Regulation is to be made by entities without conflict of interest, such as for-profits or owners of competing service in the included traffic.
If "video" traffic is screwing uo the medical and educational industry, or even the IRS systems, it has to be the state to mandate limits in "video" traffic. Is thay fair and clear enough for you?
Exactly, and Portuguese ISPs are top lobbyists in EU policy. Recently we had a big long cry about how the end of roaming charges would affect Portuguese economu the most. Somehow we did get roaming charges abolished, but somehow national ISPs got away with making plans behave MUCH different while abroad vs while in Portugal. Which is exactly the opposite of what was intended with the non-roaming charges bill...
Yeap, these plans go leaps and bounds to not look discriminatory. But as I said elsewhere, communications still is something the EU tries to make universally policed, but in practice isn't. National regulators still have final say, with power so broad even local government has issues policing them. I am actually quite sure recent efforts to make it so are one of the top reasons so many britons ganged up for the brexit, but this is speculation
Actually, this whole shenanigans started with national vs overseas traffic a decade ago. When more players entered the market and ate through PTs monopoly since they didn't havr that cap, that's when ANACOM started protecting the (back then) state owned PT and allowing unfair game such as this. PT is no longer state owned (no majority nor golden share), but the buyers not only got solid protectionist clauses with the discount purchase, they also happen to be tight friends with the Portuguese pollitician community. ANACAOM goes so far as to ignore EU's policy advisory for not allowing PT's monopolist benefits
Actually my fellow countryman, the average might be that, but the paycheck 20% of the population gets is minimum wage (~500). They expect 20% of the population to pay their 30bucks phone+data plan with 2gb undiscriminate allowance, then force them to pay one of these add ons. And maybe after that they still have money for food, electricity, rent or mortgage. God forbid if you have kids that also need a data plan.
First, the economies of scale and the technical aspects of landline vs mobile are very different. Mobile is still a premium service for something that is actually easier to deploy to ISPs.
Second, this isn't unbundling. These smart plans are actually addons. You will need to have either a standalone monthly phone plan or a 5-play service with triple play at home, phone and mobile data, which usually costs 70e around here for, say 100 channels, 100mbs at home, 2gb mobile and unlimited national calls. So this is not unbundling - it's making the customer pay more for his communication bill than all other utilities combined, and thrn some
Oh and you missed a tibit there: you can only have these smart plans when already paying a monthly subscription that costs upwards of 25 bucks (for a miserable 3gb) with a 2y contract, or 50 for the same. So no, it's noy a mobile plan for 5 bucks... It's an add on
It's a "smart" plan? Didn't you visit the link? It's for smart people that only need youtube and video streaming, and are smart enough that they get more by paying cheap. You can't be smart for every service though, because thay would require buying all plans for a lot of buck, and you can't also be non-standard because only those services are supported. Smart is falling in line these days, as defined by big com corps
All the technicalities in that big explanation really showed where the point comes from, and I totally agree with the reply that in essence, ISPs want to be gatekeepers. They are using this gatekeepr powers not get the average revenue - they are trying to have competitive offers with their gatekeeping in order to acquire more users or more revenue and have an economy of scale that surpasses the average. Because that is the only thing their investors really care about: growing revenues. They are creating demand for something that should be standard but that they have the power to make it look premium
Putting a discount price in discriminatory traffic is exactly the same as making indiscriminate plans prohibitive. Why does every single argument here states "oh but you have 60euro plans that will give you the same traffic for whatever service and not just those services?" Do you think the average portuguese makes 2k like in the US? We have a 2digit poverty rate and the paycheck you see the most people is the minimum wage (~500 euro). I think about 20% of employed populatiob makes minimum wage despite the average salary being around 1000 bucks
It is about access. From a Portuguese who is forced to use MEO in a not that secluded rural area, and has no other internet link available, it is nothing short of censorship.
But city cats will never understand because of their evolved ways of life on fiber optics. It's really easy to close your eyes to bad policy making in the comfort of your 200mbps 20 bucks plan.
I'm from Portugal. This week I accidentally activated samsung cloud backup on my phone. Needless to say my photos and videos ate through my home data cap and now I get 2001 speeds until after tomorrow. Yet if I had used my provider's cloud backup plan, which just happens to be MEO, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FREE TRAFFIC. Now imagine I'm a user or a company that relies on backups for everyday tasks and is willing to pay for it, which service you think I will be purchasing since all I have is this ISP...
