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Why Won't T-Mobile Let Us Binge On All Of It?
Previously I had argued that any violations of Net Neutrality could not exist in a setting where the marketplace was (1) transparent and (2) competitive. Under conditions of transparency and competitiveness, if ISP X were providing Internet connections which blocked certain websites, then ISP Y could offer Internet connections at the same speed and the same price but without the browsing restrictions (competitiveness), and if users knew about this (transparency), they would all switch to ISP Y. (The exception would be if a provider blocks high-bandwidth sites in a scarce-bandwidth setting, e.g. when an in-flight wifi blocks Netflix. In this case it's not true that another provider could step in and provide the same service at the same cost with no filtering, so it's not a case of abusing monopoly power.)
So, the argument goes, any prolonged violation of Net Neutrality could only take place either due to lack of transparency (e.g., the board members of a major backbone provider silently blocking their downstream customers from reaching websites whose content they disagreed with -- yes, this really happened), or, lack of competition (the Comcast monopoly throttling BitTorrent and just generally sucking). So, the argument goes, anything that can survive only by exploiting those market-unfriendly conditions is a Bad Thing, and should be prohibited, by rules that require Net Neutrality for all content. Q.E.D.
But T-Mobile's Binge On service would appear to prove me dead wrong. There's no lack of transparency -- they freely admit that they provide unmetered data access only from certain whitelisted video providers (at downgraded speeds so that the video only plays in 480p quality). And there's no lack of competitiveness, with the Big 4 mobile providers pulling out all the stops to steal each other's customers. So why are normal market forces not having the expected result here?
In other words: Assuming that it would cost T-Mobile the same to provide a low-bandwidth unlimited-data connection to the entire Internet, (as opposed to a low-bandwidth unlimited-data connection to just their whitelisted sites), and given that customers would obviously prefer this, why would they not do that?
T-Mobile's official response is that they want to make sure that a video provider's content is "supported" -- so that T-Mobile can detect when video is streaming, and then request for the content provider to downgrade the video quality to 480p so that it uses less bandwidth. (Users still have the option of switching to high-resolution video, but then it counts against their monthly data quota.) This sounds at first like it makes sense, but there's something missing here -- why not just provide the Binge-On connection as a rate-limited connection, and let the streaming website detect the lower speed, and downgrade to lower-quality video automatically? This is in fact what happens with Youtube and Google Play video, if you try to stream from a connection that is only fast enough to support the lower-quality stream. If the connection is rate-limited, it's not possible for the video provider to stuff too much data into the user's connection and cause them to incur overage charges.
So, why not let Binge On users stream from any site, at the low-quality stream rate? In the best-case scenario, the third-party site will detect the user's slow connection and downgrade to low-quality video, as Youtube and Google Play can already do. In the worst-case scenario, if the streaming provider can't downgrade the stream, then it just won't play (unless the user plays the higher-bandwidth version that eats into their data plan) but then the user is no worse off than they are under Binge On's current implementation anyway.
I did hear back from T-Mobile's PR team, but our emails back and forth tended to go in circles. Repeatedly, they told me: The reason we have a whitelist is because those are the providers where we know we can automatically request for them to downgrade to low-res video. And repeatedly, I would say back: I understand that, but why not just provide Binge On as just a simple data pipe at a fixed low speed, and then any video provider will automatically be able to use Binge On if they can detect the low-speed connection and downgrade their video automatically? You can let users switch between a fixed low-speed pipe which doesn't count against the data quota, or a high-bandwidth pipe which does -- but why not let the low-speed pipe access all sites equally?
So, this is a genuinely puzzling question to me. Assuming it would not cost them anything additional for the Binge-On pipe to offer low-speed access to all video sites, why hasn't T-Mobile done this, and why haven't market forces more or less compelled them to do it? Before one of the other Big 3 providers swoops in and offers a low-speed unlimited data plan that works with all websites which are able to downgrade to low-res video?
