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AT&T Introduces "Sponsored Data" Allowing Services to Bypass 4G Data Caps
sirhan writes with news that AT&T has announced a program that allows companies to pay for their services to bypass mobile data caps. "With the new Sponsored Data service, data charges resulting from eligible uses will be billed directly to the sponsoring company ... Customers will see the service offered as AT&T Sponsored Data, and the usage will appear on their monthly invoice as Sponsored Data. Sponsored Data will be delivered at the same speed and performance as any non-Sponsored Data content." The Verge comments: "If YouTube doesn't hit your data cap but Vimeo does, most people are going to watch YouTube. If Facebook feels threatened by Snapchat and launches Poke with free data, maybe it doesn't get completely ignored and fail. If Apple Maps launched with free data for navigation, maybe we'd all be driving off bridges instead of downloading Google Maps for iOS."
Or, think of distributed services: Mediagoblin vs Flickr, pump.io vs twitter, ownCloud vs Google Apps. This is probably a sign that data caps are here to stay, at least for AT&T subscribers (and if it's successful...).
This is a clever idea. After all, now they are potentially getting money from deep corporate pockets, while at the same time giving their customers a bit more. Seems like it might be a win-win for AT&T.
And thus begins the balkanized internet and the end of network neutrality, where service providers can start negotiating big bundle provisioning of their services over others.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This is bad for the market. The glory of the internet is that the barrier ro entry is so low. IF you start making it to where a company has to pay for the bandwidth of its users, then you raise the barrier of entry. Not good for innovation.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
It's just a repackaging of the old net-discrimination ideas that provoked the Net Neutrality debate.
Make data allowances artificially low, and charge content providers to "ensure" they are not throttled. It's not in the interests of consumers, and it's not in the interests of content providers.
I can see why AT&T might like it though...
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
The issue with wireless data is entirely about last mile, the frequencies alotted and the limits of transfer within a cell at any given moment. Peering works on wired networks because throughput on the last mile outstrips deployment, the exact opposite issue of wireless networks.
Arguing that their obscene data caps are because of the wireless bandwith limits, then turning around and offering this without any true benefit to their bandwith issue other than their bottom line, is assinine.
This is called "double dipping". These providers are not supposed to be able to do this according to the common carrier rules. The subscriber pays and they get their allotment. Any other payments to "overlook" a data cap that are made by a third party violates the common carrier rules because it creates an unfair advantage for large companies. They can afford to pay a fee to basically make the little guy penalized (having the little guys data count against the subscriber). If the subscribers complained to the FCC this pilot project would be stopped dead in its tracks.
I fear though that the only people that would care are the technically minded subscribers. The others would be snowed by some marketing speak.
Nothing is impossible. It just hasn't been figured out yet.
There is nothing new under the sun:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL#History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cable
Palm trees and 8
so the big corporate sponsors can pay to keep the sheep quietly fed and herded. this sounds like the internet equivalent of corporate 'sponsors' making it so that the supermarket quality food and produce is so much more expensive than a sack-of-10 whitecastles or a greesy $5 pizza from papa johns that can feed a poor family of four.
Find a way to proxy all your data through a Sponsored Data service, and bypass your cap.
What makes this interesting is the inversion of control. For years, net neutrality has basically hinged on the fact that users are paying their ISP for bandwidth, so it's up to the user what they do with it. This idea completely inverts that, so the user has absolutely no control anymore.
We were worried that walled gardens like Facebook were turning the Web into a consumer service, well this will do the same for the Internet itself.
This is one of a few good steps AT&T is finally taking to get their business back on track. Now all we can do is wait to see how they back stabbed us with something secretive. This is classic misdirection. Well played sirs, but two can play this game. I'm going to do the opposite of what you want and renew my two year contract.
This is a clever idea. After all, now they are potentially getting money from deep corporate pockets, while at the same time giving their customers a bit more.
Are you an AT&T PR person? Why did you just parrot what the article (press release, really) said?
Oh shit! Talk about spin, baby! Any and ALL extra costs these companies incur, they WILL pass the costs on to the consumer.
