10 ms·

This is how net neutrality dies, if we're not careful. As a T-Mobile customer I browse /r/tmobile every now and then. It's an odd place, full of "fans" of T-Mob

by untog 11y ago

This is how net neutrality dies, if we're not careful. As a T-Mobile customer I browse /r/tmobile every now and then. It's an odd place, full of "fans" of T-Mobile (a concept I can't wrap my head around - users literally have flairs of "bleeding magenta"!), and the net neutrality debate there is fascinating. In short, many think this is not a net neutrality violation because any service can be accepted as part of "Binge On" if they apply to it. It is not anti-competitive, thus, not a net neutrality violation. Thing is, they're not wrong, per se. Because there isn't an actual accepted definition for "net neutrality". For me, it's strict - the carrier is carrying bits and bytes, and doesn't know/care what they are. For others, it is an anti-competition stance. Here's the problem: "Binge On" is great, in theory. Unlimited video! Even as a die-hard net neutrality supporter, next time I'm staying in a hotel with expensive wi-fi, I could load up Netflix on my phone and Chromecast it to the TV. Awesome. What's the net neutrality counter argument that is equally as enticing to customers? It's a tough sell.

schnevets 11y ago
Yeah, Net Neutrality was a lot easier to get behind when no service providers were really marketing the alternative. This controversy is similar to the Internet.org debate in India.
- chimeracoder 11y ago
  > This controversy is similar to the Internet.org debate in India. The difference with Internet.org ("Free Basics") is that, in India, it's very easy to show Free Basics as a move by a foreign country to essentially "buy" India's poor and rural citizens citizens (and therefore, its sovereignty). Given the particular history of India's colonization under British rule, this is a message that resonates very well, which is why advocacy groups have been very successful in garnering opposition to Free Basics. Those who remember colonial rule in India or the decades following are not exactly thrilled about the idea of signing over their rights or power to a foreign corporate entity. That experience is different in the US, so its reception hasn't seen the same level of opposition here as it does in India.
fleitz 11y ago
I think most people are far more concerned about how fast they can download things and how much their data plan costs than 'the principles of net neutrality'. What people like about net neutrality is that they aren't paying more to watch netflix and/or their netflix streams stream at the rate of connection they paid for. Outside of political activists I don't think anyone really cares about 'net neutrality' even the EFF didn't support it ~5 years ago. Personally, I'd trade cheap & fast data plans for 'net neutrality' (the government enforced version of it rather than the defacto standard) any day of the week.
smileysteve 11y ago
> any service can be accepted as part of "Binge On" Yet, we can see that YouTube, Google Play Movies, and Amazon Video haven't been set up yet - so there are obviously hurdles. And why is the business the only one that can apply when it's the user trying to make the choices?
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > And why is the business the only one that can apply when it's the user trying to make the choices? Because the business is required to coordinate with T-mobile on the technical side (source IP blocks, video streaming protocol). You're accepting a video stream degraded to a bitrate that's still acceptable on a mobile device for unlimited video consumption (which requires technical intervention).
  - hotgoldminer 11y ago
    This is not scalable.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      Is it not a bit premature to argue this considering BingeOn has only been recently released? ISPs have been performing traffic management since their inception two decades ago. I've done network engineering for about 1/3 of my 15 year career. To be blunt with you, its definitely scalable. Could you explain to me why it isn't?
      - dsp1234 11y ago
        its definitely scalable. Could you explain to me why it isn't? Imagine a world in which every ISP in the country had this system. Let's say that number is 1000 ISPs (with a typical 80/20 distribution). As a video streaming start up, that's 200 ISPs that would need to be contacted and technical measures put in to place. It's likely that at least some of them are going to have incompatible requirements. So now the bar for a new (possibly better) video service is not just maintaining browser compatibility, but also signing contracts and meeting technical limitations for 10-200 ISPs. Sure it works for exactly one company, but it doesn't work if the system is expanded to everyone. In other words, it's not scalable.
smacktoward 11y ago
If you have to ask a gatekeeper for permission to participate, it's not neutral.
- sethhochberg 11y ago
  This is my biggest problem with it. If the integration were as simple as "set these proper headers to identify your content", maybe even with something as basic as registering the ID you use to prevent abuse, I'd feel much less negative about the Binge On and Music Freedom programs. I'm a T-Mobile customer and I work for a boutique internet radio provider who participates in Music Freedom... so I certainly do benefit from the programs. I just wonder what kind of long-term cost it'll have when consumer-friendly programs like this become standard and less-friendly versions take their place.
exelius 11y ago