Perhaps the explanation is that even in the mobile data industry, what looks like cutthroat "competition" is not actually that competitive. T-Mobile is stuck with the reputation of having coverage not quite as good as the other Big 3, so they've carved out niches in other ways -- calling themselves "the Un-carrier" and selling phones at full price without locking users into a contract, or offering pricey but really actually unlimited data plans (something none of the other Big 3 are doing yet). In their new niche, "unlimited data for $60/month as long as you can live with low-res video", there is currently no competition, and hence no competitive penalty for not broadening the service to include all video streaming sites. Can you think of a better answer?
If that's the case, then competitive forces may work, albeit slowly, as the other Big Three eventually offer some form of "unlimited data for low-speed content," and some of them will offer low-speed unmetered access to the entire Internet, and then all of them will have to follow suit in order to remain competitive. In the meantime, Binge On customers can get their favorite shows on Hulu with no data overages, but cannot do the same thing on Google Play. This will annoy and even outrage some people, but it's also a reminder that "market forces" do not necessarily solve the problems that Net Neutrality legislation is intended to solve -- at least, not very quickly.
Welcome back Bennett Haselton! I have missed your random blog thoughts about your personal issues with various companies. You were a frequent contributor!!! It is really terrible what you are going through with T-Mobile. We need to make it a top priority to get your issue solved!!!
I'm sure there's some kind of financial deal behind it. Whitelisted pays, possibly under the table somehow, for featured access.
dedicated CDN servers to host the data close to the users, dedicated network equipment and circuits so the traffic doesn't degrade their other network traffic. Netflix and Hulu are probably picking up part of the cost of this being that you need this at multiple locations around the country. and it helps Netflix and Hulu as well since a lot of customers will use less data and will delay upgrading their CDN infrastructure chances are google doesn't want to participate contrary to luser belief, when you stream content it doesn't come from the other side of the country to make you feel cool and like an "advanced user"
Why won't Slashdot let us binge on all of the rambling nonsense that Bennett Hasselton submits?
I want to gorge myself on his meaningless musings on Dayling Savings Time, his banal ponderings about leap seconds, his pointless navel-gazing about drone regulation, and his idiotic proposals for instant runoff voting. The world is too complicated and disturbing, Slashdot, so please fill my brainpan with the mushy tapicoa that is every one of Bennett Hasselton's mundanities!
Or some similar deal with the content providers. This would be my guess.
Or maybe it's just easier this way. I sure wish I could "binge on" my subsonic server though....
IMO, asynchronous internet access for most destroyed any true net neutrality long ago. Your average home user has slower upstream and blocked ports to contend with.
1) Interesting RSS feed headline...I'm curious to hear the high points.
2) Click link in RSS feed.
3) Oh. Uhh...
4) Oh. It's Bennett. Huh. I thought we were past this stuff.
5) Complain that TFA is not supposed to be the same thing as TFS.
6) Point out that if Bennett wants to post this stuff, either do it on his blog and submit a summary here, or else post it in the comments like the rest of us.
7) Close the browser tab without reading anything more.
I suspect, with no proof whatsoever, that it isn't completely transparent. They are possibly getting kickbacks of some sort from their whitelisted partners which makes it economically better for them. Obviously the submitter is correct from a purely technical perspective, but money changes the game. T-Mobile customers end up encouraged to use those services which are unlimited so there is value there to Netflix etc. I can believe they would pony up some cash.
That was a lot of words formed in ignorance, so I didn't bother to read all of them.
I support Net Neutrality, and to my surprise, so does the FCC's Tom Wheeler. The FCC has said this service does not violate Net Neutrality and they're going to keep an eye on it.
Why does it not violate Net Neutrality? Because, as you pointed out, any service can sign up for Binge On. Is it too much to ask that a video service go through some kind of certification process with T-Mobile before that happens?
Just because T-Mobile doesn't do it YOUR WAY doesn't mean it's bad for Net Neutrality.
Maybe you're just too smart and T-Mobile should hire you so that you'll stop posting here.