I'm gonna give tou 2 examples on how this affected Portuguese use patterns:
P2P, online gaming, streaming video and music users users would concentrate use overnight in order to abuse the "happy hour" of international traffic de-cap that plans allowed. This is an example of what pundits will call "bad use so good riddance",which imho is hipocrisy.
Now I'll give you the example where there was impact to good practices: software as a service, such as cloud storage or remote machines never caught traction in Portugal until international data caps were made obsolete.
It used to be, here in Portugal we had international vs national traffic quotas for at least 10y, and it was one of the main showstoppers of our internet usage patterns. This particular distinction was actually the most relevant back then. It was starting to become universally acknowleged as a censorship policy by unsavy users, and then big com corp had to change plans, especially since external ISPs (e. g. Vodafone) started entering the market and bringing international standards around. People wised up, and I'm hoping they will wise up again for this crap of service-based data caps
The simple fact you have to bring piracy here shows the kind of interesta you seem to have on the subject. You are doing the same as ISPs are: being all judgmental on what's a fair internet use, and telling your own version of how decent people should use the internet. Big problem is you or nobody else shouldn't get to police around everyone else's type of use.
ISPs just assumed everyone would play the game where they get rich providing a bad service which gets cheaper with every tech bump, but they could still charge the same and keep that revenue flow constant. So sorry for that (not)
Had you experienced first hand Internet service in Portugal, you would very much know that this is discrimination of traffic.
We have data caps for traffic types. Before it used to be for international vs national traffic on land lines, now it's by io range or domain for "privileged" services.
Now, even someone reading Portuguese wouldn't get this from the article, but you come here and bash it so Im assuming you're an interested party
In case you didn't know, communication technologies is one of the few things the EU has no direct control because it depends on ratification by individual states's communication regulatory authority (analogous to the FCC for the US).
In Portugal, I have seen first hand ANACOM giving the finger to European Comission AND the EU members regulatory association at the same time. One example is roaming charges, which thr EU will say Portugal no longer has, but we basically have a fraction of our mobile plans when we are abroad yet still inaide the EU. It's a joke
Everyone is doing it, but PT started doing it originally with their Meo Cloud, Meo Music and other services that never got traction when plans were cheaper and had more data.
Vodafone and NOS (SONAECOM) started doing this because PT has 50%chunk on mobile and a quasi-monopoly in rural areas, so they started playing their game and also using outrageously aggressive promotions in order to cope with ANACOMs protection of PT.
VODAFONE offers free Spotify premium on 12bucks/month mobile+data plans (unlimited calls and 10gb), while NOS has plans with 50% discount on Uber rides with basically no practical limit. Competition is a beautiful thing but having to resort to stuff like that really shows how it goes here
PT/MEO/Altice (or whatever name they decide is less tainted this week) are basically our FCC's (ANACOM) golden boys, and have been for decades. But maybe the best description is to say ANACOM is PT's lapdog. I bet that's how the other 2 ISPs see it.
Initially, PT was the state's telecom, and they got state-sponsored everything including tubing, copper, fiber networks, you name it, paid by good ol' taxpayers money, mine and my parents' (because state worker salaries have been frozen since 2007 - first by seniority, then in 2010 by merits such as academic degree).
The country was sacked 2-3 years ago due to loss of soberanity to the Troika), from international handouts we got from them for our much over-hyped so-called bankruptcy. This induced in the sale of most state-owned companies, including PT/MEO to Altice.
International purchasers of our "on sale" country usually got cool perks on clauses, and we also got ourselves one of the top golden passports programs in the world in the process, so top level management could move money around tax havens easily. Shit like this is common practice here and not just on de-nationalization of stuff - when we build our state-of-the-art toll-highways, contractors, who pay something like 10-30% of the roads (remainder state-subsidized) get the revenue from tolls over the next 20-50 years as a benefit, while maintenance and toll collection are all still state's responsibility. According to my own very basic calculations, they get something like 10 times initial investment, while the state itself gets a very hard hit on anual budget.
Oh and guess what, we are one of the top countries getting hammered by the Panama Papers offshoring of cash.
