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New FCC Report Says AT&T and Verizon Zero-Rating Violates Net Neutrality (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Just a week and a half before he is set to leave office, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has issued a new report stating that the zero-rated video services offered by ATT and Verizon may violate the FCC's Open Internet Order. Assembled by the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, the report focuses on sponsored data programs, which allow companies to pay carriers to exempt exempt their data from customers' data caps. According to the report, many of those packages simply aren't playing fair. "While observing that ATT provided incomplete responses to staff inquires," Wheeler wrote to Senators, "the report states that the limited information available supports a conclusion that ATT offers Sponsored Data to third-party content providers at terms and conditions that are effectively less favorable than those it offers to its affiliate, DirecTV." In theory, sponsored data should be an even playing field, with providers bearing the costs and making the same charges regardless of who's footing the bill. But according to the report, ATT treats the DirectTV partnership very differently from an unaffiliated sponsored data system, giving the service a strong advantage over competitors. "ATT appears to view the network cost of Sponsored Data for DIRECTV Now as effectively de minimis," the report concludes. While ATT still bears some cost for all that free traffic, it's small enough that the carrier doesn't seem to care. The report raises similar concerns regarding Verizon's Go90 program, although it concludes Verizon's program may be less damaging. Notably, the letter does not raise the same concerns about T-Mobile's BingeOn video deal, since it "charges all edge providers the same zero rate for participating."
coming to this conclusion isn't it ?
Considering the new administration may or may not wish to agree with your assessment.
Where was this brilliant insight back when they started behavior ?
It's lovely you all think it's a violation now, but there may be nothing you can do about it at this point.
Good Job :|
I'm surprised they acted as fast as they did. Government bureaucracy isn't known for speed or efficiency.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Capitalism not working. Once the players are big enough to buy thugs, laws and presidents, capitalism will just devour the very substrate it thrives on.
Capitalism as *one of the driving forces* of society is OK, mind you. As the *only* driving force (as whe've practically had for the last ~30-40 years), it's akin to cancer: ater a wild and nearly exponential growth, it will, in the end, kill its host (and thus itself).
It is monopolistic and anti-competitive, much like the rest of the broadcast industry. For some reason these jackoffs just keep coming back to building their monopoly towers, and the government lets them. They all need to be broken up into 8-10 companies apiece.
The Trumperor will fix it with removal of regulation. Then no one will care! We will be busy getting fucked - more than we currently are. Remember kids, getting fucked is fun!
Silence is a state of mime.
...is exempt exempt from checking the content of this summary.
AT&T (or their subsidiary) does charge customers for DirecTV streaming, though. Do you have to pay extra to call tech support in the first place?
Except in this case they have the power to force competitors to pay more.
It's like them making their own tech support phoneline free while at the same time being able to charge money for using competitor's tech support phonelines.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
This is good news to me. I own AT&T stock.
We're not talking about the new directv now service or whatever it's called. They are talking about using the stand alone directv app to stream content outside your home without the separate subscription and AT&T exempting the data use for that.
Not sure why you think it's OK for the government to tell private companies how to price their products. The founding fathers would be aghast that it's come to this.
Data over cell phone towers is cheaper than data over cable, or wifi. So, if at&t and verizon want to give away free cell phone data, I say grab as much as you can. I want to see DSL companies extorting low data websites, not data hogs like Netflix, for money before I support 'net neutrality'. I will have to get my brother to switch to T-mobile for unlimited youtube.
Are you saying that DirecTV doesn't require a paid subscription for that? I didn't limit my statement to DirecTV Now, just DirecTV streaming in general.
It will be unfortunate it the incoming president disadvantages these third party content providers. There are jobs that will be lost if these companies go out of business or new companies are scared away, mostly middle class jobs in technology and media content creation. This will be a societal net loss, with no upside in either government income or consumer price cuts - the exact opposite of a free lunch in economics.
The founding fathers were willing to keep human beings in bondage, forced under compulsion of arms, so their moral judgment is moot.
AT&T wants to be allowed to use public airwaves and expects the government to protect that, so the people have a moral right to determine what conditions are acceptable to them. Don't like it? Too bad. You aren't the boss of us.
Because AT&T has been given a defacto monopoly status (or really, participating in an oligopoly) by them being granted gobs of wireless spectrum in an exclusive manner. They aren't being told what they need to set their prices at, they are simply being told that they can't price them differently between them and their competitors. In the case of AT&T, they are not charging the customer or their subsidiary DirecTV for bandwidth, but for anybody who is using any of their competitors, they are charging the customer. This means that the customer is incentivized to use AT&T's product rather than a competitor, because while using the (T) service might cost $35 a month for unlimited streaming, it could cost in the hundreds or thousands for their competitors.
The more ISPs will slip through your fingers.