> This is how net neutrality dies, if we're not careful. Net neutrality has been dead for a long time. Honestly it was never a reality, and always more of an ideal. Transit agreements for CDNs and asymmetric peering arrangements have been commonplace since the mid-90s. > For me, it's strict - the carrier is carrying bits and bytes, and doesn't know/care what they are. I think a lot of people on the Internet also share this belief, but it is incompatible with the way residential broadband connections are currently priced and sold. Residential broadband uses a lot of traffic management tricks to deliver high-performance last-mile access -- and those traffic management tricks drive down operating costs dramatically to the point where it's possible to have a $60/mo broadband plan. At least T-Mobile is being transparent here: they're using a network management trick to allow them to offer unlimited data to their customers at a lower cost. Consumer last-mile access is all about making these kinds of compromises, and at least T-Mobile is giving its customers a choice to opt-in to a network management scheme rather than just using a hard cap. If you want totally net-neutral Internet access, it is available to you in the form of a commercial broadband connection (fiber / metro ethernet). It's also a lot more expensive because the ISPs can't oversubscribe their infrastructure in the same way and still meet their SLAs -- but those customers are paying for a higher level of service.
- tentonbricks 11y ago
  Opt-out, actually. Everyone got opted-in by default.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    Defaults are a powerful thing, and usually I like opt-in. In this case, opt-out makes sense to me, because the people who care about net neutrality already know about the opt-out by now, and the service needs large scale opt-in to produce real results. HD Voice is similar, it needs wide adoption to start paying dividends, and I hope it starts being opt-out instead of opt-in.
- amazon_not 11y ago
  > Transit agreements for CDNs and asymmetric peering arrangements have been commonplace since the mid-90s. Neither CDNs nor peering have anything to do with net neutrality. What point are you trying to make? It's entirely another matter that some ISPs use their market power to be rent seekers, but that's an entirely different issue and not directly related to net neutrality. > Residential broadband uses a lot of traffic management tricks to deliver high-performance last-mile access I sure would like to hear about them tricks. Statistical multiplexing and oversubscription aren't exactly novel concepts. Or did you have something else in mind? > At least T-Mobile is being transparent here: they're using a network management trick to allow them to offer unlimited data to their customers at a lower cost. It's not a network management trick, it's just a novel marketing trick to blow smoke up their customers' arse. If T-Mobile can deliver unlimited data for video streaming then they can deliver unlimited data for all content types.
digikata 11y ago
I think as long as T-mobile isn't charging the video services actual money, the degree of concern goes way down for me. If money changes hands, then the Tmobile would be effectively hiding end customer costs into the structure of another service, making end customer market choices more convoluted, reducing customer market freedom and giving smaller companies an artificial financial disadvantage. Since they aren't charging, there's this hurdle of having to do things to confirm the the specs of the program, but there's already all sorts of technical/marketing things that small companies need to do to access expanded customer bases. As long as they can make clean tradeoffs valuing Binge On conformance against other choices that seems not as inherently terrible - especially since in the end, mobile is a market where people have better choices then say the last-mile home broadband market.
- amazon_not 11y ago
  > I think as long as T-mobile isn't charging the video services actual money, the degree of concern goes way down for me. I see T-Mo has been successful in their marketing. Drugs aren't bad, as long as they are free :) Of course T-Mobile wants everybody to think that it's a good thing that they are acting as anti-competitive gatekeepers. As long as they don't explicitly charge for it.
shmerl 11y ago
I'm T-Mobile user and on every their survey I let them know that I oppose their violation of Net neutrality and they should stop Binge On. Also you can tell them that since they are allowing caps exemptions, it means that caps have nothing to do with network congestion and they should stop using them altogether. > Thing is, they're not wrong, per se. Because there isn't an actual accepted definition for "net neutrality". It is wrong, and definition is pretty straightforward. Net neutrality means no preferential treatment for any traffic. Here some services get exemption from caps, while other don't. It is clearly a preferential treatment for some traffic. From a different standpoint, Net neutrality means that network provider can't serve as a gatekeeper and decide who gets better traffic and who doesn't. Here they are the gatekeeper and services need to ask them for permission to be exempt from caps. Gatekeeper = violation of Net neutrality.
- oxide 11y ago
  >Net neutrality means no preferential treatment for any traffic. I don't know how this can be open to interpretation, by anyone. self-described "t-mobile fan" or not.
  - shmerl 11y ago
    It's not open to interpretation to any honest person. Those who try using weasel logic around it are those who want to violate it. And they know perfectly well they are being crooked.
- ChrisLomont 11y ago
  >Net neutrality means no preferential treatment for any traffic. I want low latency, low bandwidth for VOIP. I'm fine with high bandwidth, high latency for file transfers. As such I don't think such a simple statement is useful or practical (or even used by anyone).
  - shmerl 11y ago
    Network management is a legitimate use case. Ripping off users is not.
wmeredith 11y ago
Net Neutrality or not, it's a shitty service. My video quality went to shit a few months back and I didn't know why. It was because I was opted into this nonsense. Which is just allowing them to throttle your speeds in exchange for unlimited data.

