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Tom Wheeler says this: "Notably, the Open Internet Order does not affect zero-rating services like T-Mobile's BingeOn or Verizon's Go90, which are intentionall

Tom Wheeler says this: "Notably, the Open Internet Order does not affect zero-rating services like T-Mobile's BingeOn or Verizon's Go90, which are intentionally left out of the scope of the order. "I can argue there are some aspects of [zero rating] that are good, and I can argue there’s some aspects of it that are not so good," Wheeler told The Verge in an interview in March. "The job of the regulator is to figure out, 'Okay, now how do I deal with this?'" Outrageous behavior, followed up by outrageous commentary. This FCC is out of control. How does anyone invest in wireless with regulators like this? Is Tom Wheeler even aware of the chilling affect of commentary like this? Edit: The quote above is from the fine article. Wmeredith: I'm talking about is Tom Wheeler, chair of the FCC. In this particular quote, the regulator of the laws is saying (at least as far as I can tell), that he's going to pick and choose which players he regulates. Should I assume you're arguing that my quote from the article is fud, or is it my commentary? Or my interpretation of it? I'm not being a troll. I have an honest disagreement that this is the right thing to do. Would you invest in any climate with a regulator who says things like this? It seems wildly more risky to me.

exhilaration 10y ago
Can someone give us a quick summary of why the two mentioned services are problematic?
- wmeredith 10y ago
  T-Mobile's BingeOn or Verizon's Go90 are problematic because they prioritize content. Say you're a new video streaming startup. You can't compete against Netflix with T-Mobile users because Netflix's traffic gets priority. You can't get that priority because you're not a big enough fish to negotiate your own fast lane. Fast lanes are bad for innovation in this way. They favor entrenched players, which then become more entrenched, and then become more favored, etc... The FCC's Open Internet Order explicitly bans this behavior, but it only applies to wired connections. They did not issue any ruling on wireless internet, so several wireless providers offer these unmetered fast lanes (i.e. stream content from certain providers without it counting against your bandwidth limit). It's a short term win for customers, but they lose in the long run.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > They're problematic because they are fast lanes that prioritize content. Zero-rating services aren't traffic prioritization, and the Open Internet Order forbids paid prioritization anyway. What they are is paid deals where data from one service isn't counted against data caps, which is a different form of favoritism. > You can't compete against Netflix with T-Mobile users because Netflix's traffic gets priority. No, you can't compete against Netflix with T-Mobile users (without making a similar deal with T-Mobile) because your data-intensive service will be charged against a limited usage quota while Netflix's won't.
    - charlesz 10y ago
      Anyone can apply for T-Mobile's Music Freedom (zero-rated music streaming) and BingeOn (zero-rated video streaming) programs assuming you're providing legal content. Edit: It's also worth noting that participation in the programs is free both for the provider and end user.
      - ascagnel_ 10y ago
        Your edit is the most important piece, and lets T-Mobile spin it as a network optimization program instead of paid prioritization, regardless of how it may actually work.
- dsr_ 10y ago
  Pretend that you are an internet provider looking to extract revenue from all possible sources. Only your direct customers give you money, so any time you can reduce carrying traffic to and from non-customers, you will. Zero-rating your own (or subsidiary, or partners') traffic is a way of increasing the perceived costs to your end-users for traffic which is not as profitable to you. That reduces demand for the less-profitable traffic, thus allowing your profit margin to increase. Meanwhile, you get to spin the message to customers as "this stuff is free!" rather than "we built the cost of this stuff in to your monthly bill, and anything else gets counted against your quota".
