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Using a SIM card on a recent trip to Mexico, where net neutrality was never a thing, was really interesting. Cell service plans come with separate tariffs for
by qyz721 8y ago
Using a SIM card on a recent trip to Mexico, where net neutrality was never a thing, was really interesting.
Cell service plans come with separate tariffs for regular data and "social" data, which works only in the walled garden of Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Insta, etc., and the "social" data is much cheaper.
Even though the positive reinforcement was not as draconian as stuff like this, where they're obviously trying to dissuade use, it was still pretty creepy.
- KKKKkkkk1 8y agoSounds like the mobile companies got Facebook to subsidize consumers' phone bills. Is that good or bad for everyone involved?
- fwn 8y agoAs access to competing services gets heterogeneous, it's certainly bad for every potential competitor.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago> As access to competing services gets heterogeneous, it's certainly bad for every potential competitor. And then for all the customers, as the incumbents having established a moat can become increasingly abusive.
- viraptor 8y agoUnfortunately we're unlikely to know if it's: - cheaper social - more expensive non-social - combination of those two I really don't expect it's the first option, unless they're really in a race to the bottom. The third option makes sense even without subsidies - offer something "nice" to typical customers and offset it with other traffic.
- konschubert 8y agoThere is no actual difference between those three options. The only thing that matters is that Whatsapp messenger is cheaper to use than, for example, signal messenger.
- viraptor 8y agoThere is a difference to people who actually care a lot about how much they spend. A deal with FB may mean a local cache/interconnect and actual cheaper prices. Making other things more expensive because you're just trying to differentiate from competition is a money grab.
- beaconstudios 8y ago> Making other things more expensive because you're just trying to differentiate from competition is a money grab. How does this make any sense? If anything, making general access more expensive is going to drive consumers to move to a different provider.
- viraptor 8y agoIn a perfect world - yes. But phone/network providers have some weird tendency to end up being mono-/oligopolies. They like when prices are high at every provider, even without "real collusion". For example look at roaming rates in Europe. For decades sending messages/data from another country was crazy expensive - with every single provider. Once EU ruled that roaming charges in the EU should not apply, there was no crisis or huge rise of prices to compensate the losses. Once it was forced, companies started to race each other to announce how awesome they are, being the first in the country to provide free roaming.
- close04 8y agoThere is because it's quite different if you get one thing cheaper than normal, or if you get another more expensive than normal. Imagine next time you climb into a taxi the driver says "just for you I'll charge 20% extra". Pretty sure it will be different from hearing that somebody else got a 20% discount. So making WhatsApp cheaper than the base price is one thing. Making Signal more expensive than the base price is quite different.
- HatchedLake721 8y agoIs it actually different tariffs or do they offer free “social” data? If they do offer it, that’s not against net neutrality unless they throttle other traffic.
- pvorb 8y agoWell, it some kind of is, because small/new services cannot compete with large companies anymore.
- cortesoft 8y agoI think zero rating is considered a violation of net neutrality by most people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating
- HatchedLake721 8y agoI agree and I’m one of them, but it’s not against the law in US or EU.
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoIt's highly debated in the EU, some providers have tried it but they spark a lot of debate about it.
- solarkraft 8y agoYet they're allowed to do so in Germany. It gets on my nerves, but there have even been court decisions to uphold it.
- nolok 8y agoIn France it was actually the norm for cellular data, and the hellish nightmare of favoring one own service was even advertised ("with universal mobile, you get unlimited data for universal music service!!!"). We also had service tiering, such as pop/imap being priced differently than http, etc... Free mobile then came in and used the same tactic they used on adsl, single pricing, large amount of data, no differentiation between websites / ports / data types (even including peer to peer) etc... And others had to follow. So we're in a status quo right now, but just like our fixed line Internet, its quality depends on one of the providers not aligning with the others. If they change their mind, get bought or whatever, the game could change quickly.
- Havoc 8y agoLocal CDN im guessing. We had the same thing in South Africa. For a while you could get 90% discounted local only data.
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoThat's one explanation, but there's also Facebook itself that is setting up their own internet services, offering free internet but only within the Facebook app.
- MaxBarraclough 8y ago> For a while you could get 90% discounted local only data. Interesting idea. It's usually the last-mile that's the hard part - I presume that's the reason it's no longer done? Did 'local content' include, say, Netflix?
- Havoc 8y ago>Interesting idea. Even better is the eco-system it spawned. Myself and others ended up with 2 connections & network magic to split traffic dynamically to optimise cost. Netflix wasn't a thing back then in SA (and even now isn't big). However these local only packages did come with access to the ISP's usenet server so people downloaded mountains of ahem linux ISOs. >I presume that's the reason it's no longer done? No. Couple of big undersea cables hit SA shortly after. So current thinking is more managing capacity during peak times with various incentives ("night time data" etc)
- Semaphor 8y agoSA generally has dirt-cheap WhatsApp data packages and at least Vodacom has free FB (without images).
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- zuisan 8y agoI live in Europe and I'm happy we have stuff like this. It's good for consumers. And according to the law if you zero-rate a certain app you have to zero-rate every app in that category, so there's no concern that Facebook would use something like this to drown the next Facebook killer.
- pjc50 8y agoHow do I apply to get my Twitter clone zero-rated?
- zuisan 8y agoYou have to talk to the ISP.
- spockz 8y agoThere has some commotion here in The Netherlands because one provider tried to do this for Spotify and basically put up all kind of rules/conditions for others to join which basically meant only big organisations could successfully apply.
- oarsinsync 8y agoAnd then how do I get the ISP to advertise my service as being free to use, the same way they do for Facebook? It's not much help that my clone is also free to use if nobody knows unless they go hunting through the fine print, as the initial assumption will be that it's a charged-for alternative.
- zuisan 8y agoObviously your ISP is not going to advertise ALL social apps, that would be a huge list. As an example take this: https://www.vodafone.es/c/particulares/es/productos-y-servicios/movil/vodafone-pass/social/ https://www.vodafone.es/c/particulares/es/productos-y-servic... "use all your social network apps without using up your data allowance", and then they show you a list of apps, but all social apps should be zero-rated and if they are not you can report it. Same with video apps, music apps, etc. If you think this is so bad, then ask consumers if they like it or not. People here seem to put their principles before what consumers actually want or not. The job of the market is to serve consumers. Paying 3€ a month to have unlimited data on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp is a sweet deal for 99% of consumers here I'm sure.
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- ishikawa 8y agoHere in Brazil most carriers also offer social media data for free. On Whatsapp the exception is for voice calls. It would be great (for me, not them LOL) if they included Google Photos.
- fyfy18 8y agoThis is the same in most of Europe too. They don't explicitly charge different prices, but a lot of carriers offer something like free Instagram data or substantially discounted access to Spotify. Although they will just argue it's a marketing deal, it is in effect against net neutrality.
- fgonzag 8y agoEh, it's mostly unlimited WhatsApp and Facebook included with the plan, all other data is metered. It's a freebie or perk on certain rather than a limitation. They are clear about the amount of metered data you get too. Not that it's great but it's not as bad as it could be.