Remember folks, corporate America is ALWAYS without exception, trying to pick your pocket.
This is just yet another way that they are degrading our service and spinning it like they are doing us a favor.
God, the American consumer is just a bunch of suckers - or just accepting the inevitable because there really isn't anything we can do about it because ATT and the rest of the telecom industry has Congress in their pockets.
the realist in me cant wait for this ayn-rand-as-a-service model to fail quietly another testament to ATT's pissbucket service in general. when given the opportunity, people will find other means to consume their favourite-as-a-service product that dont require sponsorship from some obtuse telecommunications conglomerate. every device on the planet has the option to connect to a wireless network, and that network likely doesnt have the kind of caps we're talking about in 4G land. WiMAX and municipal projects, library wireless and other providers will just make the effort that much more futile.
but im an old man (whats berkley vs ATT?) and the last big innovation for me was adding another monitor. Every turtleneck wearing coffee guzzling poseur giving their IDevice shaken-baby-syndrome in cap-induced frustration is instantly drowned out in the roaring cacophany of my mighty model M. Every tween fruit slashing and bird launching their way to mediocrity, tramp stamps and low test scores, is rendered irrelevant by my Thinkpad TrackPoint, gingerly lubricated in years of fine oils from chester cheetah himself. And the road warrior adjacent my supple yet torturous airport lounge chair gazes upon me as some sort of mystic christgod. For from the aether my sorcery has conjured up hundreds of thousands of documents when his most fervent efforts could not. in bated breath he will ask me, "how?" as his battery fails and his wireless bars recede. "local, repository." will be the words I visit upon him and like a cry so maddening unto his ears he will be rendered forever enlightened.
now if you'll please get off my lawn, I need to go back inside. the wheel is on.
Good people go to bed earlier.
This company sucks big time. And I thought I remembered reading a few months ago that they supported net neutrality. Total BS. Even Verizon does better
This should be clearly illegal and i hope they get slapped down for this as its anti-competitive.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This would be unprecedented.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This sounds like a great idea, until you are apprised of the facts.
1/ The actual cost of mobile data is a tiny fraction of what carriers charge customers.
2/ Most carriers already run their own un-metered versions of popular services, in direct competition to general internet services.
3/ The data caps are completely arbitrary but seem to be capped at just below what would be needed for efficient use of outside services.
4/ The agreed payment protocol for internet services is that each party pays for provision of their own segments and does a piering agreement for any directional disparity on data carriage.
Therefore, AT&T is double dipping for the same data, engaged in anti-competitive practices and running a price fixing cartel against the price of data.
"In this I would trust AT&T about as far as I could spit out a fully grown sewer rat"
With the end of net neutrality, it was really only a matter of time before we started to see the internet turn into a place where the big companies control the data, and the little guys and startups get shut out. Free market my ass.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
It depends on how AT&T prices the back end of their services. It might be worth it to get the minimum data plan ($15 for 200MB on a tablet, for example...if they still have that) and sign up with a bandwidth proxy to route all traffic through their server at, say, $2-5/GB, if the backend rates are advantageous enough. I don't think AT&T will allow this, as it would cut into their profits for the medium-metered plans.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Why would a company sign up for this? Additional business, sure, but also for identifying information on users. If you call an 800 number, the called party gets your phone number, even if it is blocked, because they are the phone company's customer paying for the call. If they pay extra, they get it in real time. I suppose the plan is to do the same with sponsored data service.
As with 800 service, the sponsoring company might choose the areas to which it would pay for the data delivery, perhaps with granularity down to the cell site. This would be great for selling local advertising, and avoiding wasting money on low income areas and areas outside the desired marketing region. Balkanize and rule!
I thought they already admitted the caps have nothing to do with congestion?
I wonder how much it would cost a quasi-turn based action RPG dev like me to get no data caps for trickling in world-battle-map updates so you don't have to wait to get your game on. I mean, in the middle of the night streaming in a bunch of data isn't costing them congestion issues. The hardware has to be there whether anyone's using it or not. I bet it'll be too pricey for me. Guess folks will just have to play it on their wired connections. So much for "progress".
