3 ms·

Are the music streaming companies paying T-Mobile to take part in the program? If not, is the barriers to entry objection sufficiently mollified? That is, the c

Are the music streaming companies paying T-Mobile to take part in the program? If not, is the barriers to entry objection sufficiently mollified? That is, the carrier is making an entire class of content zero-rated, not picking favorites.

smhenderson 11y ago
That's a great question and since I brought up T-Mobile in the first place I went ahead and dug around a little via Google. It looks like no, they do not charge the providers so I guess this was a bad example on my part. They started the program with a few big names (Apple, Spotify, Pandora, more...) and then opened it up to others (Google Play, Rhapsody, more...). But it looks like the entry cost to providers is low/free and in this case T-Mobile is genuinely trying to add some value to the customer to compete against the giants in their space. So IMHO opinion it's still Zero Rating but consumer friendly because it does not favor one music streaming service over another. I'm not trying to promote T-Mobile, just stating the facts as I see them. The cynical in me thinks that T-Mobile doing it without charging providers is to avoid any any competition legislation they are worried about running up against. More here: http://www.eweek.com/networking/t-mobile-expands-free-music-streaming-offerings.html http://www.eweek.com/networking/t-mobile-expands-free-music-...
- tired_man 11y ago
  In my heart of hearts, I want to think that TMO understands that the networked future everyone raves about won't happen because data transfer is too costly to make it practical. Mobile devices are wonderful, but come on, the price of mobile data is assault with intent. I don't mind paying for my data. But I do object to being abused for wanting to use the network for non-trivial activities, such as twitter, farcebook, etc.

3 ms·

Are the music streaming companies paying T-Mobile to take part in the program? If not, is the barriers to entry objection sufficiently mollified? That is, the c

by avdempsey 11y ago

smhenderson 11y ago
That's a great question and since I brought up T-Mobile in the first place I went ahead and dug around a little via Google. It looks like no, they do not charge the providers so I guess this was a bad example on my part. They started the program with a few big names (Apple, Spotify, Pandora, more...) and then opened it up to others (Google Play, Rhapsody, more...). But it looks like the entry cost to providers is low/free and in this case T-Mobile is genuinely trying to add some value to the customer to compete against the giants in their space. So IMHO opinion it's still Zero Rating but consumer friendly because it does not favor one music streaming service over another. I'm not trying to promote T-Mobile, just stating the facts as I see them. The cynical in me thinks that T-Mobile doing it without charging providers is to avoid any any competition legislation they are worried about running up against. More here: http://www.eweek.com/networking/t-mobile-expands-free-music-streaming-offerings.html http://www.eweek.com/networking/t-mobile-expands-free-music-...
- tired_man 11y ago
  In my heart of hearts, I want to think that TMO understands that the networked future everyone raves about won't happen because data transfer is too costly to make it practical. Mobile devices are wonderful, but come on, the price of mobile data is assault with intent. I don't mind paying for my data. But I do object to being abused for wanting to use the network for non-trivial activities, such as twitter, farcebook, etc.