- gervase 10y ago
  I believe the gist of the argument is that zero-rating is essentially reverse prioritization. In other words, if T-Mobile is giving Pandora privileges on the network that any mom-and-pop startup streaming service doesn't have access to, does it really matter if T-Mobile is charging the customer for that? Since it still effectively stifles innovation by new players (a core tenet of Wheeler's net neutrality argument).
  - criddell 10y ago
    If Pandora pays T-Mobile to zero-rate their traffic, that's a problem, right? Is there a problem if Pandora were to offer an overage-fee rebate benefit to T-Mobile customers? It's effectively the same thing, except they are paying end users rather than the middle-man. I personally don't see a problem with that and that makes me think that the simpler option of just paying the middle-man (T-Mobile) for zero-rating should be okay as well.
    - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
      > Is there a problem if Pandora were to offer an overage-fee rebate benefit to T-Mobile customers? Yes, because it's clearly the same thing, and it has the same problem. Suppose the ISP owns or has some "unrelated" partnership with Pandora. Now the money Pandora is "paying" is just money the ISP is passing back to them under the table through the other relationship, and the ISP is really only disadvantaging Pandora's competitors because the ISP stands to collect some of the rents from thwarting competition.
      - tzs 10y ago
        1. Suppose that I run a subscription music service, and I have no relationship with T-Mobile other than the fact that some of my customers use T-Mobile to access my service. I track each of my customer's usage, figure out from IP addresses how much of their usage was on their T-Mobile connection, and rebate them my estimate of what T-Mobile will charge them for that usage. Is there a problem with this? If so, how would you address it? 2. Similar to #1, except now my subscription service includes a bandwidth limit. A given subscription plan is allowed a specified amount of music data per month from my servers. Again, I have no relationship with T-Mobile or any other carrier other than some of my customers using those carriers to access my servers. Each month I buy each customer a prepaid data card for their carrier with sufficient bandwidth to cover one month of their subscription to my service. Is there a problem? If so, how would you address it?
wmeredith 10y ago
What are you talking about? Gonna need some more logic to backup your FUD.
deleted 10y ago
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jahewson 10y ago
The FCC chose not to include zero-rating in the Open Internet Order, because of its ambiguity. They could imagine both good and bad approaches to zero rating (with the bad being to effectively circumvent net neutrality). They've been consulting with the industry to try to figure out which aspects of zero rating are helpful and which are (or have the potential to be) harmful. That's what a good regulator should do. The original Verge article describes all of this. Perhaps you'd care to read it.
deleted 10y ago
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st3v3r 10y ago
"How does anyone invest in wireless with regulators like this? " If your idea of "innovation" is to throttle, block, and otherwise act in an un-neutral manner, I don't want you to invest in wireless. I want you to leave it for someone who will be neutral with the traffic. Also, he didn't say he was going to pick and choose. Unless by "pick and choose", you mean he's going to go after those who are breaking the rules, and leave those who aren't alone.

