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Is AT&T Building the Ultimate Walled Garden?
itwbennett writes "The announcement earlier this week that AT&T joined OpenStack was greeted with much fanfare (of the 'woo hoo for open source' variety). But dig into why AT&T decided to sign up for OpenStack and things get a lot more interesting. 'AT&T is about to take on Amazon's EC2 and S2 cloud services, and OpenStack's technology is going to be the engine that drives it,' writes blogger Brian Profit. 'Leaving aside the potential problems for user privacy here — and oh, there are many to be addressed to be sure — a plan such as this would represent a stunning coup for AT&T, since they would be able to provide the one thing Apple and Google have not been able to have in their respective plans to own the entire stack: the network on which all communications must flow.'"
When I first began using an iPhone ( I had bought the phone used and it was NOT subsidized
by AT&T ), AT&T added fees to my monthly bill for data service.
I called them and told them I had no intention of using data service, which was quite true.
The "friendly" AT&T rep told me that if I had an iPhone "I had no choice" but to pay for data
service whether IU used it or not, because the iPhone "would use data whether it was switched
off or not" which is of course utter bullshit.
Well, my contract with AT&T has ended, and I am going to kiss AT&T goodbye very soon. You see,
I DO have a choice and it will be a cold day in hell before I ever pay to use AT&T "services" again.
( which by the way suck horribly in many areas of the US, of course that is common knowledge in the tech world ).
I cannot think of a company I have ever detested as much as I detest AT&T. And AT&T provided me with all the reasons why.
Well, never say never...
that's why they're doing increasing limiting of "open" internet from their networks - that's where data caps come in. that's how they'll get to control the flow, get to control what data you as a consumer can get.
the next step is to provide with big fanfare, and of course some small monthly fee, unlimited access to their own cloud services. in that step they'll provide you netflix streaming from their network and they will also make netflix(or similar content provider) pay them as well - the kick is they will still keep saying they're net neutral and that they aren't throttling services based on bribes since on your extremely limited internet plan they don't, that will work as normal but it'll have enough quota to only read dilbert strips - they'll just have premium services that won't be metered and to get to that party you as a content provider will need to provide only content they'll figure is good for their image and . who doesn't love double billing and limited options? users won't, but the network operator just loves this and gives them something to do all year to negotiate on behalf of the users which network services they'll have the honor of using. gives a nice power trip too and which ceo doesn't like that. gives them a justification to do stupidly shitty customized firmwares too, lot's of companies lobbying for that crap.
this information doesn't come from any leaked memos or private conversations - it's just logical, it's how some 3g network providers started their networks but users wouldn't go for that shit and competition in most markets took care of that such plans didn't fly. fuck 'em - switch operators if you can to one that doesn't try to become the content provider middle-negotiator. but this is what all data caps are about - putting you into a position where the isp's(mobile or landline) competing media provider solutions are starting to look like a good choice.
the best solution for consumers would be to ban such practices outright, make the network operator compete with what should be their product, with what they were licensed to do: to provide a bridge to the internet. competition can't work if for in order to compete as media provider you'll have to stick shares to at&t's of the world.
(I think in USA verizon has pretty much publicized such plans though, iirc they ran a system bit like this already though? not from USA so not exactly sure, but you could look into uk threes walled garden shtifest approach from few years back for inspiration too, or any cable company which would rather have you stream payperview from them than from the open internet seas, and fyi in finland one operator did tv over mobile, so that they didn't meter it. nobody used it of course and as all operators were forced to go with all you can eat 3g plans pretty fast anyhow, but before that the operators still had wet dreams about being able to influence which webservices their users use - it was supposed to be a big, big biiiig part of their business to be able to pocket money for that like fucking mobsters)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.