The "who pays you" FUD reminds me of the subpoena Personal Audio sought for a list of EFF donors in the podcasting patent case. The EFF is not a front for your competitors. People really care about this stuff.
We see the same kind of thing with the National Rifle Association. It seems like many people opposed to them are convinced that it's just a proxy for the small arms industry (that would be the National Shooting Sports Foundation) and it can't possibly have the grassroots support it does.
To me the NRA just seems to have gone off the deep-end in the last decade or so. Perhaps it's just a symptom of the increasing political polarization in the US in general, but recently it seems like their point of view has shifted to "no gun regulation is good gun regulation" which is almost a parody of what they used to stand for.
The NRA has historically cared more about hunting than guns. If a restriction on guns didn't burden hunting, they didn't care. In the firearms community, people like this are pejoratively referred to as Fudds. Famously, the NRA supported the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 (which banned new automatic weapons from going into civilian hands). There was a shift in the organization away from the Fudds in the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s. In recent years, the Fudds have lost much of their influence.
Respectfully, I think you should look carefully at the kinds gun regulations that are being proposed today. People are confused as to why the NRA would oppose background checks on all firearms transfers without understanding that all proposals put forth to date would create firearms registries, which have been abused in the past. If you came up to a solution to that (and didn't add a new tax on firearms transfers), you might actually get the NRA's support. Additionally, some state "universal background check" measures have done ridiculous things like make it illegal to lend a firearm to someone at a shooting range.
1) You apply for a background check; there will be a fee to cover costs.
2) Assuming you pass the background check, you are issued an ID
3) Any gun sale would require you to present the ID. This includes in-state private-party transfers. The seller keeps (but does not register centrally) a record of this (e.g. a photocopy)
Note an unexpired id from #2 is not required for possessing a firearm, merely for acquiring one, and having been issued an ID at some point in the past is not proof that you have any firearms (as you may have never purchased one at all, or you may have sold all the ones you purchased).
While not perfect, it is a better system than the current system, and lets you audit people suspected of selling firearms inappropriately. Individual firearms are not registered, nor is it possible for the government to generate a list of definite gun owners (though eventually it would be possible for the government to generate a list of definite non-gun owners once everyone who owned a gun before the law was in effect is dead).
• By charging a fee for an ID necessary to acquire a firearm, you tax the exercise of a constitutional right.
• An ID card does not guarantee that the bearer has not subsequently been deemed mentally incompetent nor convicted of a crime that disqualifies them from firearms ownership.
• Your proposal would require anyone who has ever sold a gun to maintain records of the transfer indefinitely. In order to have teeth, you'd have to create a new crime for failure to do so. Even federally licensed firearms dealers don't have to maintain records indefinitely.
All this aside, there is the larger issue that the kinds of events that prompt such proposals (Sandy Hook, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Charleston) have perpetuators who either passed NCIC or would have if they went through a dealer. And while mass shootings are what get all the news coverage, they are hardly representative of the average shooting, where the guns tend to have been acquired illegally already.
It's not a tax if it's merely covering the costs of the transaction. That is that if we agree that it is a good thing to require background checks at all, then it will be part of the cost of transferring it.
If you don't agree that background checks are a good idea at all, then just say so.
This proposal is likely a lighter financial burden than either requiring everyone to get a background check for every transfer, or to require everyone go through a federally licensed dealer.
It wouldn't necessarily need to be indefinitely; how long one wants to require this is a policy choice. Long enough to catch repeat offenders is all one really needs; stopping a single person from just once committing any crime is pretty hard.
But, what are you basing that on? Have you actually researched legislative content, votes, positions, etc., or are you basing your perception on what media tell you?
It seems to me that the NRA positions itself to the government as a representative of all gun owners. Around 31% of households in America claim to own guns [1] - so maybe this group shouldn't have so much political sway as it does? I recognize that groups with moderate views are few and far between but the collective "we" that the NRA stands for keeps pushing me further away from it.
31% of Americans is an enormous political faction, you'd be hard pressed to find another group of citizens with a singular lobbying purpose that reaches that size (AARP and Agriculture lobbies come immediately to mind).
It seems to me that the NRA positions itself to the
government as a representative of all gun owners.
Rather, the media position the NRA as the representative of all gun usage.
Blaming existing law and the NRA after a highly-reported shooting is common, even when the gun was obtained illegally and the shooter not legally eligible to own one. An analog would be blaming Planned Parenthood when a newborn is abandoned to die.
There have been accusations that they inflate their membership numbers, but conservatively, the NRA has over three million dues-paying members and they claim nearly five million.
I was looking for EFF membership numbers as a point of comparison, but I couldn't find them. Does anyone know where to find them?
Those numbers seem easily plausible, but that's not really what I asked - do we have any actual transparency into it, and where else does the money come from? There could be 3m members but that still represent a minority of their support.
To be fair, I can see why it looks and feels like AstroTurf to people who don't know any better. That kind of cynicism is probably pretty healthy for good reasons in companies like theirs.
I mean, that's true, and Google has spent plenty of money on the EFF. But the reason I trust the EFF, unlike most companies/organizations/government officials Google 'donates' money to, is that the EFF has taken Google to task, recently even: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/02/google-eff...
Except that anyone poking at the EFF history should quickly discover that they have been around for some time, and got started because of government overreach regarding computers and electronic networks.
Oh, I agree. A basic google-search should have been enough to tip them off. And it seems they didn't even do that, so shame on them. I'm just saying their pre-search reaction is probably justified.
I love this "proprietary technology" schtick, as if selective throttling isn't something that any carrier could implement. The hardest part of developing this technology was likely the legal analysis as to why it doesn't violate FCC net neutrality rules. My conspiracy theory is that TMO implemented a system which does not violate the rules, but is designed to get customers used to the concept of throttling. Then after some lobbying or political changes, the rules may change, and TMO will have both the infrastructure as well as complacent customers ready to pay extra (perhaps indirectly) for streaming content on mobile data plans.
I don't think they're after customer money. They want service provider money.
If what telekom is trying in germany is a any indication, the plan is to move all traffic to the BingeOn mode. After that, they degrade services that are not paying them and zero-rate + allow higher bitrates for services that pay them.
But "paying" is not cash if the talk in our startup scene is to be believed. Telekom is pulling out of startup incubating (after failing miserably) and are trying to use their position as an intermediary to get equity off of every new startup.
How? Imagine a new startup "meflixtube": growth is good, funding is secured, everything looks great. Telekom notices and says "would be a shame if something degrading would happen to your service, ey? give us a few percent of equity and you'll get zero-rated, undegraded access to our customers". Now instead of getting a few $$$, they are in line to get a few 100 million $$$ when a few of the new startups take off. They can even make sure that the startups they have "convinced" don't get any competition by refusing the same deal to competitors.
tl;dr: Telekom is not after customer money, their customer base is the market they "offer" to companies and zero-rated, undegraded data is their gate.
This is spot on, and it's why "free" offerings are still a major net neutrality worry. Even if there's nothing underhanded going on with them initially, it sets the stage for trouble.
I find "proprietary technology" claims amusing because to me that is such an obviously bad thing, and bragging about it is like General Mills bragging that every box of Wheaties is contaminated with mercury and PCBs.
To play devil's advocate here, does this mean companies shouldn't even offer time-limited freebies (e.g. promotional offerings "Buy 2 data packages for the price of 1! Limited Time offer!")?
Or is the worry that only indefinitely free offerings can set the stage for trouble later? To me both viewpoints set the stage for trouble, except the indefinite free offering is a darker shade of gray.
Yes, exactly. I didn't mean to say that all "free" things are a net neutrality problem, only that policies which affect different traffic differently are still problematic when they're free.
For example, if T-Mobile started charging $10/month to access Spotify on their network, that's an obvious net neutrality problem. What I'm saying is that if T-Mobile lets you access Spotify for free on their network, that is also a net neutrality problem, although many people see it as just a bonus.
Stuff where an entire plan is free is fine. It's when different traffic is treated differently that net neutrality comes in.
Except where such variations in communications service are explicitly authorized by the consumer.
A counter example that I bet T-Mobile is waiting to deploy is parental control. As strange as it sounds, there are actually families that pay to have their wireless carrier restrict adult content while on-net.
EDIT: "As strange as it sounds" refers to the fact that most parental control solutions are network-based, when in fact a proper parental control solution should be client-based because as soon as your child goes to WiFi at MacDonalds/Starbucks they probably have access to all the adult content they want to see by bypassing the wireless carrier parental control network controls.
> when in fact a proper parental control solution should be client-based because as soon as your child goes to WiFi at MacDonalds/Starbucks they probably have access to all the adult content they want to see by bypassing the wireless carrier parental control network controls.
And to anyone that doesn't think kids know how to change the wifi settings:
My son is 6. He trawls for open wifi like crazy if I don't start my hotspot. And other kids do to, at an alarming rate: We were flying to see his grandma before christmas and at the gate at London Gatwick, I turned on my hotspot. He was one the iPad that automatically connected. Only I had turned the password off at some point for some reason. Within a couple of minutes, half a dozen kids had joined his Minecraft world by finding my hotspot, and then starting Minecraft and realising there was an accessible local server ....
(alarming, because they'd be an oh-so-tempting target for all kinds of stuff...)
So I have T-Mobile (a prepaid account on a pay-as-you-go plan with no data), and there's already a parental control feature: they call it Web Guard. It's been there for a long time (since dumbphones) and is set to "Young Adult (17+)" by default. To turn it off I need to provide age verification: my full name, address, date of birth, and last four digits of my social security number. Although this information "will not be collected or stored for any use by T-Mobile USA" -- presumably it's only sent to Equifax or some other identity verification partner -- I'm still not comfortable giving them that information (I believe the only personal information I've ever provided is my name, email address, and ZIP code). I haven't made a fuss because I have no data plan, so turning it off won't help me, but I do still find it annoying.
Incidentally, when I went looking for the setting today (it's in your account profile under Phone Controls), I discovered I now have a Binge On setting, which is (of course) on by default. However, I haven't checked to see if streaming video works (even though I have no data plan).
As a parent, and as a person working in the wireless industry, I share this frustration. The main issue is that a true client-based parental-control solution will:
a) eat up more data as the client's parental control component needs to continually update its URL database;
b) require more CPU and RAM (i.e. more expensive phone) if you want a better "content inspection" engine (since URLs are notoriously easy to bypass);
c) you are willfully acting as a MITM and creating a backdoor by forcing all content to be decrypted in some way for the solution to work effectively and only controlled by you (the parent), which may (or may not) compromise your stance on the issue of e2e encryption, privacy and security;
d) (your point above and following from c) having to personally safeguard and secure your child's device;
e) on Android, is it even possible to not root the device? Where's there's a will, there's a way: most kids with smartphones coupled with an incentive to bypass controls (Minecraft was a good example given above) could easily root their device, or eventually social engineer their parents into choosing future devices that are rootable.
Parental Controls are DRM. They're precisely the same problem statement and software solution: You want to turn general-purpose computing into devices that hide their capabilities from the user, selectively. This doesn't work on an informed and educated populace, and kids reach that level of education earlier than you think.
My parents stopped filtering my internet at about 8 - I'd been online since 4- and while I'm certainly more scarred and savvy about a variety of strange subcultures than I would otherwise be, I am glad of it. Even before then, the filters had not been 100%; I know by anecdote that I had seen some seriously deranged pornography before the filters completely dropped, and I really just wasn't interested.
1) they are allowing customers to opt-out (maybe they will concede this could be improved, but it doesn't change their fundamental desire to circumvent net neutrality);
2) content discrimination has positive benefits for consumers (i.e. allows higher consumption of content)
T-Mobile may be willing to bet that the FCC and consumer groups will be hard-pressed to claim that sending HDTV vs. EDTV falls under a discriminatory context given the consumer benefits and (seeming) fulfillment of video service.
After that, they degrade services that are not paying them and zero-rate + allow higher bitrates for services that pay them.
"degrade services that are not paying them" and "allow higher bitrates for services that pay them" would even more blatantly violate FCC net neutrality in the US.
T-Mobile here is circumventing this by only zero-rating with an opt-out mechanism. If they tried to pull a stunt like Deutsche Telekom in Germany, they'd be fined in no time by the FCC in a clear and shut case. They are doing something far more subtle here in the US.
EDIT: For clarity, Deutsche Telekom is a majority shareholder of T-Mobile USA.
Proprietary technology meant technology vendor technology bought and used by T-Mobile, not that it was proprietary to T-Mobile, unless Legere believes that T-Mobile's specific call flows or specific snowflake network configuration is part of this definition.
So other carriers sure could implement the same thing, but nobody is crazy enough to do that until they figure out how T-Mobile subscribers and the FCC respond.
You were downvoted because you are incorrect. The whole point of this debate is that wireless carriers were re-classified to fall under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 and Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 last February.
I feel like the EFF is arguing semantics and hasn't really made a valid argument about what's wrong with T-Mobile's approach. Yes T-Mobile is throttling and yes they're trying to relabel what they're doing to avoid all of the negative connotations that the term "throttling" brings wit it, but what are they doing that's harmful to the customer? I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that T-Mobile made it an opt-out feature instead of an opt-in one.
The reality is that wireless bandwidth is constrained and sustained transfers at high rates degrade the overall experience of everyone using a particular cellular tower. T-Mobile, being particularly bandwidth constrained, is attempting to mitigate this issue. They're doing it by offering a service where if you allow your bandwidth for certain content types to be be throttled, then the bandwidth you use for certain qualifying services won't count against your data cap. They're offering a carrot, not threatening with a stick.
Yes it's opt-out, but that was probably done intentionally because most folks won't notice the degradation or won't care, AND, more importantly, most people wouldn't bother to enable it if it were opt-in. If T-Mobile made it opt-in then their adoption rate would be lower so by making opt-out they're getting the greatest benefit.
I just looked at my account and the toggle to turn Binge On off is easily accessible in my user profile. It's not a buried feature anywhere. The only possible gripe I could see is that the setting is granular and per-line making it marginally harder to disable, but that's also a benefit. I have multiple lines on my account but only 1 has unlimited data, so the ability to disable it for just that one line is nice and allows me to have my cake and eat it too.
“T-Mobile utilizes streaming video optimization technology throughout its network to help customers stretch their high-speed data while streaming video.”
EFF:
T-Mobile seems to be arguing that downgrading video quality is not actually throttling, but we disagree. "Throttling" means that when a video stream hits T-Mobile's network, its bandwidth is capped. If the video provider's server has the capability to adapt the quality of the video, then the server can do that—but it is the video provider that is using "adaptive video technology," not T-Mobile. In other words, T-Mobile just constrains the bandwidth, and it's up to video providers to make sure their videos stream smoothly.
This isn't semantics—it's apples and oranges.
If T-Mobile wanted to give its customers more choice, it would have made Binge On opt-in, not opt-out. And if Binge On was really about helping customers stretch their data, then T-Mobile wouldn’t have automatically enabled Binge On for customers with unlimited data. They would also zero-rate all videos they throttle, not just the videos of providers who have enrolled.
T-Mobile's line is pure marketing BS to make what is basically QoS sound like something more advanced than what it is. It's not like we've never seen this sort of reality distortion before have we?
The EFF is right that it's throttling and T-Mobile is right for not wanting to call it throttling for very obvious reasons. And It is also "adaptive video technology", the EFF seems to think that term has any predefined meaning but it doesn't, T-Mobile literally made it up.
I disagree with the EFF's assertions about opt-in vs opt-out, they seems to not want to accept reality and why T-Mobile is doing this. T-Mobile, and anyone who isn't AT&T or Verizon, is very bandwidth constrained because of the way spectrum is auctioned off. They are trying to maintain acceptable service for their customers but can't if everyone is streaming 1080p video from the internet. While throttling is usually a poor decision for bandwidth management, persistent streaming is an exception where it helps. By turning this on by default, they're freeing up a lot of congestion. Most people won't know or care and those that do have a way to turn the service off.
That being said, T-Mobile isn't just degrading service, they're offering you incentives for accepting the degraded service. If you don't want the offering, you can turn it off easily.
Regardless of T-Mobile's intentions, this is on-by-default traffic shaping and content manipulation. They also weren't clear that this is only a throttling service and nothing more. My biggest issue is that it's on by default.
The on by default crap is my rub as well. I was wondering why my video streaming went to shit a month back. Now I know (and have turned it off).
T-Mobile's network is one of the weakest, if not the weakest, of the big 4 telcos. It's theirs or Sprint's. I went with them anyway because they appeared to be "less evil" than Verizon or ATT. But after all is said and done, if I'm a slave to a hostile corporate overload anyway, I may as well get good coverage.
After the last few weeks of T-Mobile and their CEO's shenanigans, I'll just go with Verizon from now on.
Agreed, that is where they run afoul of NN in my view, if the customer is given a opt-in choice then it is OK. The parallel is regular cable service, you can select regular or HD where HD costs more, but it is your choice.
They are giving the user a choice, they just defaulted to opt-out instead of opt-in. It's like when you buy something online and get auto-subscribed to a mailing list. You still have the option to turn it off.
They made the choice for them. You would think differently if this were an on-by-default service compressing PNGs to JPEG or automatically minifying other content in the name of bandwidth saving. It's a dangerous slope for companies to turn on content manipulation at will. The free market has a hard time punishing them (or even knowing) for large telcos and ISPs. This is the crux of the NN legislation argument.
They chose a default, the choice to change that default is still with the customer. It's also very granular so you can choose for each individual line how you want your service.
While content manipulation would give pause for concern, as it does with Comcast's data cap notifications, that isn't what T-Mobile is doing. They're not altering the traffic, they're altering the transport rate which is very different. By lowering the bandwidth of certain content types, they're triggering the adaptive technologies employed by services to behave differently.
One of the EFF's gripes was that the pipe constriction was indiscriminate and thus services that didn't employ adaptive technologies experienced buffering and stuttering issues. That's probably the only legitimate point they made.
The short video sounds like what you'd hear from any salesperson to me. A rough outline of the talking points, but no real understanding of how what they're selling works. Which is OK, it's not their job to be technical, but it does sound really crummy when you actually do understand what they're talking about. For example, "proprietary technology" sounds good to whoever this guy usually talks to. It sounds like nonsense to us.
What's even more appalling is that he so vehemently refuses to acknowledge the throttling of data throughput even after EFF reached out to TMobile separately and the company confirmed it. HIS OWN COMPANY CONFIRMED IT!!!
It's various shades of spin. For unencrypted videos, T-Mobile might be using other techniques beyond throttling (e.g. downshifting the resolution). Or perhaps he's trying to get around strict throttling by claiming (in his head) that they're only throttling videos, while other data isn't being touched.
I wonder if he's on an internal hunt to find out who confirmed to the EFF that videos were being "throttled".
WiFi is the long-term winner of Binge On. And that may be T-Mobile's objective?
In most markets, TM can't compete head-to-head with the dominant LTE provider in that market. If other MNOs follow T-Mobile's lead (certainly not a given, but a possibility), then this moves the playing field to WiFi. And T-Mobile may prefer to play there.
I wish I could upvote you more than once. BingeOn provides limited relief for consumers using data while on-net, and are the most advanced amongst the American wireless carriers around integrated WiFi services.
For example, they were the first as far as I can tell to launch extensive WiFi calling and WiFi SMS, even extending to some American airlines (at least for WiFi SMS - calling is possible but socially unaccepted on planes).
Wireless carriers as a general rule are all looking at WiFi offload capabilities especially as 802.11ad and up provide higher transmission rates (peak and average theoreticals).
There is a race to perfect and bring to market seamless WiFi-base station handoffs (both ways) in real-world conditions. I suspect that will require a combination of channel (i.e. mobile devices) + wireless network upgrades, so in the meantime carriers need to bridge the gap. This is arguably a pretty good strategy assuming T-Mobile is expecting WiFi to handle even more of their traffic overtime.
Except what T-Mobile wants does not mean jack to what consumers want, and it is reflective of the times for a company to be trying to exploit consumers rather than provide value to them.
Of course every carrier wants you using wifi instead of their network. Its not their expense, but you would still be paying them for it. But people are not subscribing to often ludicrous mobile plan bills to be told to not use it.
We absolutely have the technology to provide a huge swathe of people broadband (as per the new FCC relabel) Internet access through long-range transmission based tech like GSM CDMA or WIMAX. That makes it insane to propose laying physical wire in the dirt or making an interconnected mesh of low power wifi routers as a substitute. The only real barrier is the draconian privatization of photons that makes up spectrum regulation. If we had a 95% open spectrum with some restricted for government and emergency communications you could easily have broad spectrum towers that could adapt to congestion and pair them with radios that will adapt frequency to optimize for range vs data rate vs congestion.
The limitations are entirely artificial and that should be pissing people off.
Re. "95% open spectrum" - Now we're really getting into the interesting tangents!
I'm still on the fence about de-privatizing spectrum for a variety of reasons. But the biggest elephant in the room whenever discussing spectrum de-privatization is that the FCC earned US$45 billion from wireless carriers last year, and US$19 billion in 2008's auction (http://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-rakes-in-45-billion-from-wirele...). In the grand scheme of the entire US federal budget, I think that's just a drop in the bucket. But it's still money that the federal government looks forward to.
So on the one hand, the FCC wants to play fair for consumers and tax-payers. On the other hand, the FCC can't really restructure an existing industry without biting the hand that literally feeds their existence to the tune of US$2-3 billion per year if you imagine their auction revenue as ratable over the years an auction doesn't take place.
Considering we're on a topic that is complete fantasy anyway, you could just rebudget the FCC. They aren't getting paid 3 billion a year of magic money - they are being funded effectively by the users of the networks that buy the spectrum in their bills they pay to the carrier.
Obviously we can look at the FCC and know it will not actually break up the spectrum monopolies, because its a conflict of interest. That doesn't change that privitization of radio waves is hostile to everyone but those who can exploit their ownership for profit.
Which MVNOs? I probably missed which, if any, MVNOs have better integrated WiFi wireless telecom services than T-Mobile because they're usually entirely dependent on the big four networks (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile) for voice and a variety of data platforms.
Republic comes to mind. I can't say which is "better" since I don't have phones from both vendors with which to compare, and I also can't define better for you.
>because they're usually entirely dependent on the big four networks (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile) for voice and a variety of data platforms.
Yes, that's pretty much the definition of an MVNO.
I did a short consultancy gig at T-Systems (also part of Deutsche Telekom, like T-Mobile). Apparently they had bad experiences with T-Mobile services so were in the process of switching to another provider.
Funnily enough, T-Mobile was not such a big fan of the IT service provided by T-Systems, and was also looking for an alternative.
Sounds like a very healthy company indeed.
P.s. John, if you read this, I also pay for the EFF.
If only Project Fi's cost/gb were competitive with T-Mobile so I could jump ship. For my volume of use (5-10GB/mo) T-Mobile is the cheapest provider in town.
Google's convergence (i.e. bundling Fi+Fiber) in this space would be exciting if they could get their MVNO pricing competitive but I guess they'd have to buy T-Mobile or Sprint to make that happen because they're not going to sell minutes or data at a loss.
As long as people prioritize price above all other things, shenanigans like this will keep happening. If you're not willing to pay more for better service then your likes or dislikes don't matter in the end.
That's simply not true at all, if you're paying the lowest, that means you value money over extra service and provided ample opportunities for competition in the market place and customers that want cheap service. They'll get what they want.
If there isn't ample competition or near perfect legislation, it doesn't matter what you pay, the service will eventually be held by a monopoly that can do almost whatever they damn well please.
You don't fight monopolies by paying more money, because as long as that's your only focus, the bar to entering the market will continue to rise until eventually you can't afford the `good guy`.
There's no monopoly in the US cell phone market. Competition is decently robust, with four major networks and a buttload of MVNOs.
Right now, one network is pulling this throttling bullshit. If you don't like it, there are other choices. If you say "I wish I could switch but T-Mobile is cheaper" then what you're actually saying is that you don't care about the issue enough to pay for it, and that means the providers have no reason to care about it.
AT&T has "Sponsored Data" and throttles 'unlimited' plans, and Verizon has their ad-tracking-injection mess.
Whoever I pay is going to get money for "pulling bullshit". I love the idea of voting with your dollar, but all of the major cell networks are anti-Net-Neutrality in multiple ways, so the whole thing is almost a false choice.
However, the network practice must be primarily used for and tailored to achieving a legitimate network management and not business purpose. For example, a provider can’t cite reasonable network management to justify reneging on its promise to supply a customer with “unlimited” data.
I still don't see how it's a net neutrality problem. Promising "unlimited" and then not providing it is a bad thing, certainly, but it's either false advertising or a failure to abide by the service contract, not a net neutrality violation.
You'd be right if the carrier denied data access beyond a certain limit despite advertising "unlimited".
But if the carrier chooses to throttle an "unlimited" data plan and thus degrades the delivery speed outside of "network management" contexts (such as congested network conditions) then they are now subject to additional punitive fines arising from net neutrality regulations that they are now subject to, on top of any (successful) fines related to misrepresentative advertising.
This falls under the category of willfully "impairing, or degrading" an existing service motivated by business interests related to the specific subscriber, instead of driven by purely technical network management justifications which would apply to a wider geographic area (i.e. not subscriber-specific), and this is one of the bright-line examples given by the FCC when they issued their press release.
As a side note, I believe the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection handles deceptive advertising enforcement, while the FCC handles net neutrality enforcement.
I understand you're saying that the FCC considers it to be a net neutrality issue, and I'm not disputing that. I'm simply saying that I don't agree with that, and don't see why it would be considered a net neutrality issue. If you throttle all data to "unlimited" customers equally then that's still perfectly neutral. The government may disagree, but I have no reason to follow their definitions.
I value price and service, both of which TMO wins for my use case today. I get we are talking about the future and where things can go, but the now is that they are the most customer friendly large wireless provider out there.
Well, T Mobile also is the first carrier to do away with subscriptions which I support. Sure, I don't agree with everything they do but as far as I can tell they are the most agreeable of the bunch.
Project Fi is all about buying usage from T-Mobile and Sprint. It's a blend of the two services, providing 'the best experience' between the two. Give it enough time, Project Fi might change the game but it's a long way off, since they don't have the scale nor can you use every phone on their leased network.
Google should REALLY develop a tool that lets you effectively estimate how much of your 5-10GB/mo would actually end up going over WiFi (and thus not cost you any Project Fi bits.)
Remember, a critical part of Google Fi is that it's supposed to automatically switch your voice and data to WiFi, and that Google has rigged partnerships such that they have lots of WiFi available for you to use.
So, if you currently use 5-10 GB/mo on one carrier, the theory is that you'll use less - possibly significantly less - on Google Fi.
That's SIGNIFICANTLY different from what you can see reported about how you manually configure the WiFi you have used today.
Except I've had to turn off that feature on my phone with Google's Fi service because public hotspots aren't necessarily reliable and can result in missed or dropped calls.
Also, there is the whole security issue of connecting to public APs automatically.
Remember, a critical part of Google Fi is that it's supposed to automatically switch your voice and data to WiFi, and that Google has rigged partnerships such that they have lots of WiFi available for you to use.
So, if you currently use 5-10 GB/mo on one carrier, the theory is that you'll use less - possibly significantly less - on Google Fi.
I don't think there is any "partnership", the "Wifi Assistant" feature just joins open wifi networks. It does do two neat things: first, it establishes a VPN tunnel through a Google controlled endpoint. Second, they seem to have a database tracking the quality of wifi networks. It won't join networks that are known to be slow, and if a network gets too slow it will automatically disconnect.
In practice though, almost every open wifi network is slow. Much slower than LTE, and certainly not something you could reasonably make a voice call over.
Overall I'm relatively happy with Fi. The service is a little better than T-Mobile (still not as good as AT&T) and the management interface is dead simple. Its what a software startup would build if they went into the cellular carrier business. And for my level of usage (3-4GB/month) the price is similar to T-Mobile.
Yes, international data is supposed to be a flat charge (same as domestic, $10/GB) and international calling happens at what I would consider to be very reasonable rates, both to numbers in and from towers of foreign countries. Also, I believe there is unlimited international texting around the globe.
(I migrated from Verizon to Project Fi, and live close to Canada, so, consider that I am used to turning my phone off when out of the country or near the border, because of Verizon's very unreasonable rates for international calling and text.)
I don't think you can order a Project Fi account as a non-domestic resident, though.
The technology they are using basically is similar to the technologies other wireless providers have used for throttling which they sometimes call "video optimization", the word optimize here is from the perspective of the carrier meaning "use less bandwidth on our network. It works by re-sampling and reducing the video quality in terms of resolution (pixels) and also color fidelity (e.g. octree). The thinking is that people watching video content on their phones will not notice the difference because the screen is so much smaller. The reason a lot of carriers ran afoul of NetNeut is that they were applying it without the consent of the subscriber (for example some would apply it only when their network or a cell site was nearing capacity or for users who were "abusing" unlimited plans (abusing meaning actually using a lot). I am not sure if the user elects to use a service with reduced quality at a reduced cost is really a violation of Net-Neut or not, the cable companies offer regular definition and high definition TV at tiered pricing for example. All the wireless carriers are trying to get into the content business in various ways as the growth of the traditional business levels off.
One add on to my own comment is that I forgot is that there is an allegation that Tmo is applying "video optimization" to content other than bingeon, which if true is a clear violation. It also is possible they are just incompetent too because that type of system they are using has to be programmed based on the 5-tuple source or destinations (and some other parameters) which it would not surprise me if they screwed that up).
Not exactly disturbing, but revealing. Evidently he lives in a little corporate bubble and is out of touch with the concerns of many ordinary internet users.
I would not call card carrying EFF members ordinary internet users. We may be vocal but the vast majority of the internet denizens don't know who the EFF is either.
The EFF does represent the concerns that most ordinary internet users should have but I don't know that I would say most of the do have those concerns.
Here EFF is pushing government interference in the market, as pushed by an FCC that is exceeding its authority, all so that consumers can have less choice (after all, if they don't like Binge On, they can choose another carrier that does not have it.) Most users don't share the EFF's concern because what T-Mo is doing does not harm them, so I certainly don't see how users even "should" share EFF's concern here.
T-Mobile's product is a move into creating a "wireless cable" company. In the long run, it's going to be cheaper to compete across many local markets by building towers than running last mile wires and contracting fleets of service technician vans.
In the US, the fact that most regulation is at the Federal level, implies that such a move will be relatively unconstrained by local governments and less burdened by franchise fees and right of way agreements and negotiations with power companies for stringing wires on poles. I suspect that regulations requiring big carriers to provide access on their networks and access to their exchanges may be another advantage, but I'm not a telecom lawyer.
It's probably a necessary move as video increasingly dominates bandwidth consumption. And my experience is that competition in the cable market tends to lead to better service.
I'm not really sure this is a bigger affront to net neutrality than some CDN delivering stale content or Google and Bing customizing my search results. It's just that we've come to accept those things and tend to heap hate on cable company business practices.
Nearly by definition, "cable company business practices" means shared bandwidth circuits, the business practices in question being network QoS attempts to make it profitable to offer shared network services at low cost.
I'd love to see a mathematical analysis of how much FIOS would cost if everyone got a 100% dedicated circuit at anything close to the advertised specs.
The hubbub about T-Mobile's policy is a misguided rant which idealistically supposes that all bandwidth should be sold in some idealized "dedicated" way with no QoS imposed. It certainly could be sold that way, but at a much higher price.
The whole net neutrality debate is fraught with profound misunderstandings of how the internet works. This T-Mobile/EFF fiasco included.
We think of bandwidth in terms of maximum throughput, which makes sense for a dedicated circuit, since often the customer of a dedicated circuit plans to keep it nearly saturated (consider an office phone system, for example).
We also care about latency and packet loss, but these are generally application specific concerns. Internet browsing works pretty well with high latency, but VOIP does not.
Generally, it's always possible to overbuild the circuit and exceed the minimum performance requirements. A small office could install a second T1 to handle the extremely rare case of all phones and all fax machines being in use at once, but it may prefer to save the money and use a single T1. The second T1 could be viewed along the lines of an insurance policy against a usage spike, and the decision not to buy it could be considered "living dangerously" or voluntarily exposing the company to that risk in exchange for money saved.
T-Mobile is not selling a dedicated bandwidth circuit to its customers, in spite of what the EFF wants us to feel indignant about. Yes, we all know the slippery slope the EFF is concerned about, but what T-Mobile is doing is quite reasonable.
Imagine that you are the only person using a cable modem in the whole neighborhood. There is ample bandwidth available to you. But if all the neighbors are also using it, there is throttling and prioritization going on so that the finite bandwidth can be shared optimally.
What does optimally mean? That is very much in the eye of the beholder. Maybe you play network games and would prefer that the network be optimized for low latency and UDP. Maybe your neighbor runs a BitTorrent node. Maybe someone down the street downloads raw SETI data for some kind of analysis. Each person has a different optimal QoS that he/she wishes the service provider would impose on everyone else.
T-Mobile has strong incentives to keep its customers happy. By analyzing the bandwidth usage, it has found a way to offer bandwidth at a lower cost by imposing a specific kind of QoS filter on the data.
This is precisely the purpose of QoS, being able to "stretch" bandwidth to accommodate more traffic by placing limits and prioritization on the traffic, with the goal of meeting all of the application specific requirements that the circuit would ideally meet.
So, quite reasonably, T-Mobile has found a way to constrain some of the most egregious bandwidth hogging behavior its customers do, and has engineered a way to offer the constrained service at an improved price and packaged in a way so customers perceive greater value from the service.
Yes, there might be someone trying to download SETI data over the T-Mobile LTE connection, or trying to compete in networked gaming, or all sorts of edge cases, but like Amazon's choice of which products it offers as Prime, T-Mobile has chosen a broadly appealing QoS filter which will result in most customers perceiving better value.
Additionally, it allows T-Mobile to leverage content providers in infrastructure planning risk, which helps reduce the amount of bandwidth speculation going on, and overall makes the circuit perform more like a dedicated circuit. This point is subtle but true.
So while the T-Mobile CEO seems a bit over the top, the EFF has (I think) gone over the line in an ill-conceived attack on one of the more progressive service providers. I personally donate to the EFF and proudly display the laptop sticker, but I also understand QoS and the complexity of shared infrastructure planning.
Thank you! I'm a T-Mobile customer and that's exactly what I was thinking when I read about this plan. For what it's worth, as a customer I know I can opt out of this plan and I didn't, because unlimited lower resolution video simply is worth more to me than limited high resolution video.
Personally my only concern is that zero rating only applies to video providers that sign up with them. If they want to be good corporate citizens, I think they should zero rate all the streams they detect as video, so there's a 1:1 mapping between zero rated and throttled.
I live in New York, where many many people's only connection to the Internet is on their phone. They have no home wifi. With this plan, t-mobile just became way more cost effective for those people if they want to watch tons of video.
Is it the first step down a slippery slope? I don't know. But this first step is awfully appealing from my point of view as a cheapskate consumer.
(My views here do not in any way represent the opinions of my employer.)
I agree QoS is essential to manage a packet network, you need to be able to buffer less time critical packets such as web / data traffic for more time critical such as voice traffic and so on. I think where that runs into a problem with NN is when you charge a different rate for different levels of service to customers rather than using it to manage your network. The problem with that is that it can potentially lock out innovation. For example, what if a new start up came along to challenge YouTube, if the cost to entry for that startup is prohibitively high, then the incumbent becomes a defacto monopoly.
I want my ISP or mobile carrier to lay enough line to give me the speed I need all the time. If they can't do that, don't lie to me and tell me I'll get it, tell me what I'll get, or let me go elsewhere to get it.
I understand what you are saying, but why in the world should the customer care about T Mobile's bandwidth problems? It's up to the company to provide as much bandwidth as the customer desires, not restrict it in crappy little ways to save money for the service provider who doesn't want to invest properly.
What a curious definition of forever. I'm not always sure when the EFF is more interested in protecting digital rights or self-promotion. Some statements sure feel like the later.
World-Wide-Web-forever. I don't think anyone was implying that they were around before utilization of electricity became common, or before the Warring States period in China.