exhilaration 10y ago

Can someone give us a quick summary of why the two mentioned services are problematic?

wmeredith 10y ago
T-Mobile's BingeOn or Verizon's Go90 are problematic because they prioritize content. Say you're a new video streaming startup. You can't compete against Netflix with T-Mobile users because Netflix's traffic gets priority. You can't get that priority because you're not a big enough fish to negotiate your own fast lane. Fast lanes are bad for innovation in this way. They favor entrenched players, which then become more entrenched, and then become more favored, etc... The FCC's Open Internet Order explicitly bans this behavior, but it only applies to wired connections. They did not issue any ruling on wireless internet, so several wireless providers offer these unmetered fast lanes (i.e. stream content from certain providers without it counting against your bandwidth limit). It's a short term win for customers, but they lose in the long run.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > They're problematic because they are fast lanes that prioritize content. Zero-rating services aren't traffic prioritization, and the Open Internet Order forbids paid prioritization anyway. What they are is paid deals where data from one service isn't counted against data caps, which is a different form of favoritism. > You can't compete against Netflix with T-Mobile users because Netflix's traffic gets priority. No, you can't compete against Netflix with T-Mobile users (without making a similar deal with T-Mobile) because your data-intensive service will be charged against a limited usage quota while Netflix's won't.
  - charlesz 10y ago
    Anyone can apply for T-Mobile's Music Freedom (zero-rated music streaming) and BingeOn (zero-rated video streaming) programs assuming you're providing legal content. Edit: It's also worth noting that participation in the programs is free both for the provider and end user.
    - ascagnel_ 10y ago
      Your edit is the most important piece, and lets T-Mobile spin it as a network optimization program instead of paid prioritization, regardless of how it may actually work.
dsr_ 10y ago
Pretend that you are an internet provider looking to extract revenue from all possible sources. Only your direct customers give you money, so any time you can reduce carrying traffic to and from non-customers, you will. Zero-rating your own (or subsidiary, or partners') traffic is a way of increasing the perceived costs to your end-users for traffic which is not as profitable to you. That reduces demand for the less-profitable traffic, thus allowing your profit margin to increase. Meanwhile, you get to spin the message to customers as "this stuff is free!" rather than "we built the cost of this stuff in to your monthly bill, and anything else gets counted against your quota".
gervase 10y ago
I believe the gist of the argument is that zero-rating is essentially reverse prioritization. In other words, if T-Mobile is giving Pandora privileges on the network that any mom-and-pop startup streaming service doesn't have access to, does it really matter if T-Mobile is charging the customer for that? Since it still effectively stifles innovation by new players (a core tenet of Wheeler's net neutrality argument).
- criddell 10y ago
  If Pandora pays T-Mobile to zero-rate their traffic, that's a problem, right? Is there a problem if Pandora were to offer an overage-fee rebate benefit to T-Mobile customers? It's effectively the same thing, except they are paying end users rather than the middle-man. I personally don't see a problem with that and that makes me think that the simpler option of just paying the middle-man (T-Mobile) for zero-rating should be okay as well.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    > Is there a problem if Pandora were to offer an overage-fee rebate benefit to T-Mobile customers? Yes, because it's clearly the same thing, and it has the same problem. Suppose the ISP owns or has some "unrelated" partnership with Pandora. Now the money Pandora is "paying" is just money the ISP is passing back to them under the table through the other relationship, and the ISP is really only disadvantaging Pandora's competitors because the ISP stands to collect some of the rents from thwarting competition.
    - tzs 10y ago
      1. Suppose that I run a subscription music service, and I have no relationship with T-Mobile other than the fact that some of my customers use T-Mobile to access my service. I track each of my customer's usage, figure out from IP addresses how much of their usage was on their T-Mobile connection, and rebate them my estimate of what T-Mobile will charge them for that usage. Is there a problem with this? If so, how would you address it? 2. Similar to #1, except now my subscription service includes a bandwidth limit. A given subscription plan is allowed a specified amount of music data per month from my servers. Again, I have no relationship with T-Mobile or any other carrier other than some of my customers using those carriers to access my servers. Each month I buy each customer a prepaid data card for their carrier with sufficient bandwidth to cover one month of their subscription to my service. Is there a problem? If so, how would you address it?

wmeredith 10y ago

What are you talking about? Gonna need some more logic to backup your FUD.

deleted 10y ago

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jahewson 10y ago

The FCC chose not to include zero-rating in the Open Internet Order, because of its ambiguity. They could imagine both good and bad approaches to zero rating (with the bad being to effectively circumvent net neutrality). They've been consulting with the industry to try to figure out which aspects of zero rating are helpful and which are (or have the potential to be) harmful. That's what a good regulator should do. The original Verge article describes all of this. Perhaps you'd care to read it.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

st3v3r 10y ago

"How does anyone invest in wireless with regulators like this? " If your idea of "innovation" is to throttle, block, and otherwise act in an un-neutral manner, I don't want you to invest in wireless. I want you to leave it for someone who will be neutral with the traffic. Also, he didn't say he was going to pick and choose. Unless by "pick and choose", you mean he's going to go after those who are breaking the rules, and leave those who aren't alone.