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And it's based on their business relationship with certain providers. If the bar to establish the business relationship was onerous, I'd completely agree. T-Mo

And it's based on their business relationship with certain providers. If the bar to establish the business relationship was onerous, I'd completely agree. T-Mobile is undermining the argument by stating (whether true or not remains to be seen) that a qualifying website need only sign up to participate. Not a fastlane, but still counter to the spirit of net neutrality. The purpose of the net neutrality regulations were to provide equitable treatment in favour of end users. I'm struggling to see how giving end consumers more of what they want for the same price (zero-rating with an option to opt-out) is counter to the initial spirit of the net neutrality regulation. I think that current net neutrality regulations settled into a position that network operators shouldn't unduly (or at all) influence or favour certain endpoints over others. However, by providing this type of optional zero-rating, T-Mobile is firing the first salvo to force pro-net neutrality groups to more sharply understand and define the true incentives driving their respective agendas. If pro-nn groups don't respond to this the right way, then similar to the way that zero-rated streaming audio was used as a precedent to bring in these optional zero-rated streaming video, precedent upon precedent will build upon each other. I'm not sure if this is simply a loss-leading tactic by T-Mobile to gain market share, or if this is part of a longer-term play to form a beachhead from which to dismantle the entire net neutrality Title II regulations.

eli 11y ago
> T-Mobile is undermining the argument by stating (whether true or not remains to be seen) that a qualifying website need only sign up to participate. Strongly disagree. T-Mobile already zero-rates major audio streaming services, but it doesn't have the indie Shoutcast station I've been listening to for over a decade. (It doesn't have any Shoutcast stations.) Will the video streaming exemption cover my home Plex server? Very doubtful. Why is it OK for an ISP to favor entrenched commercial services over homegrown indie ones? That's absolutely counter to the spirit of net neutrality. Even if T-Mobile could magically cover all audio and video services instantly, why are they allowed to favor one type of service over another? Why am I charged differently for bytes going to Netflix than for bytes going to Skype? > I'm struggling to see how giving end consumers more of what they want for the same price (zero-rating with an option to opt-out) is counter to the initial spirit of the net neutrality regulation. Couldn't you make exactly the same argument about fast lanes? Why is it bad to give consumers some of their data faster? Let's look at it another way: Making connections to providers on this list effectively cheaper (but not touching the data cap) is equivalent to making providers NOT on the list cost more. How about they just deliver my bytes equitably without regard to any business relationships they have with any providers? If T-Mobile thinks my data cap is too low, they should raise it and let me decide what services to use.
- netneutralish 11y ago
  When net neutrality's recent concrete lightning rod was around Netflix having to pay for their customers to have enhanced services, that was a clear case of favouring one type of service over another from a network QoS perspective. If a customer is paying for a service, they owe it to the customer to deliver those bytes equitably and with ideally the same level of service. This was not happening in Netflix's case, and the spirit of net neutrality absolutely applied there. * Couldn't you make exactly the same argument about fast lanes? Why is it bad to give consumers some of their data faster?* I'm suggesting that we can't make the same argument about fast lanes because that specific concept involves applying different service levels (faster/slower) to specific content types. It's bad to give consumers specific types of data faster if carriers are intentionally crippling popular over-the-top (OTT) players and then forcing customers to pay for the "actual" speeds that they paid for in their [50Mbps|100Mbps|Gigabit] package. However, in this particular case, T-Mobile (supposedly) isn't changing anything related to your existing service level. All of your existing bytes counting towards your data cap are presumably still being delivered equitably, barring network congestion conditions. The only thing that has presumably changed is the way that those bytes are being billed (in this case, free) for certain content providers. A distinction needs to be made between delivery of bytes + resultant abhorrent actions (e.g. deliberately crippling a popular endpoint or content type and giving customers no choice but to pay for a service level they've already paid for = evil), and maintaining the same service delivery level while charging for them differently. * Let's look at it another way: Making connections to providers on this list effectively cheaper (but not touching the data cap) is equivalent to making providers NOT on the list cost more.* I agree with you in principle, but that once strong argument centered around input costs and promotional offerings, which ultimately ends up in the "subsidies" bucket. Originally, the premise was that access to providers was selectively made more expensive and one often didn't have a say in the matter. You're correct that zero-rating (similar, but not quite the same, as the Internet.org debacle) influences consumer behaviour. However, T-Mobile is giving principled consumers a way out - by continuing to offer the same level of service today as they will tomorrow (or whenever it comes into effect) with zero-rating enabled, they're letting consumers speak with their wallets in both literal senses of the word (opt-out, or switch to another carrier). I can't speak to the indie stations issue like Shoutcast, but if it can be shown that T-Mobile's sign up process isn't as easy as they make it out to be then this may be the Achilles heel that the FCC can leverage.