by untog 11y ago

schnevets 11y ago

Yeah, Net Neutrality was a lot easier to get behind when no service providers were really marketing the alternative. This controversy is similar to the Internet.org debate in India.

chimeracoder 11y ago
> This controversy is similar to the Internet.org debate in India. The difference with Internet.org ("Free Basics") is that, in India, it's very easy to show Free Basics as a move by a foreign country to essentially "buy" India's poor and rural citizens citizens (and therefore, its sovereignty). Given the particular history of India's colonization under British rule, this is a message that resonates very well, which is why advocacy groups have been very successful in garnering opposition to Free Basics. Those who remember colonial rule in India or the decades following are not exactly thrilled about the idea of signing over their rights or power to a foreign corporate entity. That experience is different in the US, so its reception hasn't seen the same level of opposition here as it does in India.

fleitz 11y ago

I think most people are far more concerned about how fast they can download things and how much their data plan costs than 'the principles of net neutrality'. What people like about net neutrality is that they aren't paying more to watch netflix and/or their netflix streams stream at the rate of connection they paid for. Outside of political activists I don't think anyone really cares about 'net neutrality' even the EFF didn't support it ~5 years ago. Personally, I'd trade cheap & fast data plans for 'net neutrality' (the government enforced version of it rather than the defacto standard) any day of the week.

smileysteve 11y ago

> any service can be accepted as part of "Binge On" Yet, we can see that YouTube, Google Play Movies, and Amazon Video haven't been set up yet - so there are obviously hurdles. And why is the business the only one that can apply when it's the user trying to make the choices?

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> And why is the business the only one that can apply when it's the user trying to make the choices? Because the business is required to coordinate with T-mobile on the technical side (source IP blocks, video streaming protocol). You're accepting a video stream degraded to a bitrate that's still acceptable on a mobile device for unlimited video consumption (which requires technical intervention).
- hotgoldminer 11y ago
  This is not scalable.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Is it not a bit premature to argue this considering BingeOn has only been recently released? ISPs have been performing traffic management since their inception two decades ago. I've done network engineering for about 1/3 of my 15 year career. To be blunt with you, its definitely scalable. Could you explain to me why it isn't?
    - dsp1234 11y ago
      its definitely scalable. Could you explain to me why it isn't? Imagine a world in which every ISP in the country had this system. Let's say that number is 1000 ISPs (with a typical 80/20 distribution). As a video streaming start up, that's 200 ISPs that would need to be contacted and technical measures put in to place. It's likely that at least some of them are going to have incompatible requirements. So now the bar for a new (possibly better) video service is not just maintaining browser compatibility, but also signing contracts and meeting technical limitations for 10-200 ISPs. Sure it works for exactly one company, but it doesn't work if the system is expanded to everyone. In other words, it's not scalable.

smacktoward 11y ago

If you have to ask a gatekeeper for permission to participate, it's not neutral.

sethhochberg 11y ago
This is my biggest problem with it. If the integration were as simple as "set these proper headers to identify your content", maybe even with something as basic as registering the ID you use to prevent abuse, I'd feel much less negative about the Binge On and Music Freedom programs. I'm a T-Mobile customer and I work for a boutique internet radio provider who participates in Music Freedom... so I certainly do benefit from the programs. I just wonder what kind of long-term cost it'll have when consumer-friendly programs like this become standard and less-friendly versions take their place.