Assuming that it would cost T-Mobile the same to provide a low-bandwidth unlimited-data connection to the entire Internet, (as opposed to a low-bandwidth unlimited-data connection to just their whitelisted sites)
Why would you assume that? If I can only unlimited stream from Hulu and Netflix, but pay for the data to stream YouTube, I may very well watch less YouTube, and there may not be a 1:1 replacement with Hulu or Netflix watching - since YouTube fills a very different role in video consumption. T-Mobile could very well be saving money by excluding YouTube from the free streaming.
There's also the possibility of kickbacks - maybe Hulu and Netflix are paying T-Mobile for the privilege of unlimited streaming. It's certainly a competitive advantage for them compared to other video services. So even if COST is the same, REVENUE may be greater with the whitelist scenario.
Naa, that is just shorthand for local user...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Why not post the actual requirements for content providers. http://www.t-mobile.com/conten...
I'm guessing your country has the landmass of a small- to medium-sized US state.
Scale plays a role here.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Major mobile providers are/were not handed geographic monopolies, although there are some de facto ones cause huge country, etc. etc.
Well, you know, we invented the internet (and mobile phones, and mobile data), so our 4G is first gen. First gen sucks.
You're welcome for shaking the bugs out.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
What we need is a data-delivery interoperability standard that shares info between the consumer, provider, and the network.
Rate Limiting sucks because you have to keep the session longer. It actually helps T-Mobile (or any provider) to have you transfer a small file as quick as possible & then shut the connection down. Then there is less session management that has to occur (like what if you're moving between towers). But what that means is that they have to partner with providers on how to handshake the video quality. So you move 480 at LTE speeds and it solves many problems. People hate long load times more than they hate lower quality, you have to do more network management the longer the session has to occur, and the provider has to scale to allow more concurrent connections. What we really need is a good open standard to help facilitate this kind of interoperability. True, it should "just work" for me to select 480 on youtube and I don't get charged. But there is no mechanism to give TMo that info that wouldn't be an infringement on our privacy.
Given that they charge nothing to partner and are open to anyone who is willing to work with them, I don't see it as a problem. I do see it as an engineering challenge to solve this at scale so that it can become "automatic".
Serious question: When T-Mobile first did this with a handful of music streaming services, where were these same questions about fairness? Then T-Mobile opened up to more and more steaming music services over time. Any questions or complaints then? This continued until they eventually decided to do the same practice with Video. But for some reason, freely streaming video is controversial whereas freely streaming music is not? If the video streaming goes anything like it does for the unlimited music streaming bandwidth they already provide, there will be more and more companies on board over time.
Also, about that whole idea of just having a slower pipe for streaming unlimited for free? T-Mobile already has this, too. Just disable the 4G/LTE connection on your phone. T-Mobile has unlimited 3G data already, and only charges for 4G/LTE.
Porn
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
For some reason Bennett thinks that the free market works nearly instantaneously, and everyone gets perfect information instantly and instantly makes the switch. The real world takes a bit longer than that for information and action to spread. It often takes multiple years before a market shakes out problems like this. This is Econ 101 stuff -- stop puzzling and read some case studies.
If T-Mobile can't easily manage to separate throttled bandwidth from unthrottled, maybe they rely instead on the third party to do it.
If any of you morons had bothered to actually read what Network Neutrality, the real world law, was about you would understand what T-Mobile is doing is perfectly fine, unlike the version crafted in your delusional fantasies which will never happen.
Do you think the FCC did not write the NN rules with full input from the industry? It was even reported at the time that they did.
What NN is about is entrenching the position of existing ISP's and making any entry of competition harder. Which is also what most regulation is really about...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Damnit, I clicked the article. Now Slashdot editors will think we enjoy Bennett's posts because they get a lot of clicks.
I'm sorry, but I have to do something to offset this:
Bennett Haselton posts suck.
I hope that's enough.
I am not familiar with all the fine details of the US broadband market but as a carrier I have two distinct advantages: I always know who the consumer (identity, location, full map of all traffic limited only by the cost of DPI equipment) and everyone has to go through me to get to the customer.