If we had a few more competitors this wouldn't happen.
AT&T should be charging for something more technical and obscure. Then they could argue that it's "complicated" and not about net neutrality.
So, the original reason for data caps were that a few unscrupulous users were hogging all of the bandwidth and making everyone else suffer through a poor network experience...
I guess either that wasn't the real reason or AT&T doesn't mind if you have a poor network experience as long as they get more money...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
So, 2014 is to be the year the concept of Net Neutrality is officialy dead and buried. A sad time for the net indeed.
What bothers me is the additional revenue this will generate for AT&T may entice Sprint to go the same route by ending unlimited LTE and going to caps and metering. It's just another enticement. I'm digging my Sprint service just as it is.
Improved compression? Distributed, longer-term caching? Dynamic mesh networking?
Replacing the internet is a bit ambitious, but perhaps there is some way to lessen the need for such amounts of data, or to opportunistically transfer it by other means.
AT&T is almost back to its former monopolistic glory and feels confident enough to squeeze every dime out of all the content providers and customers. Congratulations AT&T for bringing back the old days.
Thank goodness I don't have them anymore. Oh wait, yes there are other carriers out there. I can see how this can backfire on AT&T. Instead of paying AT&T for the privilege of unlimited data to their customer. I see content providers encouraging their customers to choose a better carrier.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Yet AT&T profited by $7.3 billion last year, which is enough to replace 2.3% of their assets (including buildings and wires).
Probably not true. If you are looking at their balance sheet for asset value, remember that the assets shown are at book value, not replacement value. Many of those assets were bought a long time ago for prices that are significantly less than they would cost today. This is a perfectly normal accounting practice which makes sense for a number of arcane reasons but you can be fairly confident that AT&T's assets on their balance sheet probably understates their real worth if they had to go out and buy them today or if they were to sell them outside of a forced liquidation.
They've had sustained profits for many years, but yet there's still not enough bandwidth.
That doesn't mean they can decide to plow all profits back into infrastructure realistically, though I do agree with you that they could do a lot more than they have been.
...throttling youtube!!!
And that'll work until some massive content carrier builds out their own damn network and makes it significantly cheaper for their own customers to access their content than everyone else. Guess who's doing that right now.... Google. They have their fingers in all the right pies to start eviscerating the current network providers, and everyone's going to be all stunned when that's what starts happening.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
this is what they are doing with the rest of that bandwidth they stole from their 'unlimited' customers
Not clever.
Not a good idea
They wanted a way to double bill the big names, now they think they have it.
Content providers - don't capitulate. Turn the tables on AT&T. Tell AT&T to allow their content to flow free of charge, or they will BLOCK all AT&T Customers.
How long will AT&T last as an internet provider if the big content companies don't allow AT&T customers access to their content. Less than a month I'd say.
Call it what it is, a bold-faced attempt to get content providers to pay twice for their internet connection and bandwidth.
So, instead of increasing prices on the Demand side of wireless data, the carriers are creating new revenue on the Supply (content) side. Sounds logical, but the next step will be data shaping so that sponsored data will get priority over non-sponsored data. The notable exception will be the carriers' media partners (AT&T Wireless has their cousins at U-Verse, Verizon has bundling with COX, etc.). As data caps inevitably drop, you'll be able to stream your CNN and Duck Dynasty, and you'll get your iTunes and Google Play; but any independent purveyor of media will now have a much higher cost to market, because they will pay up to get access to your device via wireless networks. This is a squeeze on Netflix and the would be Netflix competitors out there.
The carriers want to control your access to media and charge you more for media that isn't generating direct revenue for them (via subscription or advertising). This is why they oppose public wifi. It is a classic case of the troll under the bridge.
It's not a popular idea on Slashdot, but a lot of the problems with sponsored data, Net Neutrality, and data caps could be alleviated by switching to a pay-per-usage plan.
The text below is something I posted on Slashdot a while ago that makes the case for pay-per-usage or per-KB plans.
The product that the ISPs are providing is network connectivity and downloads. Under the current system, the business (ISP) attempts to limit the amount of product (downloads) that the customer can purchase. When a business tries to limit how much of their product you can purchase, it should be an indication that the pricing model is broken.