exelius 11y ago

> This is how net neutrality dies, if we're not careful. Net neutrality has been dead for a long time. Honestly it was never a reality, and always more of an ideal. Transit agreements for CDNs and asymmetric peering arrangements have been commonplace since the mid-90s. > For me, it's strict - the carrier is carrying bits and bytes, and doesn't know/care what they are. I think a lot of people on the Internet also share this belief, but it is incompatible with the way residential broadband connections are currently priced and sold. Residential broadband uses a lot of traffic management tricks to deliver high-performance last-mile access -- and those traffic management tricks drive down operating costs dramatically to the point where it's possible to have a $60/mo broadband plan. At least T-Mobile is being transparent here: they're using a network management trick to allow them to offer unlimited data to their customers at a lower cost. Consumer last-mile access is all about making these kinds of compromises, and at least T-Mobile is giving its customers a choice to opt-in to a network management scheme rather than just using a hard cap. If you want totally net-neutral Internet access, it is available to you in the form of a commercial broadband connection (fiber / metro ethernet). It's also a lot more expensive because the ISPs can't oversubscribe their infrastructure in the same way and still meet their SLAs -- but those customers are paying for a higher level of service.

tentonbricks 11y ago
Opt-out, actually. Everyone got opted-in by default.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  Defaults are a powerful thing, and usually I like opt-in. In this case, opt-out makes sense to me, because the people who care about net neutrality already know about the opt-out by now, and the service needs large scale opt-in to produce real results. HD Voice is similar, it needs wide adoption to start paying dividends, and I hope it starts being opt-out instead of opt-in.
amazon_not 11y ago
> Transit agreements for CDNs and asymmetric peering arrangements have been commonplace since the mid-90s. Neither CDNs nor peering have anything to do with net neutrality. What point are you trying to make? It's entirely another matter that some ISPs use their market power to be rent seekers, but that's an entirely different issue and not directly related to net neutrality. > Residential broadband uses a lot of traffic management tricks to deliver high-performance last-mile access I sure would like to hear about them tricks. Statistical multiplexing and oversubscription aren't exactly novel concepts. Or did you have something else in mind? > At least T-Mobile is being transparent here: they're using a network management trick to allow them to offer unlimited data to their customers at a lower cost. It's not a network management trick, it's just a novel marketing trick to blow smoke up their customers' arse. If T-Mobile can deliver unlimited data for video streaming then they can deliver unlimited data for all content types.

digikata 11y ago

I think as long as T-mobile isn't charging the video services actual money, the degree of concern goes way down for me. If money changes hands, then the Tmobile would be effectively hiding end customer costs into the structure of another service, making end customer market choices more convoluted, reducing customer market freedom and giving smaller companies an artificial financial disadvantage. Since they aren't charging, there's this hurdle of having to do things to confirm the the specs of the program, but there's already all sorts of technical/marketing things that small companies need to do to access expanded customer bases. As long as they can make clean tradeoffs valuing Binge On conformance against other choices that seems not as inherently terrible - especially since in the end, mobile is a market where people have better choices then say the last-mile home broadband market.

amazon_not 11y ago
> I think as long as T-mobile isn't charging the video services actual money, the degree of concern goes way down for me. I see T-Mo has been successful in their marketing. Drugs aren't bad, as long as they are free :) Of course T-Mobile wants everybody to think that it's a good thing that they are acting as anti-competitive gatekeepers. As long as they don't explicitly charge for it.

shmerl 11y ago

I'm T-Mobile user and on every their survey I let them know that I oppose their violation of Net neutrality and they should stop Binge On. Also you can tell them that since they are allowing caps exemptions, it means that caps have nothing to do with network congestion and they should stop using them altogether. > Thing is, they're not wrong, per se. Because there isn't an actual accepted definition for "net neutrality". It is wrong, and definition is pretty straightforward. Net neutrality means no preferential treatment for any traffic. Here some services get exemption from caps, while other don't. It is clearly a preferential treatment for some traffic. From a different standpoint, Net neutrality means that network provider can't serve as a gatekeeper and decide who gets better traffic and who doesn't. Here they are the gatekeeper and services need to ask them for permission to be exempt from caps. Gatekeeper = violation of Net neutrality.

oxide 11y ago
>Net neutrality means no preferential treatment for any traffic. I don't know how this can be open to interpretation, by anyone. self-described "t-mobile fan" or not.
- shmerl 11y ago
  It's not open to interpretation to any honest person. Those who try using weasel logic around it are those who want to violate it. And they know perfectly well they are being crooked.
ChrisLomont 11y ago
>Net neutrality means no preferential treatment for any traffic. I want low latency, low bandwidth for VOIP. I'm fine with high bandwidth, high latency for file transfers. As such I don't think such a simple statement is useful or practical (or even used by anyone).
- shmerl 11y ago
  Network management is a legitimate use case. Ripping off users is not.

wmeredith 11y ago

Net Neutrality or not, it's a shitty service. My video quality went to shit a few months back and I didn't know why. It was because I was opted into this nonsense. Which is just allowing them to throttle your speeds in exchange for unlimited data.