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No, it is because... > The carriers wrote that the feature cuts off networks and servers from accessing “vital network data and metadata and could impact “oper

No, it is because... > The carriers wrote that the feature cuts off networks and servers from accessing “vital network data and metadata and could impact “operator’s ability to efficiently manage telecommunication networks.” But seriously, it is because it prevents T-Mobile from monetizing you and slowing you down.

wlesieutre 5y ago
iCloud Private Relay isn’t like full blown VPN that hides everything you do on the internet, only your web browsing in Safari goes through it. So their existing systems to throttle the connection of your video streaming apps will continue to work just fine. It’s completely about monetizing your browsing history.
- lathiat 5y ago
  I believe it also takes non-https traffic from apps but since they made https mandatory quite some time ago now I suspect that is not much. Also content loaded inside email in Mail.
  - andiareso 5y ago
    IIRC it redirects DNS queries system-wide as well which definitely would hinder general interest tracking.
    - nunez 5y ago
      Thank goodness the carriers can't do anything about solutions that use VPN to override default nameservers
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
nojito 5y ago
Tmobile deprioritizes devices depending on high usage. Private Relay would allow individuals who are deprioritized to bring down entire cell towers.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  No, it wouldn't. They'd still have the ability to throttle individual phones generating lots of traffic.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    Carriers nat/proxy everything and in addition to bandwidth throttling, they will rate limit or otherwise whack misbehaving applications. VPNing everything at scale will impact that monitoring/management. And that will absolutely impact towers, or cause the carriers to throttle users vs apps.
    - cobookman 5y ago
      ...they throttle at the phone-number/SIM. Even with a VPN your phone is still auth'ing itself to the cell towers, and those towers know what device is sending which traffic. What this prevents is allowing say Youtube to pay TMobile to never throttle their traffic.
      - Spooky23 5y ago
        I know from firsthand experience that Verizon at least can and did do more circa 2016.
    - acdha 5y ago
      VPNs work at a higher level. They have to see the radio traffic to be able to deliver packets to your phone, which is where billing and access control happens (this is why you can’t spoof someone else’s IP to avoid paying your bill), and at the IP level your VPN traffic is carried from your carrier-issued IP address to your VPN provider’s addresses. The one legitimate argument here is that this prevents traffic shaping based on the destination, which T-Mobile uses to do things like offer unlimited streaming separate from your general data quota.
jrockway 5y ago
It also cuts down on the number of companies they can extort for transit. Right now they can go to Netflix and say "would be a shame if T-Mobile customers couldn't view movies during peak hours" and Netflix has to pay them for that not to happen. With all the traffic going through Apple, Apple is the only company they can extort this way. (Meanwhile, Apple or their "third-party provider" could of course play this game, but historically tech companies have been super uninterested in doing this.) Basically, what everyone wants is for companies like T-Mobile to be a dumb pipe. They invested in spectrum and a network, and they should just lease that network for cost + profit margin. Instead, they want to milk it. They want you to pay more for particular packets. They want the rest of the Internet to pay more for particular packets. They want to inject their own ads into unaffiliated websites. They want to build a marketing profile based on what sites you visit, and send you "offers" based on this. Right now, that is all technically possible, so they'd be defrauding their shareholders if they didn't try. But, we can of course say "no" and route around the damage. Apple is letting their customers say "no", and that means T-Mobile is doomed to irrelevance, and that's a great thing. Infrastructure should be infrastructure. (Can you imagine what it would be like if other utilities did this kind of shit? Your water would cost less if you were using it to run a Coke-branded soft drink dispenser, but not a Pepsi one. Or, Dell computers could get electricity at a 10% discount, but not Asus ones. It would be unthinkable! But with these big ISPs, it's mandatory.)
- jrockway 5y ago
  I hate to reply to myself, but I wanted to say one other thing. When governments sell RF spectrum to companies, the expectation is that they become good stewards of the shared resource. The taxpayers are saying "you know, we think private industry can give us more value from our RF spectrum than the government", and this is their chance to prove that. What we didn't want was to enable a monopolist to nickel-and-dime the Internet to death. I'm guessing the exact legal agreements didn't spell it out like this, but that's how I think of it. Only one company can use this finite resource at once, but just because they bought it doesn't mean there is no limit to what they can do with it.
- markbnj 5y ago
  > Right now, that is all technically possible, so they'd be defrauding their shareholders if they didn't try. Can you expand on this? Are you saying that if a business opportunity exists and a company elects not to pursue it that constitutes defrauding shareholders? I would have thought it constituted nothing more than a disagreement over strategy.