This means I could just charge streaming services for access to my customer base; I assume legislation prevents this. Instead I would use the whitelist to steer my customers towards certain services online and demand some non-monetary payment in return. Like having these services quietly accepting me injecting my own HTTP banner ads into the web pages as they enter my network. I can then monetize these augmented by all the identity and geolocation data I have. I could even integrate payment, one-click-shopping etc!
And I all I would ask in return is the silent consent of my whitelisted partners.
If you're watching Hulu or Netflix...YOU are WATCHING them. The amount of bandwidth you will actually consume will be governed and restricted by your free time to spend watching the content (or the amount of content that interests you, whichever is less).
In contrast, other uses...like downloading and sharing files (the nightmare scenario of all bandwidth-conscious service providers) can continue merrily along without you even being awake. You could keep that up 24/7, and end up consuming far more bandwidth even if all other things are equal.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
I very vaguely remembered something about this so I had to look it up. This t-mobile thing could have something to do with the Netflix Open Connect as documented on the Netflix site:
The Netflix Open Connect Initiative provides our millions of members the highest-quality viewing experience possible through efforts with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to most efficiently deliver content. We partner with hundreds of ISPs to localize substantial amounts of traffic with Open Connect Appliance deployments and have an open peering policy at our interconnection locations.
Also I found this old gizmodo article.
It wouldn't surprise me if T-Mobile and netflix simply negotiated a deal to provide one of these appliances. And/or the special t-mobile edition of said appliance uses some kind of proprietary compression algorithm optimized for mobile bandwidth.
Obviously I'm only speculating but it would explain why this can't simply be applied to any/all video sites: the Netflix content is coming directly from a t-mobile data center as opposed to an unknown caching location or across the internet. Not sure why t-mobile can't simply say as much. Maybe they think it would make the net neutrality debate/complaints that much worse or maybe there's some kind of exclusivity deal and they can't discuss it?
"UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
You know, it's probably way simpler than any of the nefarious reasons. I do believe that they've automated the process of making the video websites automatically use the low bandwidth option EVEN while the data bearer and configuration and bandwidth management in the network would allow much faster data at that time point. Which means: an unsophisticated user can utilize these popular video sites in an unlimited fashion while still enjoying full bandwidth for their other activities on the device and most importantly, the user need not do anything to switch between the free unlimited slower internet and the metered faster internet. Honestly, normal end users -- the people who mobile services are tailored for -- are broadly a pretty simple group who at a minimum would be annoyed at having to do anything to switch modes. More realistically, under the mechanism you propose where there's some "limited speed" mode that has unlimited usage, what would really happen is end users would "forget" or "fail to understand how" to switch to the limited mode before "bingeing on" and result in constant calls into customer service, trying to get usage fees waived. This sort of thing has to be automatic or it will fail, as pertains to the masses.
It doesn't have to. There are alternative options that provide much better service to a lot of users. For my cell phone in Canada, I'm on Wind Mobile. I get the use of my cell phone for less than half what I would pay if I was getting similar features from Rogers or Bell. The difference is that if I'm outside one of the major cities they serve, then I'm going to pay significant roaming fees. However, this isn't a problem because I almost never leave the city. And even when I do, I tend not to use my phone very much.
Most mobile plans have high prices in North America specifically because they've always gone with the idea that you can use it anywhere across the entire country without incurring any extra fees on your bill. But the vast majority of users very rarely use most of that network. I think that as things go forward, more and more users will realize this, and more and more companies will come in to fill this need. There's no reason I should have to pay high prices for a cellular tower in the middle of Saskatchewan to be maintained when I'm never going to use that cell tower. Give me cheap access in the high population density cities, and let the rural people fund their own expensive low density network.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
No, CDNs really count. If you distribute lots of content, and don't want to get bagged with routing issues, you use a cache of content on hot networks-- or suffer the consequences of pissed off users.