But this was just an example. Let me tell you what ALTICE got when they purchased PT/MEO at discount, at least that I know off: total monopoly on rural areas, which ANACOM likes to name "non-competitive zones", and which for a country like Portugal is not a lot of land % but is near the 30% family houses. A 30% population, state-sponsored monopoly. FUCK.
So since my family lives in one of these areas and we are not happy with their service, I decided to contact PT/MEO through their client feedback page, mentioning some very knowledgeable, yet all public details about my actually not very common issue - I am from a village which has very old copper lines, sometimes not reaching the 1mbps, and with constant drops in service. We also have a 3g signal from the only provider that is reachable, PT/MEO obviously, who offer a data-capped service. The copper DSL service requires a 15euro fee just to have the phone line, which is mandatory, and we still have to pay 25€ extra for 24mbps DSL (read: 1mbps with drops). The 3g plan is 30€ a month, and it is simply unusable on primetime. None of these plans include a mobile phone plan or mobile phone data or cable or satellite TV, which is an extra 20-30€. My family's telecom bill goes beyond 100€ most months. RE-FUCK.
But here's the real kicker: WE HAVE FIBER ON OUR STREET THAT NOBODY WILL SELL US.
Before PT/MEO was sold, they were in the process of kick-starting state-sponsored fiber link called Redes de Nova Geração all over rural areas, operated by, guess who.... PT/MEO. This was done in a similar 30/70 scheme as the highways but instead of tolls, PT got to be the operator and re-sell fiber to our other 2 telecom carriers, so that it would be shared, just like in cities here, to induce in FAIR competition. When we have competition around here, things like a 25€ triple-play plan, like we have in EVERY SINGLE CITY IN PORTUGAL
I guess joke's on me for not making it clear. I obviously meant "at least a 2 digit IQ". And to answer your question as is: no. I believe last time I tested it I was safely on the 3 digits, and it was less than 10 years ago.
In my defense I'm no native English speaker. I kind of assumed "at least" could be implied, when you say stuff like "anyone with ", when used in a question at least.
Slashdot Mirror
Regulation is to be made by entities without conflict of interest, such as for-profits or owners of competing service in the included traffic.
If "video" traffic is screwing uo the medical and educational industry, or even the IRS systems, it has to be the state to mandate limits in "video" traffic. Is thay fair and clear enough for you?
Exactly, and Portuguese ISPs are top lobbyists in EU policy. Recently we had a big long cry about how the end of roaming charges would affect Portuguese economu the most. Somehow we did get roaming charges abolished, but somehow national ISPs got away with making plans behave MUCH different while abroad vs while in Portugal. Which is exactly the opposite of what was intended with the non-roaming charges bill...
Yeap, these plans go leaps and bounds to not look discriminatory. But as I said elsewhere, communications still is something the EU tries to make universally policed, but in practice isn't. National regulators still have final say, with power so broad even local government has issues policing them. I am actually quite sure recent efforts to make it so are one of the top reasons so many britons ganged up for the brexit, but this is speculation
Actually, this whole shenanigans started with national vs overseas traffic a decade ago. When more players entered the market and ate through PTs monopoly since they didn't havr that cap, that's when ANACOM started protecting the (back then) state owned PT and allowing unfair game such as this. PT is no longer state owned (no majority nor golden share), but the buyers not only got solid protectionist clauses with the discount purchase, they also happen to be tight friends with the Portuguese pollitician community. ANACAOM goes so far as to ignore EU's policy advisory for not allowing PT's monopolist benefits
It's not a data plan, it's an add on. You will have to pay a hefty plan for a mere 1-2gb before you even get access to these "smart" add ons
Actually my fellow countryman, the average might be that, but the paycheck 20% of the population gets is minimum wage (~500). They expect 20% of the population to pay their 30bucks phone+data plan with 2gb undiscriminate allowance, then force them to pay one of these add ons. And maybe after that they still have money for food, electricity, rent or mortgage. God forbid if you have kids that also need a data plan.
First, the economies of scale and the technical aspects of landline vs mobile are very different. Mobile is still a premium service for something that is actually easier to deploy to ISPs.
