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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?
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.
Good news to me, too, I don't live in the US and when they try it with us we can point and say "Look what it did to the country that pretty much invented the internet!"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Thank goodness.
I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nope 100% wrong
The cost of data over cable( copper or fiber) is effectively zero, the only costs are in supplying the cable in the first place ( and replacing it once every 100yrs or so, it doesn't exactly wear out). power costs are negligible
Nope 100% wrong.
Not only are you wrong, you are an idiot for posting this. Putting fiber in the ground is very expensive. Fixing fiber that has been broken is very expensive. Putting fiber in the ocean for transcontinental links is not just very expensive, it costs massive amounts of money.
And now you have only the cabling. You don't have any DWDM gear, routers, switches and the associated network engineers to operate them.
Data over cable is not zero. The only difference between wireless and wired internet access is the last mile, and the mobility aspect of it. As cellular technology evolves, it enables more and more bandwidth per user.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
...Yeah dude, you're talking about the DE-regulation of the power industry. It was a clusterfuck of a bad idea. Congress agreed to deregulate and let the free market compete on price. Enron entered the industry when California tried it out. This lead to a crisis. Enron engaged in some really slimy practices like buying all the time on critical lines, cancelling deals forcing others to scramble for power which, oh look, really kinda needed to go over those critical lines.
I generally oppose the government getting in the way of business
Then you would generally have been in favor of all that. Because it was an attempt at removing government regulation and allowing the free market to try and lower prices. But it was abused by those in power to squeeze an extra buck and it resulted in Enron making a ton of money, a bunch of other companies losing a ton of money, high electrical bills for residences, rolling brown-outs, and the eventual collapse of a Enron once it became such a problem it got political.
Jesus Christ dude, if you know NOTHING of the Network Neutrality debate, this is the one big bit you need to take away from it: The Internet has historically operated on a principle of neutrality. The debate is how to keep it neutral now that the providers have consolidate to a small handful and are trying to get rid of it. Pointing at the attempt to deregulate the power industry is NOT a valid example for bitching about government interference.
Assume you're right (you're not, but humour me...) - data, once the cabling is laid, costs nothing to transmit.
You happily saturate every link you have, and every upstream link as well, because of course, it's free, right?
Now I come along and offer to pay whoever gave you the link some amount of money - let's say $1000/mo. So they give me the link instead of you.
Now, if you want to use that link again, you'll have to beat my $1000/mo. So I guess it's no longer free to you - it will cost you at least as much as I am willing to pay for it.
Idiot.
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
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?