Universities do this, a hotbed of NetFlix users, so it's not just a carrier "enhancement". Get the CDNs enabled, and everything but peer (think onion routers) becomes more evenly distributed without stepping on network neutrality. The problem is: someone has to pay for it and know where/when to deploy them. Stickier issues are what to do with DNS, and how to shift resources across timezones to take advantage of them.
It's not as simple as the poster describes, and while T-Mobile's circular answers are opaque, behind the scenes are a lot of CDN deployment deals going on. In a star-based/hierarchical network that they use, distribution becomes tricky-- not that I'm defending them. Only demand or regulation will change them, however.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Not to mention that we don't hand out geographic monopolies to any company. We just auctioned off spectrum space to any and all bidders with money to pay for it.
Unless he's talking about LAND LINES, which, even in the states is so yesterday...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Sorry Bennett, mobile carriers can pretty much do what they want, how they want, when they want. You could switch carriers you know, go to Sprint or Verizon or AT&T or one of their VNOs. Grow a pair and stop being such a whiny bitch.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Here I was completely confident that Bennett Haselton got a new persona called StartsWithABang to keep feeding his attention whoring on Slashdot. But now we get an article from each posted on the same day so there goes that theory.
So with multiple people now whoring the front page have Dice automated the process? Is there a form I can fill out combined with Paypal checkout that allows me to post shit for a year without recourse?
yes.
Scaling is always going to be a problem. Don't delude yourself.
This guy is a complete Idiot Incarnate. Period. Given his brilliant insights, perhaps he can architect the "simple data pipe" that he suggests T-Mobile implement. How, or why, is this a Slashdot story?
Success without humility is an indulgence in arrogance
T-Mobile sheds some light on YouTube’s absence from Binge On
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Bennet misses the point. The provider wishes spend the minimum needed on (bandwidth) infrastructure while keeping customers happy. 70% of customer data is Netflix, so if users agree to use SD Netflix rather than HD it reduces the cost to the provider significantly.
The strategy to entice users to use SD Netflix rather than HD is to offer an exception to monthly bandwidth allotment. Bennet then supposes that the economics are exactly the same for all services, but they aren't. Excluding Netflix from the allotment (in exchange for SD) REDUCES the amount of bandwidth customers use for Netflix; giving users an exception for blah.com would mean customers would use blah.com MORE often - exactly the opposite of the goal.
"Accused of"? Isn't that a little like accusing the sky of being blue? Jeffery Dahmer of having weird dietary habits? Yoda of being grammatically unconventional? ISIS of being intolerant? There's a point where an accusation is really just stating the obvious.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
You must be young enough not to remember this - cellular service in the US was historically segmented in exactly the way you describe.
In fact, to prevent monopolies, the existing Baby Bell regional phone companies got licenses for "wireline" based systems that utilized the existing telephone system infrastructure, and there was spectrum allocated for a single competing "non-wireline" service that used microwave repeaters between towers as the competition. These were labeled the "A" system and the "B" system. You wanted cellular service? You had exactly two choices. Wireline from the phone company, or non-wireline from the other guys. Most phones could work on either, but not both simultaneously (this was soon rectified as the carriers realized the potential for roaming fees between local carriers.)
When I started selling phones out of high school 20 years ago, our coverage area was less than half the state - driving 100 miles to the next big city would get you "roaming charges" of 99 cents per minute, plus long distance charges if you were making a "not-local-to-where-your-billing-area-is" call. This caused problems especially for people who lived on the edge between two areas, because their phones would (per design of the "cell" in "cellular") switch between one tower and the next without warning. I had people coming in complaining that they only ever used their phone at home (too rural for a landline) and would get half their calls on the roaming network. Eventually phones came with network locking possibilities to prevent roaming accidentally, but that compounded the problem since some users had to manually reprogram their phone for roaming each time they went to the post office. They demanded simplicity.
