AT&T Introduces "Sponsored Data" Allowing Services to Bypass 4G Data Caps 229
sirhan writes with news that AT&T has announced a program that allows companies to pay for their services to bypass mobile data caps. "With the new Sponsored Data service, data charges resulting from eligible uses will be billed directly to the sponsoring company ... Customers will see the service offered as AT&T Sponsored Data, and the usage will appear on their monthly invoice as Sponsored Data. Sponsored Data will be delivered at the same speed and performance as any non-Sponsored Data content." The Verge comments: "If YouTube doesn't hit your data cap but Vimeo does, most people are going to watch YouTube. If Facebook feels threatened by Snapchat and launches Poke with free data, maybe it doesn't get completely ignored and fail. If Apple Maps launched with free data for navigation, maybe we'd all be driving off bridges instead of downloading Google Maps for iOS."
Or, think of distributed services: Mediagoblin vs Flickr, pump.io vs twitter, ownCloud vs Google Apps. This is probably a sign that data caps are here to stay, at least for AT&T subscribers (and if it's successful...).
Clever? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Insightful)
while at the same time giving their customers a bit less
FTFY. Remember the days when AT&T actually gave you unlimited service (back when "unlimited" actually meant "unlimited")? Remember how angry we were when they introduced the data cap?
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You never actually had unlimited transfer quota, at the prices they were charging you it was physically impossible just due to the way spectrum works. What changed is that perhaps truth in advertising became more important (hah), or perhaps peoples understanding of what a gigabyte is got better so it became easier to tell it like it is.
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is anti-net neutrality under a different name. The throttle mechanism is supra-data cap charges instead of literal throttling.
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is anti-net neutrality under a different name. The throttle mechanism is supra-data cap charges instead of literal throttling.
No it isn't. Since bandwidth is now a metered product, this is noting more than a network 800 number. The speeds are the same, it is just a question of who pays.
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nothing less than turning an inherently peer-to-peer medium for expression into Cable TV 2.0. It's pretty much explicitly designed to stifle new innovation (whether created by a fledgling company or especially when created as an open, distributed/self-hosted protocol) in favor of large entrenched players like Google and Facebook.
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This is anti-net neutrality under a different name. The throttle mechanism is supra-data cap charges instead of literal throttling.
No it isn't. Since bandwidth is now a metered product, this is noting more than a network 800 number. The speeds are the same, it is just a question of who pays.
Its really simple, as an ISP, if you make your own services faster by purposly making others slow or cost more, thats against net neutrality.
AT&T is including their own services as unmetered so customers will want to use them over others. AT&T offers owncloud an online storage you pay for monthly, yet now bandwidth is excluded. They even let you back up your home PC and Phone's internal/external storage.
This is the the heart of network nuterality, an ISP's (Which AT&T is), charging more to us
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grandfathered in (Score:2)
Since I don't watch TV on my phone 24-7, my data usage is only ~1GB over the last two years, so this is actually a moot point.
low cunning, not clever (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just a repackaging of the old net-discrimination ideas that provoked the Net Neutrality debate.
Make data allowances artificially low, and charge content providers to "ensure" they are not throttled. It's not in the interests of consumers, and it's not in the interests of content providers.
I can see why AT&T might like it though...
Re:low cunning, not clever (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly - it's reverse net-neutrality.
I wonder when wired broadband service providers will do that - as it is, I'm pretty sure Comcast/Xfinity is doing sort of the same thing - I can watch as many things "on demand" on my cable box as I want without touching my bandwidth cap, but if I stream the same movies/shows from Netflix/Hulu, etc... then it does count against my cap (which I will just preach to choir and say "what part of unlimited don't you understand")
Re:low cunning, not clever (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:low cunning, not clever (Score:4, Insightful)
This, with a healthy dose of "post it on the top of every page of the site until the issue goes away" at those three sites, and the ISP's will have so much backlash it'll break their necks. Bonus points if they also say "loading this page has cost you $X bytes of data usage against your cap." Extra bonus points if they say "contact $ISPName customer service at $ISPPhoneNumber to ask for a data plan that doesn't have this limit."
Then watch as the fecal material collides with the mechanical cooling device.
Re:low cunning, not clever (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly - it's reverse net-neutrality.