Using a straight pay-per-KB plan would benefit most customers. If your wireless provider doesn't offer service in your area, they don't get paid. Currently, it's in AT&T's best interest to offer the bare minimum connection speeds and coverage just to keep people from changing wireless providers. If a pay-per-KB plan were in place, AT&T would be forced to upgrade their network before they would be paid. It would be in the ISPs' best interest to provide the fastest and most complete coverage. It would also benefit the wireless provider to encourage tethering and VoIP, which are currently restricted in many plans.
The issue of net neutrality could also be solved with a pay-per-KB plan. All packets would be delivered without filtering as quickly as possible to their destinations, regardless of content. If the ISP wants to recoup costs, let them negotiate cost-offsets from the service providers. I, as a consumer, prefer Google over Bing. But, if Microsoft agreed to pay for half of my traffic to Bing, I'd consider switching. The traffic would be delivered at the same speed regardless of the source/destination; it would just cost the consumer less money.
Even as someone who streams a fair amount of video and music, I'd still prefer a pay-per-KB plan. It would certainly give my ISP an incentive to offer me faster download speeds. With a pay-per-KB plan, you could have automated notifications that let you know when your bill hits certain dollar amounts. For instance, my Internet budget is $100 per month, so I'd like a notification when my bill hits $80 so that I know I need to start conserving bandwidth for the remainder of the month.
Also, on months that I travel or decide to read a book instead of watch Netflix movies, I'd like to pay less. The current pricing system does not allow that. If you're not worried about going over the monthly data cap limit because you don't use anywhere near the limit, you're paying too much for your monthly ISP subscription.
I think most people pay for electricity by how much they consume. That's certainly the way it has been everywhere I've lived. While I do try to conserve energy, I don't count the seconds every time I turn on the lights. If I need the lights on or want to watch TV, I do it without thinking about how much I'm paying per second for the energy costs. The Internet could be the same way.
You can have my uncapped data plan when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Since I don't watch TV on my phone 24-7, my data usage is only ~1GB over the last two years, so this is actually a moot point.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They are passing my data through a telegraph?
Voice compression can use 32 kbit/sec. That means one minute of compressed voice is about a quarter of a megabyte of data. A 4 GB data plan is equivalent to 16,000 minutes of voice data... So, if a 4 GB data plan costs $200, that is equivalent to 80 minutes of voice for $1.
People bitching about cell phone data caps bug me for that reason.
Doesn't this completely go against it?
Now all they have to do is slowly but surely decrease the normal cap or increase its price per megabyte and they will have achieved the tiered internet where they're paid for each different channel, just as they've always wanted.
I think that now that so much of internet access is becoming metered, I think we can revisit the validity of the 70's & 80's computer hacking laws that made advertising by third parties of questionable legality.
The general legal theory held that the use of computing cycles was purely up to the discretion of the owner / designated administrator (mainframe model) and that unauthorized / unwanted use of computing cycles was a form of theft as codified in the early computer hacking laws. This was often bandied around as a way to legitimize advertising, especially before anyone gave any credence to the drive-by EULA. Current EULA usage still doesn't pass common law of sniff tests, but we're stuck with an IP obsessed legal system that is going to back unnegotiated / unsigned contracts.
On the other hand, could we maybe get the FCC (at least in the US) to step in and say that consumers have the end say on data usage on devices on metered connections. You shouldn't need a rooted Android phone to control the wasteful bandwidth usage of some apps. Metered data and overage costs make this all the more relevant.
Imagine an alternate scenario. The jack-offs at E-sport League broke the law by installing Bitcoin mining software inside their application. Why do we consider bandwidth usage different? The argument that one agrees to a EULA with advertising terms does not spell out a known, measured bandwidth allocation for the advertising, and thus cannot be considered to be an expected cost by the consumer, nor would anyone consider a EULA that included CPU / GPU usage for Bitcoin mining to be legally valid.
The main argument about libertarianism is to reduce government oversight. However, the only way you can make that work is if the individuals are vehement about defending themselves in court.