Eventually, these problems came to a head and the market demanded "no roaming fees" for increasingly large areas, and we could finally get all of Arizona as one big home calling area. (But watch out if you lived near the Colorado river!) Over time all the regional carriers decided to make their own networks one giant "no roaming" footprint, and our local calling map spanned the entire Southwest U.S. Hooray, you could now drive to the next state and not incur roaming charges!...as long as you were on your own service provider's towers. You still had to pay roaming fees if you went onto a neighboring network, though.
Then came digital networks - spectrum for AT&T (the long distance company, not the regional Baby Bells) allowed them to become one of the first NATIONWIDE providers, and people flocked to their system, even as spotty as it was. The writing was on the wall, and nationwide calling was going to be the norm.
As a result of this new nationwide threat, next came the consolidations. The Bell companies started banding together (the local one to me at the time went from US West Cellular to a multi-state Airtouch to what is now nationwide Verizon) and the non-wireline companies started either building out their own digital networks or merging with their neighbors like Verizon. And thusly "free nationwide roaming" became possible for the first time for all carriers.
Now it's so natural to assume your phone will work everywhere, that to fall back to regionally segmented pricing would probably introduce many new layers of cost and complexity to billing services that have since been thoroughly optimized for national use. I'd wager that many people have never even heard the term "roaming". What you're describing is not going to happen on any meaningful scale, if at all.
It puzzles me every time that someone says this on *any* topic.
If it works in an area the size of a US state, then organise it at that scale... The US does oddly enough, have well defined areas of land that are roughly the area of US states.
Major mobile providers are/were not handed geographic monopolies, although there are some de facto ones cause huge country, etc. etc.
Technically correct, they didn't have monopolies, but they did have duopolies where the ILEC was given special treatment.
In the analog days the FCC divided the available channels in half, allowing two networks per market area. The "A" channels were allocated for competitive wireless providers and the "B" channels were for the local wireline provider. Basically the ILECs were guaranteed half the capacity and to only have one local competitor.
It's not as bad as a pure monopoly, but pretty much the same situation much of the US has with broadband where the choices are one cable provider and the ILEC's DSL. We all know how well that works out.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
And there's no lack of competitiveness
That's where you are wrong. It's an oligopoly.
exception would be if a provider blocks high-bandwidth sites in a scarce-bandwidth setting, e.g. when an in-flight wifi blocks Netflix
That's not an exception. It's a violation of net neutrality only possible because in-flight WiFi is a monopoly.
Competition would tend to treat all data, no matter if it's Netflix or web browsing, the same.
Getting your op-eds accepted is not based on karma as much as writing interesting columns in your journal and submitting them.
unless Slashdot is now twitter
You'd be surprised at what willyhill found: My god, it's full of socks!
And there's no lack of competitiveness, with the Big 4 mobile providers pulling out
There is a serious lack of competitiveness.
I live 20 minutes outside of a one of the biggest metropolitan areas in America. 2 of those 4 provide service to my home. 1 of those 4 provides service to my home and office. And there would only be 2 providers if the FTC hadn't interfered with recent acquisitions.
There's no shortage of anti-competitive behavior from these "big 4" companies. We have the courts, regulatory bodies, and librarian of congress to thank for the ability to unlock our phones, get out of our contracts fairly, transfer our phone numbers, use our phones on other providers, and buy phones from someone other than those big 4 companies. It's been nothing but a battle against anti-competitive behavior for decades. Do not mistake this situation as offering competition.
But almost all big name content providers have this infrastructure already. The narrow part of the tube is from the tower to the device. The bits from the sanctioned content providers aren't any cheaper to deliver that last few hundred meters. By your argument we should have unlimited everything as long as its available from a CDN near the tower. Certainly the reason for binge on is that money changed hands so that the "in" providers are subsidizing the bandwidth.
I did not know that Motorolla was an American company. And yet such Italian chic! Lives and learns...
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
T-Mobile most likely does not provide a separate "low bandwidth, rate limited connection" for video. They probably detect requests going to and streams coming from specific sites, over the "regular" connection, and sending requests to those sites to drop down to lower bandwidth and keeping track of how much data those particular streams use so they can subtract said amount when billing. There are also probably marketing concerns and/or funding coming from the video streaming "partners" involved, which is a completely valid business tactic.