I wonder when wired broadband service providers will do that - as it is, I'm pretty sure Comcast/Xfinity is doing sort of the same thing - I can watch as many things "on demand" on my cable box as I want without touching my bandwidth cap, but if I stream the same movies/shows from Netflix/Hulu, etc... then it does count against my cap (which I will just preach to choir and say "what part of unlimited don't you understand")
Unlimited - adj. The amount of money that a service provider can extract from you, either directly or indirectly. e.g. "Comcast offers Unlimited internet connections"
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I will just preach to choir and say "what part of unlimited don't you understand")
it's spelled Umlimited common mistake [youtube.com]
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Exactly - it's reverse net-neutrality.
I wonder when wired broadband service providers will do that
AT&T has had an identical service for broadband for a long time. I don't think any content provider signed up for it.
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What, you mean that device which the next five billion new Internet users will connect using instead of a PC?
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Insightful)
For something to be win-win, it requires two parties to simultaneously "win". In this case, the only "winner" would be AT&T.
And it rather gives lie to what they claimed to be the entire point of data caps in the first place - to help prevent over-saturation and congestion of their wireless networks. If there isn't enough bandwidth, then there isn't enough bandwidth - it doesn't matter whether or not both ends of a TCP connection pay, or only one.
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In theory it's possible to provide more bandwith if there's more revene coming in topay for the infrastructure.
Since the wireless market is a cartel enforced by licensing AT&T has little to no incentive to behave well.
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Insightful)
In theory it's possible to provide more bandwith if there's more revene coming in topay for the infrastructure.
In theory AT&T should be using some of their $3+ Billion per quarter profits [engadget.com] to pay for infrastructure upgrades rather than claiming they don't have enough money so they can justify throttling services, applying ridiculous caps and ensuring consumer prices remain high.
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Insightful)
In theory it's possible to provide more bandwith if there's more revene coming in topay for the infrastructure.
In theory AT&T should be using some of their $3+ Billion per quarter profits [engadget.com] to pay for infrastructure upgrades rather than claiming they don't have enough money so they can justify throttling services, applying ridiculous caps and ensuring consumer prices remain high.
Why? They're a for-profit business and they have a legal responsibility to maximize shareholder return. They don't claim they don't have enough money -- they're under no obligation to offer unlimited services. They're under one and only one obligation -- maximize profit. You, as a consumer, can choose to buy their service or not. If enough people end up in "not" then maximizing their profits will mean doing something different.
That's the way business works.
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Insightful)
They have received much in the way of Federal subsidies to upgrade their infrastructure. If they are not going ot do that, then they should be paying it back with high interest.
Re:Clever? (Score:4, Insightful)
If that's the terms the government wants, they can set those terms.
Since AT&T's lobbyists were responsible for most of the terms, I'm comfortable with Vanderhoth's original assessment. Just because our government representatives were corrupted doesn't mean AT&T is in the right.
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Nor does it mean AT&T is in the wrong. In a world where every telco lobbies, those who employ lobbyists are 'in the neutral'.
Wow. Are you a psychopath?
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I think
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Actually given that AT&T is in an oligopoly with
That's a different ATT. This is talking about mobile data caps. They're sibling subsidiaries, but not the same company. If you don't like what ATT is doing, you can switch to Verizon or T-Mobile. They cover almost all the same areas.
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're a for-profit business and they have a legal responsibility to maximize shareholder return.
This idea always shows up whenever business is mentioned on slashdot. There is NO legal requirement to maximize profits, shareholder return or even to try to make a profit. The board of directors might get voted out if they keep making bad choices but that is by vote of shareholders, not a legal process.
You should read Google's SEC filings that say something like "we will do whatever we feel like doing even though some of those choices will cause a loss for the company."
Caesors Palace (Las Vegas) destroyed about 90% of the value of the company in the 80's to avoid a hostle takeover. As a shareholder I lost a boatload of money on that one but there was no legal recourse except voting to kick out the board of directors at the next shareholder meeting.
Re: Clever? (Score:2)
The $5-$10 in "cost recovery fees" most wireless and telco charge to "compensate" basic features of their network says differently.
These guys are triple dipping... Feds gave them tax breaks, local regulators give them recovery fees, and when they finally bring the new service online they change the BUSINESS RULES not just the pricing.
