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Dutch Market Regulator Bans T-Mobile's 'Free' Streaming Music Service (reuters.com)
The Dutch Consumer and Markets regulator ordered T-Mobile to shut down its zero-rated music streaming service because it violates the country's net neutrality rules. T-Mobile launched the Music Freedom service in October, allowing customers to stream music on their mobile devices without it impacting their data plans. Reuters reports: The AFM said the practice, often called "zero rating" is a violation of Dutch net neutrality rules, because it puts rival services such as Spotify at a competitive disadvantage. Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Mobile Netherlands, which had introduced the product on Oct. 10, must stop offering it or face penalty of 50,000 euros ($52,000) per day, the AFM said. Zero rating is shaping up as one of the major battlegrounds for European telecommunications companies as they seek ways to attract customers. The Dutch net neutrality law unambiguously forbids the practice, but European Union rules are less clear.
People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch. some movie quote
The Dutch net neutrality law unambiguously forbids the practice
How long before Trump nukes all of the Netherlands?
Net neutrality laws: Another win for the consumer!
because it puts rival services such as Spotify at a competitive disadvantage
That article sucks. It makes it sound like Music Freedom is a music streaming service, but it's not. At least in the USA, there are many services which fall under the Music Freedom feature and are all zero-rated. Current list is 44 services. Spotify is one of them. I agree that letting T-Mobile decide that music is free but other data costs you isn't in the spirit of net neutrality. I'll be interested if they appeal.
It doesn't seem like it's free. It's only free to subscribers (paid subscribers) of a data plan. Bundling free stuff with paid-for stuff is generally seen as adding features rather than giving stuff away. If they shot out Spotify, then it maybe that would make sense. Yes, I do get the point that they are "charging extra" for using Spotify because that data counts towards using the data plan, but it's actually using more upstream data. A service offered by a company can be reverse proxied and carry much lower delivery costs than the delivery of content from further upstream. The closest analogy I can think of is using local apps vs web apps. One wouldn't charge data fees for local apps which don't use data from a distant server.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The AFM said the practice, often called "zero rating" is a violation of Dutch net neutrality rules, because it puts rival services such as Spotify at a competitive disadvantage.
is not the zero rating of services, though that should of course be banned. The real problem is the monopolies. Seriously, why the hell did they let AT & Fee merge with Direct TV. This kind of crap should not be allowed.
An ISP should be neutral to all traffic, save what prioritizations you yourself set. If companies like the despised AT&T are too inept to expand their service to areas they serve, such as with DSL or fiber, well, I'm for the corporate death sentence. Failing that states should simply bid out the work and get the infrastructure in place. A portion of that can be taxes and a portion can be higher ISP bills for customers that use that service.
This crap where we wait and wait and wait for infrastructure to be built and no one does it because it isn't a next quarter profit is insane. A purpose of government is to make sure the important crap gets done. It is not to insure a profit for business. If government can do it cheaper, then to hell with the big businesses. Government's job is intended to be a benefit to the taxpayer, not the megacorps.
The problem here is not that the streaming service is free, but that using it does not count toward your data cap, while using a competing streaming service (like Spotify) does.
So yes, you do pay double for using other streaming services.
It's only zero rated until all the competition is pushed out of business, then the prices go back up.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
References (Dutch, you'll have to pass it through Google Translate): https://www.t-mobile.nl/datavr... http://newsroom.t-mobile.nl/t-...
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
I agree that letting T-Mobile decide
The key reason to me why this is acceptable is that T-Mobile is NOT deciding. Any company can sign up to be part of the plan from the provider side. So it is completely open - that is why they have so many services signed on already, basically anyone that can handle streaming anything over the internet at any kind of scale would be able to sign up to provide this with T-Mobile.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
> Wrong, the government can make sure the work gets done that the private sector has refused for decades to do.