How easy is it for someone who wants to leave America behind to gain a work visa in your "socialist" country?
(Or do you mean FYIGM?)
Most Cellphone users are not sophisticated enough to switch between the two pipes you propose.
So, they will either get stuck in the slow unlimited one and complain about crappy services, or get stuck in the limited fast one, and complain about overcharges.
Therefore, among many other things, T-Mobile needs the contend deliverer cooperation to provide the technical means to do the switching behind the scenes, and transparent to the users...
PS: How do I get my ramblings published to /.'s front page?
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
It seems obvious to me that the real reason for "Binge On" is that it gives T-Mobile the mechanism to double-dip.
For example if FaceTube wont pay TMO some fee, then it won't get in the "Binge On" whitelist so FaceTube won't be used as much by TMO customers. Just a clever but simple way for TMO to sell customers to content providers.
Sometimes it seems Bennett needs to use a little bit of logical thinking before going off on his tirades. If T-Mobile can tell a video stream to downgrade, then they know what is going on. If you can go to any site at a slow pace, then that means any site not just streaming. Downloading mass amounts of bit torrent files will not count toward your cap if there is no cap. That is very different from watching tons of streaming and it not counting toward your cap. Not too many people can watch TV all day, 24 hours a day for months on end. But if you have unlimited data you can set up the computer to start the download and it will run day and night everyday until it is finished. One way will use up more data even if they are both restricted to the same maximum speed.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I don't know which city you live in but I know people in Ottawa with Wind Mobile and while yes, they do have much cheaper rates you really get what you pay for. They can't even use their phones consistently on the bus to work in the morning. In a drive from Gloucester to downtown there are several dead zones where they lose complete connection for extended periods.
A lot of people that buy into the cheap and local sales pitch of the smaller independent cell companies come to find that cheap and local means cheap and extremely local. I might not care about making calls in Sask. but I wouldn't mind being above to make or receive a call when I happen to go downtown from my house in the suburbs of the same city or vice versa; especially when you cut the cord and your cellphone is your only phone.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
What they are targeting, without kickbacks or other backroom deals, is a service by which users on mobile devices get a downgraded version of a particular service which most likely accounts for 80% or more of their traffic. As long as any provider can opt in without T-Mobile charging them anything more than a reasonable one-time administrative fee I don't see any problem.
I, as a T-Mobile customer, have the ability to opt out which is critical. If I lived somewhere where I could only get slow DSL or no wired Internet at all I might want to be able to stream via the mobile network onto a large screen. Then I pay for the privilege, and that is okay, but as of right now I have Binge On enabled because I don't need high resolution video on my 6" cell phone screen.
Also, consider the number of people who pull up Youtube videos just to listen to music...
Roaming still occurs, when you can only get a signal from another carrier's tower. Your company "eats" the cost, though a certain amount is built-in to your bill.
A neat trick a friend of mine used to get out of a contract a couple of years ago - he found a restaurant out in the suburbs where his phone would connect to another company's tower. He'd call a free time service and leave it on for an hour while he ate dinner. After a couple of weeks doing this every few days, the cost of his roaming surpassed his monthly bill (though he wasn't charged, per his contract) His carrier canceled his contract, and he happily signed up with the carrier he wanted.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Motorola was born and bred American. Bell Labs invented some of the other technology
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Tmobile has rules that provider must follow to be included in Binge on, and it is neutral.
One can see that wiht the music services it started with just spotify, but now it is everybody. Tmobile specifically said that start-ups are welcome to follow the rules, do the low bandwidth, and be included. Additionally, they say that Youtube is working on it and will be included shortly.
I feel that this is fairly neutral, it's not about taking pay-outs, it's about meshing with the network in an affordable way.