I don't have a problem with data caps vs unlimited... But what they WANT is a percentage of Netflix INCOME... Like a mall takes, not the fair value of the bandwidth (which the
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That's the way business works.
No, that's the way business works when they don't have a monopoly or anti-competitive oligopoly.
When there's adequate competition and businesses need to win customers over by product and service quality, then yes, they can do a whatever they want to maximize profits, because any steps they take towards such ends are offset by the pressure of competition. One business gets too greedy, another one will swoop in and eat their lunch.
Monopolies (and oligopolies) are supposed to play by different rules. They
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The problem is "Peak" usage. Which is usually friday and Saturday evenings. The rest of the week the networks fine, but during those 2 times usage quadruples due to a few sites. YouTube, Netflix, etc... mostly netflix. Ironically filesharing isn't even discussed when they talk about this stuff. Netflix is 80% of our traffic on Friday and Saturday nights. There's a lot netflix could do to make this less of a pain in the ass for the ISPs but so far they've been total asshats about the situation.
The ISPs don
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Ironically filesharing isn't even discussed when they talk about this stuff.
Could be wrong, but I doubt many people are doing large scale filesharing on their mobile devices.
Re: Clever? (Score:2)
But Netflux USED TO cohost AT ISP sites.. To relieve the load. Then somebody decided they could only be in certain sites, then they skyrocketed the price ... Trying to bank off companies that wanted hosting inside the ISP.
So Netflix pulled all their stuff and moved it " across the street" to the "Internet" side of the ISP's pipes forcing the ISP to get more service from their Internet provider.
The ISPs (att, cable) started this in an effort to "monetize" their Internet customers by making "colocating" insi
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lot netflix could do to make this less of a pain in the ass for the ISPs but so far they've been total asshats about the situation.
I disagree about the claim that Netflix is not trying to help the situation. After all they did introduce Open Connect (http://gigaom.com/2013/11/11/netflixs-new-pitch-for-open-connect-it-sucks-less-during-prime-time/) to address this situation. Basically they told ISPs that they would provide a content delivery network that would be colocated on their system to relieve network stresses. Netflix provides the hardware for free and all the ISP has to do is hook it up to their network and provide the space/power for the hardware. On top of that, it gives the ISP participating in Open Connect a competitive advantage since the Netflix streams can be higher resolution than other ISPs that do not participate.
Rather than being an "asshat" this seems to be going above and beyond to provide the ISPs with a solution for the claimed problems. Of course the real issue is that the ISPs (usually cable) are upset that Netflix is rapidly turning them into a dumb pipe and cannibalizing their ad revenue. However, the ISPs know that this is not a customer friendly argument so they make the, seemingly reasonable, argument about the heavy network utilization saturating. Netflix provided a solution to the stated problem, but not the real one (i.e. cable company greed).
It is also important to remember that the reason people pay the ISP for internet access is to have access to services like Netflix. If those services were not available, the ISPs would have less customers. If anything the ISPs should be thanking companies like Netflix, Google, etc. for providing content that people want and therefore compel them to want to buy internet access in the first place.
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I work in the industry, there actually ISNT enough bandwidth. If this becomes popular, wait for the data caps to get lowered.
The only legitimate argument I've heard for this is that the content providers have been irresponsible with their delivery because it costs them nothing. For example, not allowing users to download off-hours, even encouraging them to all download at peak times, and not using proper compression. If using more bandwidth cost them more money then they'd be more inclined to work with the ISP to reduce the load on the consumers end.
Re:Clever? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet AT&T profited by $7.3 billion last year, which is enough to replace 2.3% of their assets (including buildings and wires). They've had sustained profits for many years, but yet there's still not enough bandwidth.
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Who knows? Maybe they will make enough money, one of these days, to actually maintain the local loop, which they have left to rot since divestiture.
Book value versus replacement value (Score:2)
Yet AT&T profited by $7.3 billion last year, which is enough to replace 2.3% of their assets (including buildings and wires).
Probably not true. If you are looking at their balance sheet for asset value, remember that the assets shown are at book value [wikipedia.org], not replacement value [wikipedia.org]. Many of those assets were bought a long time ago for prices that are significantly less than they would cost today. This is a perfectly normal accounting practice which makes sense for a number of arcane reasons but you can be fairly confident that AT&T's assets on their balance sheet probably understates their real worth if they had to go out and buy
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they could do a lot more than they have been.
That was really my whole point. I've worked in finance, and know enough to see the numbers as indications rather than facts. That's also why I didn't worry too much about using the figure that includes operational assets like buildings, and vehicles.
Basically, I don't think it's ever really been argued that AT&T has the bandwidth to support unlimited data, but for hegemonic reason just doesn't allow access to it. Rather, the most common argument I've seen is that AT&T is intentionally avoiding netwo
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Hm?
Aren't most of them streaming services which probably don't have a license to allow downloads (DRMed or otherwise)?
Even if they did allow downloads, don't most people these days favor streaming options? Why would I fret with starting a download at 8am (programming it into a DVR-like device, making sure it gets saved somewhere proper, etc.) when I can just hit play at 8pm anyway?
Re: Clever? (Score:2)
The problem is that telcos and cable "shot first". First by creating huge geographic "walked gardens" where "the Internet" is several states away from where the customer resides. So they did collocation... Until real estate got tight so they started charging "mall rent" to try to profit from companies relieving THEIR bandwidth problems.
Then everybody took their collocation to the backbone providers (often literally across the street) where telcos can worry about paying for the extra pipes.
Telcos and cable
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Explains so much (Score:2)
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How about more ads, or hikes in subscriber rates, instead of you're $9 NetFlix sub imagine $40 for a NetFlix stream sub, to cover costs of their user base that watches on mobile media.
Anytime a company chooses to do something and passes it off to consumers as a mega corp will foot the bill, we usually end up paying in the end anyway.
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Hint: you ALWAYS pay for everything you use in the end. Whether it's a fee charged up front, or a hidden cost, you're paying for it. Raise taxes on corporations, you pay for it. Raise fees, you pay for it.
Only question is how you pay for it - fees, taxes, whatever works....
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Hint: you ALWAYS pay for everything you use in the end. Whether it's a fee charged up front, or a hidden cost, you're paying for it. Raise taxes on corporations, you pay for it. Raise fees, you pay for it.
Nonetheless there are ways of artificially inflating prices and getting more money while doing jack shit. End users are inherently less skilled at it and can't see whether particular service fee is a blatant ripoff or providing it actually involves some effort for the provider. I wish we would more often forget about money and look at economic activities themselves and gauge whether they're efficient enough or some side of them is being outright taken advantage of. After all money are just abstractions.
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Big win for AT&T--and a big loss for everyone else, of course. My libertarian friends all tell me that ending government regulation will produce a freer market. But this is a great example of what it REALLY produces (a closed market controlled completely by a handful of powerful monopolies who shut out any potential competition).
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Win-Win for AT&T but lose-lose for small companies. Say I found a new online video service. As it is, I'll have a tough time competing with YouTube, but suppose I provide amazing service so I get a loyal following. Now, all of a sudden, AT&T asks if I want to pay them extra so that their customers' data caps won't be impacted if they use my service. Being a small company, I can't afford it, but Google sure can. They pay and YouTube use is now "free" data-wise. My service, though, still costs u
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In theory if the prices that you and YouTube were paying per GB were equal, this would actually be reasonable. In reality, however, the "entry tier" pricing is likely to be far above both your needs and your pocketbook, and only the top-tier (not that it'd be published anywhere) getting down anywhere near actual costs - which should themselves be shared with the telco anyway, since the telco's also being paid by the consumer for the same data traffic.
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And thus begins the end (Score:5, Insightful)
And thus begins the balkanized internet and the end of network neutrality, where service providers can start negotiating big bundle provisioning of their services over others.
We are coming full circle (Score:4, Interesting)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL#History [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cable [wikipedia.org]
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Some of the big companies that are going to be essentially extorted money can actually prevent this from happening. If Google/Facebook/etc tell AT&T, "That's fine, we'll pay your extortion money. However, since we add so much value to your service, we've decided to no longer provide our services on your network unless you pay us slightly more than we are paying you". If major services started disappear off the AT&T network, I imagine they'd rethink this blatant violation of net-neutrality. I dou
This is bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is bad (Score:5, Informative)
Internet companies already pay for the bandwidth of their users - all incoming and outgoing traffic to a data centre is bandwidth which the data centre must pay their internet provider to carry.