Decades? Two decades ago we had 2G data. Are you still using 2G? Hundreds of billions of dollars of investment by the carriers brought us 3G and now 4G nationwide networks. I dislike Sprint as much as the next guy, but I'm not stupid and I'm not a liar, so when they spend billions making their data network 100 times faster I don't pretend that doesn't happen.
The government can make sure things get done? I present to you healthcare.gov, the F-35, or practically any significant government program.
Ps, remember any time you suggest more government involvement, in the US you're suggesting you want more involvement from the Trump administration. You want the FCC to be more active and have more power? You want DONALD TRUMP'S FCC to have more power? You sure about that?
Your country is so advanced socially that it's putting us at a disadvantage. I should stop existing. Oh and give us some money too, if you don't mind.
Actually it's better than all that. There's no need to sign up. Anyone who meets the technical requirements is zero-rated automatically. The technical requirements are as simple as serving mp3 files on port 80. So if you put music on your blog then your personal blog is already part of Music Freedom.
But good luck convincing the boneheaded gossipy idiots who believe the rumors of an approved list of streaming services.
And then it wouldn't be in breech of net neutrality laws. Are you saying that making it free for everyone's streaming music service is BAD for the consumer??
Here;s a scenario I KNOW you realise is wrong. If your employer has a vacant management position and you and a woman are both applying, if she insists that only women should get the job if there's any of them applying (Affirmitive action), would you complain about people being banned from being promoted if this action of making the women preferred hires is ruled illegal sexism? Or would you see that since all people wanting the promotion get to apply on a level playing field (even if it's only the same lower playing field) as a good thing?
I absolutely understand your frustration. Watching HD video on a phone without wifi gets expensive pretty quick.
Also, I got tired of the big carriers and left Sprint for Boost Mobile ten years ago, because Sprint was charging $2.50 per MB, and 15 cents per text message. Ten years later, they sell 24GB for $100; four cents per GB. That's a price reduction of over 98%, so pretending nothing has changed is just stupid. For $35 with Boost, I use my phone all day without any extra charges - but I am limited in the amount of video I watch when there's no Wi-Fi.
Have you ever had a faucet dripping slowly and the sound annoyed you when you were trying to sleep? That's the tax money spent on the wireless phone networks. It's really annoying, and it's a drop in the bucket. The (damn) phone companies spend something like $50 billion / year on network upgrades, it's pretty crazy. As I mentioned in my other post, when I left Sprint ten years ago they were charging $2.50 /MB for 128Kbit (really 64Kb) service and 15 cents per text message. It took a minute or so to load my favorite web page, and cost a dollar per page view. In the last yen years they've built a network 100 times faster and 98% cheaper. A couple million bucks from the government isn't significant in that at all.
I think they did right. The free offer wasn't free. They just hid the fee in their "regular" service. If they have a separate fee "fixed" for the service and a lower regular price for the rest of their service that totaled to the same amount, it would be legal. People could chose another service for their music.
I'm in Canada, so no cheap mobile like in the US. Here it seems to be $30 a GB unless you signup for an expensive contract and then not much cheaper and mostly cheap minutes that I don't use. I pay 15 cents a text message as well. At that it seems every couple of months something goes up in price.
Pages have grown too, especially if you don't block scripts, ads and such, which is a lot harder to do on my phone compared to my desktop. With scripts enabled, even this tab that I'm replying to you in, 6 messages, no pictures, was about 400kbs of data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
IMHO, zero rating could be justified if T-Mobile can show that they are passing on costs savings to the customers. For example, if they run Spotify servers on their network such that they save on external bandwidth costs, zero rating *might* be fair. However, wouldn't internal network maintenance, especially tower maintenance, be the same regardless? That's where you really need carriers to be "net neutral".
So only companies get to play
Nope read, the other responses to my post, it's not just companies.
What's sad is you think it matters when ANYONE can forma company for around $10 in most states...
Also how is this a "local loophole", that's not what this is at all. You have no idea what the hell is actually happening with this service.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is what happens to a culture 2000 years after they let a little Dutch boy stick his finger in a dike.