Second, this isn't unbundling. These smart plans are actually addons. You will need to have either a standalone monthly phone plan or a 5-play service with triple play at home, phone and mobile data, which usually costs 70e around here for, say 100 channels, 100mbs at home, 2gb mobile and unlimited national calls. So this is not unbundling - it's making the customer pay more for his communication bill than all other utilities combined, and thrn some
Oh and you missed a tibit there: you can only have these smart plans when already paying a monthly subscription that costs upwards of 25 bucks (for a miserable 3gb) with a 2y contract, or 50 for the same. So no, it's noy a mobile plan for 5 bucks... It's an add on
It's a "smart" plan? Didn't you visit the link? It's for smart people that only need youtube and video streaming, and are smart enough that they get more by paying cheap. You can't be smart for every service though, because thay would require buying all plans for a lot of buck, and you can't also be non-standard because only those services are supported. Smart is falling in line these days, as defined by big com corps
All the technicalities in that big explanation really showed where the point comes from, and I totally agree with the reply that in essence, ISPs want to be gatekeepers. They are using this gatekeepr powers not get the average revenue - they are trying to have competitive offers with their gatekeeping in order to acquire more users or more revenue and have an economy of scale that surpasses the average. Because that is the only thing their investors really care about: growing revenues. They are creating demand for something that should be standard but that they have the power to make it look premium
Putting a discount price in discriminatory traffic is exactly the same as making indiscriminate plans prohibitive. Why does every single argument here states "oh but you have 60euro plans that will give you the same traffic for whatever service and not just those services?" Do you think the average portuguese makes 2k like in the US? We have a 2digit poverty rate and the paycheck you see the most people is the minimum wage (~500 euro). I think about 20% of employed populatiob makes minimum wage despite the average salary being around 1000 bucks
It is about access. From a Portuguese who is forced to use MEO in a not that secluded rural area, and has no other internet link available, it is nothing short of censorship.
But city cats will never understand because of their evolved ways of life on fiber optics. It's really easy to close your eyes to bad policy making in the comfort of your 200mbps 20 bucks plan.
I'm from Portugal. This week I accidentally activated samsung cloud backup on my phone. Needless to say my photos and videos ate through my home data cap and now I get 2001 speeds until after tomorrow. Yet if I had used my provider's cloud backup plan, which just happens to be MEO, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FREE TRAFFIC. Now imagine I'm a user or a company that relies on backups for everyday tasks and is willing to pay for it, which service you think I will be purchasing since all I have is this ISP...
I'm gonna give tou 2 examples on how this affected Portuguese use patterns:
P2P, online gaming, streaming video and music users users would concentrate use overnight in order to abuse the "happy hour" of international traffic de-cap that plans allowed. This is an example of what pundits will call "bad use so good riddance",which imho is hipocrisy.
Now I'll give you the example where there was impact to good practices: software as a service, such as cloud storage or remote machines never caught traction in Portugal until international data caps were made obsolete.
It used to be, here in Portugal we had international vs national traffic quotas for at least 10y, and it was one of the main showstoppers of our internet usage patterns. This particular distinction was actually the most relevant back then. It was starting to become universally acknowleged as a censorship policy by unsavy users, and then big com corp had to change plans, especially since external ISPs (e. g. Vodafone) started entering the market and bringing international standards around. People wised up, and I'm hoping they will wise up again for this crap of service-based data caps
The simple fact you have to bring piracy here shows the kind of interesta you seem to have on the subject. You are doing the same as ISPs are: being all judgmental on what's a fair internet use, and telling your own version of how decent people should use the internet. Big problem is you or nobody else shouldn't get to police around everyone else's type of use.
ISPs just assumed everyone would play the game where they get rich providing a bad service which gets cheaper with every tech bump, but they could still charge the same and keep that revenue flow constant. So sorry for that (not)
Had you experienced first hand Internet service in Portugal, you would very much know that this is discrimination of traffic.
We have data caps for traffic types. Before it used to be for international vs national traffic on land lines, now it's by io range or domain for "privileged" services.
Now, even someone reading Portuguese wouldn't get this from the article, but you come here and bash it so Im assuming you're an interested party
In case you didn't know, communication technologies is one of the few things the EU has no direct control because it depends on ratification by individual states's communication regulatory authority (analogous to the FCC for the US).
In Portugal, I have seen first hand ANACOM giving the finger to European Comission AND the EU members regulatory association at the same time. One example is roaming charges, which thr EU will say Portugal no longer has, but we basically have a fraction of our mobile plans when we are abroad yet still inaide the EU. It's a joke
Caríssimo, antes de vires mandar postas informa-te da sociedade em que vives
Everyone is doing it, but PT started doing it originally with their Meo Cloud, Meo Music and other services that never got traction when plans were cheaper and had more data.