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And they're adding a new layer of costs. Now instead of just paying for your bandwidth, you have to bribe hundreds of local ISPs to allow access to them.
This is just a sneaky way for AT&T to break net neutrality, first they offer special access to companies with deep pockets, next they start explicitly charging companies for mere access.
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True, though think by "bandwidth of their users", LandDolphin was referring to paying twice. So Google pays once for YouTube to have enough bandwidth to serve content across the Internet. Customers pay their ISP for enough bandwidth to stream the YouTube content. Now, however, AT&T wants Google to pay for the customer's bandwidth as well as Google's own. Plus, since they'll still be charging the customer for their bandwidth, AT&T will effectively be paid twice for the same bandwidth. (More if
Re:This is bad (Score:4, Funny)
This is bad for the market.
That's unpossible! All my libertarian friends assure me that getting the government off the backs of our noble corporations will result in more freedom and openness, a free market utopia!
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Oh? Bandwith caps due to frequencies what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue with wireless data is entirely about last mile, the frequencies alotted and the limits of transfer within a cell at any given moment. Peering works on wired networks because throughput on the last mile outstrips deployment, the exact opposite issue of wireless networks.
Arguing that their obscene data caps are because of the wireless bandwith limits, then turning around and offering this without any true benefit to their bandwith issue other than their bottom line, is assinine.
Double Dipping (Score:4, Informative)
This is called "double dipping". These providers are not supposed to be able to do this according to the common carrier rules. The subscriber pays and they get their allotment. Any other payments to "overlook" a data cap that are made by a third party violates the common carrier rules because it creates an unfair advantage for large companies. They can afford to pay a fee to basically make the little guy penalized (having the little guys data count against the subscriber). If the subscribers complained to the FCC this pilot project would be stopped dead in its tracks.
I fear though that the only people that would care are the technically minded subscribers. The others would be snowed by some marketing speak.
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ISPs aren't subject to common carrier rules, they get the benefits without the restrictions.
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They, unfortunately, do not.
Inversion of Control (Score:4, Interesting)
What makes this interesting is the inversion of control. For years, net neutrality has basically hinged on the fact that users are paying their ISP for bandwidth, so it's up to the user what they do with it. This idea completely inverts that, so the user has absolutely no control anymore.
We were worried that walled gardens like Facebook were turning the Web into a consumer service, well this will do the same for the Internet itself.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Municipal projects? You mean the ones AT&T, et al are bribing state governments to shut down?
Its just "pay to play" (Score:2)
This should be clearly illegal and i hope they get slapped down for this as its anti-competitive.
These aren't the facts you're looking for. (Score:4, Funny)
This would be unprecedented.
The future of the internet (Score:5, Informative)
With the end of net neutrality, it was really only a matter of time before we started to see the internet turn into a place where the big companies control the data, and the little guys and startups get shut out. Free market my ass.
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This is precisely the results of the free market. Since there aren't regulations preventing data providers from double dipping or colluding with internet services, AT&T is free to offer "services" such as this, Don't worry, though, the market has a solution: if you don't like what AT&T is doing, then simply start your own nationwide wireless network to compete with them. The free market works!
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The problem is that YouTube and Google were once the little guys themselves. Thanks to the neutrality of the early internet, they were able to get their start, prove their worth, and earn their spot as top dogs in a fair, free market environment. But now, with the end of net neutrality as a principle (both in government regulation and accepted market practice), the next Google or YouTube will never even get off the ground without going begging to one of the big companies for patronage. Innovation suffers an
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youtube bought a superbowl ad which made them popular, rode the wave and then sold out to google
Sounds like 800 all over again (Score:2)
Why would a company sign up for this? Additional business, sure, but also for identifying information on users. If you call an 800 number, the called party gets your phone number, even if it is blocked, because they are the phone company's customer paying for the call. If they pay extra, they get it in real time. I suppose the plan is to do the same with sponsored data service.
As with 800 service, the sponsoring company might choose the areas to which it would pay for the data delivery, perhaps with granula
My caps off to yah. (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought they already admitted the caps have nothing to do with congestion? [techdirt.com]
I wonder how much it would cost a quasi-turn based action RPG dev like me to get no data caps for trickling in world-battle-map updates so you don't have to wait to get your game on. I mean, in the middle of the night streaming in a bunch of data isn't costing them congestion issues. The hardware has to be there whether anyone's using it or not. I bet it'll be too pricey for me. Guess folks will just have to play it on their wired connections. So much for "progress".
If we had a few more competitors this wouldn't happen. [youtube.com]
What happened to "networks are overloaded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess either that wasn't the real reason or AT&T doesn't mind if you have a poor network experience as long as they get more money...
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So, the original reason for data caps were that a few unscrupulous users were hogging all of the bandwidth and making everyone else suffer through a poor network experience... I guess either that wasn't the real reason or AT&T doesn't mind if you have a poor network experience as long as they get more money...
Your post rminds me of the George Carlin bit on "Where Did All The Oil Come From?" here [youtube.com]
Net Neutrality: RIP (Score:2)
So, 2014 is to be the year the concept of Net Neutrality is officialy dead and buried. A sad time for the net indeed.
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Sprint (Score:2)
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Unlimited LTE is only useful if you have network service in your area, and their tower deployments have been stalling and stalling and stalling... I have been to areas supposedly served by it, and got 3G speeds from it. NYC intermittently disconnected (although it worked great in one place) and I couldn't even use data in Atlanta! I dunno when they are going to build out a serious network, but as a customer I feel like I've been lied to about the quality of the network.
Technological solutions. (Score:2)
Improved compression? Distributed, longer-term caching? Dynamic mesh networking?
Replacing the internet is a bit ambitious, but perhaps there is some way to lessen the need for such amounts of data, or to opportunistically transfer it by other means.
Like the old days! (Score:2)
AT&T is almost back to its former monopolistic glory and feels confident enough to squeeze every dime out of all the content providers and customers. Congratulations AT&T for bringing back the old days.
Thank goodness I don't have them anymore. Oh wait, yes there are other carriers out there. I can see how this can backfire on AT&T. Instead of paying AT&T for the privilege of unlimited data to their customer. I see content providers encouraging their customers to choose a better carrier.
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No even better do like Google and become the ISP Screw AT&T and all the rest of the ISPs and just do it yourself. Lets remember some of these content providers do have Very Deep pockets and the Technical know how to build it themselfs. And as Google is finding out you can make money at it. True maybe not as much as the other buisness but still enough that it pays for itself which is all they care about.
This is the real threat that AT&T and the others have to worry about at night. And as they continu
AT&T is seriously guilty of .... (Score:2)
...throttling youtube!!!
Sure... (Score:2)
Content Trolls (Score:2)
So, instead of increasing prices on the Demand side of wireless data, the carriers are creating new revenue on the Supply (content) side. Sounds logical, but the next step will be data shaping so that sponsored data will get priority over non-sponsored data. The notable exception will be the carriers' media partners (AT&T Wireless has their cousins at U-Verse, Verizon has bundling with COX, etc.). As data caps inevitably drop, you'll be able to stream your CNN and Duck Dynasty, and you'll get your iT
Current ISP Pricing is Fundamentally Broken (Score:2)
The text below is something I posted [slashdot.org] on Slashdot a while ago that makes the case for pay-per-usage or per-KB plans.
The product that the ISPs are providing is network connectivity and downloads. Under the current system, the business (ISP) attempts to limit the amount of product (downloads) that the customer can purchase. When a busine
combined fixed/variable model is better (Score:3)
While I like the idea in general, a more accurate mapping of the costs would be to do it like my power/water/gas bills.
There would be a fixed monthly cost to cover the cost of simply having a line to my house, and then a variable per-GB cost to cover the data consumption.
In order to ensure fairness we could even follow utility pricing and have a rate review board that would have to approve rate increases. That way a reasonable profit could be ensured, but they'd be disallowed from raking the consumers over
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4.Profit
Business opportunity (Score:2)
It depends on how AT&T prices the back end of their services. It might be worth it to get the minimum data plan ($15 for 200MB on a tablet, for example...if they still have that) and sign up with a bandwidth proxy to route all traffic through their server at, say, $2-5/GB, if the backend rates are advantageous enough. I don't think AT&T will allow this, as it would cut into their profits for the medium-metered plans.
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This company sucks big time. And I thought I remembered reading a few months ago that they supported net neutrality. Total BS. Even Verizon does better
They may suck, but seriously -- don't act like a mouth breathing twelve year old with the slurs.