eli 11y ago

> T-Mobile is undermining the argument by stating (whether true or not remains to be seen) that a qualifying website need only sign up to participate. Strongly disagree. T-Mobile already zero-rates major audio streaming services, but it doesn't have the indie Shoutcast station I've been listening to for over a decade. (It doesn't have any Shoutcast stations.) Will the video streaming exemption cover my home Plex server? Very doubtful. Why is it OK for an ISP to favor entrenched commercial services over homegrown indie ones? That's absolutely counter to the spirit of net neutrality. Even if T-Mobile could magically cover all audio and video services instantly, why are they allowed to favor one type of service over another? Why am I charged differently for bytes going to Netflix than for bytes going to Skype? > I'm struggling to see how giving end consumers more of what they want for the same price (zero-rating with an option to opt-out) is counter to the initial spirit of the net neutrality regulation. Couldn't you make exactly the same argument about fast lanes? Why is it bad to give consumers some of their data faster? Let's look at it another way: Making connections to providers on this list effectively cheaper (but not touching the data cap) is equivalent to making providers NOT on the list cost more. How about they just deliver my bytes equitably without regard to any business relationships they have with any providers? If T-Mobile thinks my data cap is too low, they should raise it and let me decide what services to use.

netneutralish 11y ago
When net neutrality's recent concrete lightning rod was around Netflix having to pay for their customers to have enhanced services, that was a clear case of favouring one type of service over another from a network QoS perspective. If a customer is paying for a service, they owe it to the customer to deliver those bytes equitably and with ideally the same level of service. This was not happening in Netflix's case, and the spirit of net neutrality absolutely applied there. * Couldn't you make exactly the same argument about fast lanes? Why is it bad to give consumers some of their data faster?* I'm suggesting that we can't make the same argument about fast lanes because that specific concept involves applying different service levels (faster/slower) to specific content types. It's bad to give consumers specific types of data faster if carriers are intentionally crippling popular over-the-top (OTT) players and then forcing customers to pay for the "actual" speeds that they paid for in their [50Mbps|100Mbps|Gigabit] package. However, in this particular case, T-Mobile (supposedly) isn't changing anything related to your existing service level. All of your existing bytes counting towards your data cap are presumably still being delivered equitably, barring network congestion conditions. The only thing that has presumably changed is the way that those bytes are being billed (in this case, free) for certain content providers. A distinction needs to be made between delivery of bytes + resultant abhorrent actions (e.g. deliberately crippling a popular endpoint or content type and giving customers no choice but to pay for a service level they've already paid for = evil), and maintaining the same service delivery level while charging for them differently. * Let's look at it another way: Making connections to providers on this list effectively cheaper (but not touching the data cap) is equivalent to making providers NOT on the list cost more.* I agree with you in principle, but that once strong argument centered around input costs and promotional offerings, which ultimately ends up in the "subsidies" bucket. Originally, the premise was that access to providers was selectively made more expensive and one often didn't have a say in the matter. You're correct that zero-rating (similar, but not quite the same, as the Internet.org debacle) influences consumer behaviour. However, T-Mobile is giving principled consumers a way out - by continuing to offer the same level of service today as they will tomorrow (or whenever it comes into effect) with zero-rating enabled, they're letting consumers speak with their wallets in both literal senses of the word (opt-out, or switch to another carrier). I can't speak to the indie stations issue like Shoutcast, but if it can be shown that T-Mobile's sign up process isn't as easy as they make it out to be then this may be the Achilles heel that the FCC can leverage.