It's not totally transparent that I've noted, but it sounds like they are essentially letting the companies shoot data into their network cost free, but if they want the end user to not pay, it must meet certain criteria (in addition, they aren't charging the sender for higher bandwidth access, but the recipient). This is exactly what Netflix wanted, and is (arguably) network neutral.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Content providers are NOT subsidizing the bandwidth. T-Mobile will let any content provider participate, and they don't have to pay anything to get on the list of approved providers. The requirements are pretty straight forward:
1) You have to identify the data to T-Mobile as streaming video data.
2) You must use adaptive bitrate technology
3) If you make changes to your streaming methods you have to give T-Mobile a heads up before those changes go live to ensure you still meet the requirements.
4) You have to be able to tell T-Mobile when you are sending non-video content so they can count that against user data caps.
5) You can only stream content legally (proper licenses to content, etc.)
6) Don't violate their trademarks
You don't have to pay, and T-Mobile will work with you directly to ensure you can meet their requirements. Once you've been approved, you're all set. No other requirements and you don't have to pay them anything.
Source: http://www.t-mobile.com/conten...
If they turned this on for everyone, users would expect to be able to binge on any video site on the internet and get a reasonable experience. When that doesn't happen for high bandwidth content users will blame T-Mobile for their crappy bandwidth, especially when they see it plays just fine on Verizon or AT&T. Also they don't want to have to guess what content will work well and what won't
By only allowing services that are willing to format their videos in a low-res compressible form, it ensures that users have a good streaming experience, and can also pay to get a good experience with high bandwidth content on other sites.
Yup, and also it doesn't account for that fact that we often have lousy network access even in cities which are much smaller than states.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
That's a good write-up, but I immediately notice you left out a LOT of intermediate phone company names...
You can't talk about the history of AT&T Mobility without mentioning SBC and Cingular. Or discuss the history of Verizon and Sprint without mentioning they were strangely BOTH formed from GTE.
I found a much more complete history of all the crazy splits and (mostly-) mergers here:
http://www.technologizer.com/2...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Netflix already offers "CDN" like capability in the form of caching servers that any ISP meeting a volume of viewership can negotiate to have. It's like a Squid proxy for Netflix, and it's pretty straightforward.
1) You have gobs of users on your network.
2) You negotiate for a NF content server.
3) You install a big server (or servers, depending on load) that caches the most commonly viewed shows. It automatically updates as demands change.
4) ????
5) Profit from sharply reduced upstream or peering point bandwidth bills.
The only reason that Comcast doesn't do this is that they offer their own content and *want* a degraded network for NF users, or NF to pay $$ to Comcast, and they want that degraded performance in a way that isn't blatantly their fault.
Source: I'm a techie with friends who work at a regional ISP.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
well, yeah - I wasn't trying to go through the whole history of the industry in its entirety, just a synopsis. I'm not Bennett Haselton. And yes, you certainly *can* talk about AT&T without talking about SBC and Cingular, because I just did and it fit the point of view of the narrative just fine. The point being, of course, that the gradual move from regional carriers to national carriers was deliberate and is unlikely to reverse itself.
Actually, this question was asked at the uncarrier event, and the answer was, unequivocally, "Yes! Any legal content that can meet our technical requirements is welcome on the service"
https://youtu.be/xac9tGkUtTA?t...
Well, let's see...
Translation: if you use encryption, we have to spend more time making sure we can identify which traffic is streaming video (which won't count towards a user's data limit) and any other form of traffic (which will), but if we can tell the difference, you can use it.
My sig can beat up your sig.
Yes this has been pointed out in other threads. However, the initial partners certainly engaged in joint marketing activities where money did change hands. I realize they aren't getting a recurring bill for bandwidth usage.
There is only one
Bennett, in regard to the NYT piece you found objectionable, I recently noticed that it only says that you were "dismissed" from the company, rather than "fired." So, did you misquote the New York Times intentionally on your protest page, or did they graciously correct the article after all, even though you only started complaining about it five years after the fact?
Either way, you should probably amend publiceditormyass.com to reflect the truth.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky