Re: Binge On! - And So This is Net Neutrality?

[Keenan Tims <ktims () stargate ca>]

I'm surprised you're supporting T-Mob here Owen. To me it's pretty
clear: they are charging more for bits that are not streaming video.
That's not neutral treatment from a policy perspective, and has no basis
in the cost of operating the network.

Granted, the network itself is neutral, but the purported purpose of NN
in my eyes is twofold: take away the influence of the network on user
and operator behaviour, and encourage an open market in network services
(both content and access). Allowing zero-rating based on *any* criteria
gives them a strong influence over what the end users are going to do
with their network connection, and distorts the market for network
services. What makes streaming video special to merit zero-rating?

I like Clay's connection to the boiling frog. Yes, it's "nice" for most
consumers now, but it's still distorting the market.

I'm also not seeing why they have to make this so complicated. If they
can afford to zero-rate high-bandwidth services like video and audio
streaming, clearly there is network capacity to spare. The user
behaviour they're encouraging with free video streaming is *precisely*
what the incumbents claimed was causing congestion to merit throttling a
few years ago, and still to this day whine about constantly. I don't
have data, but I would expect usage of this to align quite nicely with
their current peaks.

Why not just raise the caps to something reasonable or make it unlimited
across the board? I could even get behind zero-rating all
'off-peak-hours' use like we used to have for mobile voice; at least
that makes sense for the network. What they're doing though is product
differentiation where none exists; in fact the zero-rating is likely to
cause more load on the system than just doubling or tripling the users'
caps. That there seems to be little obvious justification for it from a
network perspective makes me vary wary.

Keenan

On 2015-11-23 18:05, Owen DeLong wrote:
> > On Nov 23, 2015, at 17:28 , Baldur Norddahl <baldur.norddahl () gmail com> wrote:
> >
> > On 24 November 2015 at 00:22, Owen DeLong <owen () delong com> wrote:
> >
> > > Are there a significant number (ANY?) streaming video providers using UDP
> > > to deliver their streams?
> >
> > What else could we have that is UDP based? Ah voice calls. Video calls.
> > Stuff that requires low latency and where TCP retransmit of stale data is
> > bad. Media without buffering because it is real time.
> >
> > And why would a telco want to zero rate all the bandwidth heavy media with
> > certain exceptions? Like not zero rating media that happens to compete with
> > some of their own services, such as voice calls and video calls.
> >
> > Yes sounds like net neutrality to me too (or not!).
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Baldur
>
> All T-Mobile plans include unlimited 128kbps data, so a voice call is effectively
> already zero-rated for all practical purposes.
>
> I guess the question is: Is it better for the consumer to pay for everything equally,
> or, is it reasonable for carriers to be able to give away some free data without opening
> it up to everything?
>
> To me, net neutrality isn’t as much about what you charge the customer for the data, it’s about
> whether you prioritize certain classes of traffic to the detriment of others in terms of
> service delivery.
>
> If T-Mobile were taking money from the video streaming services or only accepting
> certain video streaming services, I’d likely agree with you that this is a neutrality
> issue.
>
> However, in this case, it appears to me that they aren’t trying to give an advantage to
> any particular competing streaming video service over the other, they aren’t taking
> money from participants in the program, and consumers stand to benefit from it.
>
> If you see an actual way in which it’s better for everyone if T-Mobile weren’t doing this,
> then please explain it. If not, then this strikes me as harmless and overall benefits
> consumers.
>
> Owen