wlesieutre 5y ago

iCloud Private Relay isn’t like full blown VPN that hides everything you do on the internet, only your web browsing in Safari goes through it. So their existing systems to throttle the connection of your video streaming apps will continue to work just fine. It’s completely about monetizing your browsing history.

lathiat 5y ago
I believe it also takes non-https traffic from apps but since they made https mandatory quite some time ago now I suspect that is not much. Also content loaded inside email in Mail.
- andiareso 5y ago
  IIRC it redirects DNS queries system-wide as well which definitely would hinder general interest tracking.
  - nunez 5y ago
    Thank goodness the carriers can't do anything about solutions that use VPN to override default nameservers
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

nojito 5y ago

Tmobile deprioritizes devices depending on high usage. Private Relay would allow individuals who are deprioritized to bring down entire cell towers.

kstrauser 5y ago
No, it wouldn't. They'd still have the ability to throttle individual phones generating lots of traffic.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Carriers nat/proxy everything and in addition to bandwidth throttling, they will rate limit or otherwise whack misbehaving applications. VPNing everything at scale will impact that monitoring/management. And that will absolutely impact towers, or cause the carriers to throttle users vs apps.
  - cobookman 5y ago
    ...they throttle at the phone-number/SIM. Even with a VPN your phone is still auth'ing itself to the cell towers, and those towers know what device is sending which traffic. What this prevents is allowing say Youtube to pay TMobile to never throttle their traffic.
    - Spooky23 5y ago
      I know from firsthand experience that Verizon at least can and did do more circa 2016.
  - acdha 5y ago
    VPNs work at a higher level. They have to see the radio traffic to be able to deliver packets to your phone, which is where billing and access control happens (this is why you can’t spoof someone else’s IP to avoid paying your bill), and at the IP level your VPN traffic is carried from your carrier-issued IP address to your VPN provider’s addresses. The one legitimate argument here is that this prevents traffic shaping based on the destination, which T-Mobile uses to do things like offer unlimited streaming separate from your general data quota.

jrockway 5y ago

It also cuts down on the number of companies they can extort for transit. Right now they can go to Netflix and say "would be a shame if T-Mobile customers couldn't view movies during peak hours" and Netflix has to pay them for that not to happen. With all the traffic going through Apple, Apple is the only company they can extort this way. (Meanwhile, Apple or their "third-party provider" could of course play this game, but historically tech companies have been super uninterested in doing this.) Basically, what everyone wants is for companies like T-Mobile to be a dumb pipe. They invested in spectrum and a network, and they should just lease that network for cost + profit margin. Instead, they want to milk it. They want you to pay more for particular packets. They want the rest of the Internet to pay more for particular packets. They want to inject their own ads into unaffiliated websites. They want to build a marketing profile based on what sites you visit, and send you "offers" based on this. Right now, that is all technically possible, so they'd be defrauding their shareholders if they didn't try. But, we can of course say "no" and route around the damage. Apple is letting their customers say "no", and that means T-Mobile is doomed to irrelevance, and that's a great thing. Infrastructure should be infrastructure. (Can you imagine what it would be like if other utilities did this kind of shit? Your water would cost less if you were using it to run a Coke-branded soft drink dispenser, but not a Pepsi one. Or, Dell computers could get electricity at a 10% discount, but not Asus ones. It would be unthinkable! But with these big ISPs, it's mandatory.)

jrockway 5y ago
I hate to reply to myself, but I wanted to say one other thing. When governments sell RF spectrum to companies, the expectation is that they become good stewards of the shared resource. The taxpayers are saying "you know, we think private industry can give us more value from our RF spectrum than the government", and this is their chance to prove that. What we didn't want was to enable a monopolist to nickel-and-dime the Internet to death. I'm guessing the exact legal agreements didn't spell it out like this, but that's how I think of it. Only one company can use this finite resource at once, but just because they bought it doesn't mean there is no limit to what they can do with it.
markbnj 5y ago
> Right now, that is all technically possible, so they'd be defrauding their shareholders if they didn't try. Can you expand on this? Are you saying that if a business opportunity exists and a company elects not to pursue it that constitutes defrauding shareholders? I would have thought it constituted nothing more than a disagreement over strategy.