Probably the same reason it's okay for them not to have to spend thousands of dollars for the right-of-way on private property.
WAT!?
Please tighten the tin foil cap, your insanity is leaking out.
Of course, you realize the irony of pointing this out on a story about the government stopping these "jackoffs", right?
Ken
I've always considered net neutrality to be more considered with how traffic is treated/shaped rather than how it is billed. I don't want service providers to change traffic priority that would benefit one content provider over another. But zero-rating, as far as I can tell, does not change traffic priority or speeds.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
You're claiming Trump's attorney general nominee is racist, while completely blowing off Obama's repeat calls to genocide against Appalachian culture. Go fuck yourself.
Gosh, I'm sorry your idea of culture requires you to be a meth-producing, pill-popping, mountaintop-removing bigot, but you're just going to have to respect our culture, which requires us to kick your shitty-ass into the civilized world even though you'd rather be returning to your precious medievalist caste society.
And Obama? He is just so cruel, he won't let you suffer and die due to a lack of medical care, clean water, breathable air, and his wife, fiend that she is, wants your children to eat something other than salt-laden cardboard pizza and even, cruelty of cruelties, get out and exercise.
That is truly the worst tyranny of them all.
You're claiming Trump's attorney general nominee is racist, while completely blowing off Obama's repeat calls to genocide against Appalachian culture. Go fuck yourself.
lol. I bet you believe in Pizzagate too.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
.
And Obama? He is just so cruel, he won't let you suffer and die due to a lack of medical care, clean water, breathable air, and his wife, fiend that she is, wants your children to eat something other than salt-laden cardboard pizza and even, cruelty of cruelties, get out and exercise.
That is truly the worst tyranny of them all.
Just lest ingress the cost each year. If you cannot afford it well then we'll fine you. And those that had good insurance. Guess what? Had to give those up to get worse coverage. So far my deductible has increased and what insurance pays out is almost a joke anymore.
This sounds a lot like a bunch of talks I attended while in college. When in college I was taking a power class required of all electrical engineering students and some company sponsored a handful of students to go to some big energy conference. What was big news then was the then new federal regulation that utilities had to charge other utilities the sames fees they charge themselves to carry power. What the government wanted to see was utilities stopping to abuse their monopoly on wires to prop up unprofitable electricity generation. Or, at least that is how it was explained to me.
This seemed to be viewed as generally favorable. No one at this conference seemed to consider this a bad thing. Effectively the government enforced a separation between energy generation and energy transmission. Where this equates to this AT&T deal, at least IMHO, is that this is enforcing a separation between content ownership and delivery. The "monopoly" isn't as obvious since most areas of the USA are serviced by more than one cell phone company but it's not like people can switch cell phone providers on a whim, or get the same great deal on data from more than one content owner at the same time.
I generally oppose the government getting in the way of business because it is so easy for rules intended to protect the average consumer to evolve into rules that protect a business. I'm not a DirectTV subscriber but I do get AT&T cell service. One thing I considered in choosing my cell service provider was that AT&T did not charge data usage for DirectTV and I thought that in the near future I may want that service. I could have stayed with Verizon as the price and data limit differences were small. I will say that it is nice that I get cell service while at work but that could be the new phone and not the new provider.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Just lest ingress the cost each year.
I'm sure you thought you were making sense when you typed this sentence.
If you cannot afford it well then we'll fine you.
Nope. If you cannot afford it, well, that's why the plan was expanding Medicaid, except in the states that refused to do it(at the behest of Republican governors and legislatures, so blame them), and providing tax credits(Like these. You do know that is how the law actually worked is very different from the fervent ravings in your favorite right-wing book of doctrine, right?
The only people who were going to get fined were those who refused to get coverage AND had the money for it, but still expected emergency room support.
Costly and expensive emergency room support.
And those that had good insurance. Guess what? Had to give those up to get worse coverage. So far my deductible has increased and what insurance pays out is almost a joke anymore.
Sure man, and then Obama came and he shot your dog, didn't he? You do know your claims are factually deficient, and amount to nothing more than empty rhetoric right?
Why don't you just rant some more about his birth certificate, and how he's forcing you to take birth control pills?
lol. I bet you believe in Pizzagate too.
Funny enough if we apply this standard of evidence(that buzzfeed used), Pizzagate goes from the realm of possibility into the realm of probability.
Om, nomnomnom...
A strongly worded letter is far away from stopping anything.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
lol. I bet you believe in Pizzagate too.
Funny enough if we apply this standard of evidence(that buzzfeed used), Pizzagate goes from the realm of possibility into the realm of probability.
Funnily, what Mashiki won't admit is that Buzzfeed published a real document, and even noted that it should be examined so it can be properly disputed, while the Pizzagaters are like Trump on what his "investigators" in Hawaii were finding.
You picked the WORST possible associate when it comes to blasting others for being fake.