Seen simplistically, it basically moves the fight between large corporations and the individual from the legislature to the judiciary.
While I like the idea in general, a more accurate mapping of the costs would be to do it like my power/water/gas bills.
There would be a fixed monthly cost to cover the cost of simply having a line to my house, and then a variable per-GB cost to cover the data consumption.
In order to ensure fairness we could even follow utility pricing and have a rate review board that would have to approve rate increases. That way a reasonable profit could be ensured, but they'd be disallowed from raking the consumers over the coals.
Oh wait...
DAMN IT!
yep theirs no reason a cell phone should be faster then your dam cable line its mobile net unless of course its your home connection. do i really need to watch a 108p Netflix vid on a 4 inch screen. gimme slower true unlimited data say 3g at 2mbs vs stupid fast data with low ass caps. i mean really 2mbs is good for sd YouTube and Netflix.
I'd never pay for sending my data to a targets phone.
Too much risk of inflated costs in invoices later.
Yes, I guess this could apply to web hosting fees, too.
This is a bad idea in that it stifles innovation. "Got a terrible product? No problem, just give us money and we'll destroy the (likely superior technologically) competition!"
Remember 10 years ago when we used to talk about net neutrality and make grim jokes about how the internet would lead to cable-like channelization? "Oh, we're going to have to charge you an extra fee on your bill this month, as you didn't subscribe to the premium entertainment package". The door is now open :(
This idea needs to die a spectacular and intimidate death. With carriers such as T-Mobile moving toward affordable "unlimited" (yes, I know nothing truly is) data and voice plans this is just a move in the wrong direction and only shows how hopeless out of touch providers such as AT&T are. I think it is fair to say that most people use their mobile phones primarily for data and VERY secondarily for traditional phone use and mobile service plans need to adapt.
Your idea assumes that the price-per-kb is reasonable. If you look at what people are currently charged by AT&T for "overage", you get an idea of what they think they should charge. The only reason that your "package" price-per-kb is lower is because most people don't use it all. If you only actually paid for what you use, you'd be paying a *LOT* more for it (close the the "overage" rate I expect).
I am a shareholder and
KILL IT WITH FIREE
Many years ago, someone from Bell Labs (as I remember) pointed out the core problem and complexity of the phone system: It was not really built to connect communications, it was built to METER AND BILL for wire connections, and as such had no particular reason to improve efficiency on connection or operation of phone calls. Even with digitized voice, channel-associated T1 signaling worked just fine, and who cared that it corrupted your data and lowered your effective bandwidth by 1/8th? Fiber T4 just carried repackaged T1 frames, making it easier to drop out at the far end. Europe, on the other hand, went to ISDN much earlier. That's why the ideas for packetized voice were used in Europe first, and why VOIP - their logical descendant - became a way *around* the phone system rather than the way to *improve* the phone system.
." when of course the customer *always* winds up paying for it somewhere in the cost of the products and services. In this case, it's even sneakier, because you could be subscribing to a service which offers off-the-cap service, but it's not "the company" paying for the bandwidth - it's your subscription money going into AT&T's pocket from the other side.
So they're applying the same tried-and-true marketing to the Internet. "It's an 800 number, it's free, the other side is paying for it . .
In some ways, pay-per-use would be more sensible, if we trusted that we were really paying for our *own* usage. If I choose to use more water or electricity, I pay more, and I trust that the meter is only metering my lines. (And the one person on the block running a porn service should really be paying for it instead of trashing everybody's throughput.) But that model was tossed out long ago when ISPs decided to include advertisements. There's no way I'm willing to pay for bandwidth that was used to send me advertisements I never wanted. It hearkens back to the early days of fax, when it took court cases to point out that the fax owner pays for the fax and the line and the expensive paper, so sending out junk mail to faxes is spending the fax owner's money without his permission, or "theft". (Too bad that logic didn't go back to robo-calls and answering machines.)
This program should be considered fraud. AT&T promised "unlimited" usage, reneged, imposed a cap which is virtually impossible to validate, and is now charging someone extra to get around the limitations they themselves imposed.