Vodafone and NOS (SONAECOM) started doing this because PT has 50%chunk on mobile and a quasi-monopoly in rural areas, so they started playing their game and also using outrageously aggressive promotions in order to cope with ANACOMs protection of PT.
VODAFONE offers free Spotify premium on 12bucks/month mobile+data plans (unlimited calls and 10gb), while NOS has plans with 50% discount on Uber rides with basically no practical limit. Competition is a beautiful thing but having to resort to stuff like that really shows how it goes here
Before you say without government subsidies, read my comment "juicy tale from a local"
These PT/MEO guys, I got a cool story for ya.
(this is a long comment so beware)
PT/MEO/Altice (or whatever name they decide is less tainted this week) are basically our FCC's (ANACOM) golden boys, and have been for decades. But maybe the best description is to say ANACOM is PT's lapdog. I bet that's how the other 2 ISPs see it.
Initially, PT was the state's telecom, and they got state-sponsored everything including tubing, copper, fiber networks, you name it, paid by good ol' taxpayers money, mine and my parents' (because state worker salaries have been frozen since 2007 - first by seniority, then in 2010 by merits such as academic degree).
The country was sacked 2-3 years ago due to loss of soberanity to the Troika), from international handouts we got from them for our much over-hyped so-called bankruptcy. This induced in the sale of most state-owned companies, including PT/MEO to Altice.
International purchasers of our "on sale" country usually got cool perks on clauses, and we also got ourselves one of the top golden passports programs in the world in the process, so top level management could move money around tax havens easily. Shit like this is common practice here and not just on de-nationalization of stuff - when we build our state-of-the-art toll-highways, contractors, who pay something like 10-30% of the roads (remainder state-subsidized) get the revenue from tolls over the next 20-50 years as a benefit, while maintenance and toll collection are all still state's responsibility. According to my own very basic calculations, they get something like 10 times initial investment, while the state itself gets a very hard hit on anual budget.
Oh and guess what, we are one of the top countries getting hammered by the Panama Papers offshoring of cash.
But this was just an example. Let me tell you what ALTICE got when they purchased PT/MEO at discount, at least that I know off: total monopoly on rural areas, which ANACOM likes to name "non-competitive zones", and which for a country like Portugal is not a lot of land % but is near the 30% family houses. A 30% population, state-sponsored monopoly. FUCK.
So since my family lives in one of these areas and we are not happy with their service, I decided to contact PT/MEO through their client feedback page, mentioning some very knowledgeable, yet all public details about my actually not very common issue - I am from a village which has very old copper lines, sometimes not reaching the 1mbps, and with constant drops in service. We also have a 3g signal from the only provider that is reachable, PT/MEO obviously, who offer a data-capped service. The copper DSL service requires a 15euro fee just to have the phone line, which is mandatory, and we still have to pay 25€ extra for 24mbps DSL (read: 1mbps with drops). The 3g plan is 30€ a month, and it is simply unusable on primetime. None of these plans include a mobile phone plan or mobile phone data or cable or satellite TV, which is an extra 20-30€. My family's telecom bill goes beyond 100€ most months. RE-FUCK.
But here's the real kicker: WE HAVE FIBER ON OUR STREET THAT NOBODY WILL SELL US.
Before PT/MEO was sold, they were in the process of kick-starting state-sponsored fiber link called Redes de Nova Geração all over rural areas, operated by, guess who.... PT/MEO. This was done in a similar 30/70 scheme as the highways but instead of tolls, PT got to be the operator and re-sell fiber to our other 2 telecom carriers, so that it would be shared, just like in cities here, to induce in FAIR competition. When we have competition around here, things like a 25€ triple-play plan, like we have in EVERY SINGLE CITY IN PORTUGAL
Had no idea of this. Tantalizing. Reminds me of my junior high, where all PCs also had it
I guess joke's on me for not making it clear. I obviously meant "at least a 2 digit IQ". And to answer your question as is: no. I believe last time I tested it I was safely on the 3 digits, and it was less than 10 years ago.
In my defense I'm no native English speaker. I kind of assumed "at least" could be implied, when you say stuff like "anyone with ", when used in a question at least.
2 digit, _positive_ IQ
I laughed kinda hard on that one. Good job!