "postage stamp" SD and just "calling it" HD.
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That's their "big bet on the future of streaming"? (Score:2)
Will HBOMax fall flat due to bureaucratic incompetence like DirecTV/AT&TTV Now?
Internet Pipes (Score:1)