4 ms·

> The move comes after a Seoul court said Netflix should "reasonably" give something in return to the internet service provider for network usage, and multiple

> The move comes after a Seoul court said Netflix should "reasonably" give something in return to the internet service provider for network usage, and multiple South Korean lawmakers have spoken out against content providers who do not pay for network usage despite generating explosive traffic. Why not charge the end user? That seems like it would be more fair, easier to implement, and require no regulation. Makes it seem like they have other motives.

kijin 3y ago
> Why not charge the end user? The entire country is a single market, with 3 major cellular carriers and a handful of broadband carriers all competing for the same population. The competition is so cutthroat, they even publish monthly reports of which ISP stole how many customers from whom. Obviously, no ISP wants to be the first to charge the end user more, or become known as the one that throttles YouTube, and risk losing hundreds of thousands of customers in an instant. Much easier to make the whole thing look like a business disagreement. Note that it is always SK Broadband that whines the loudest about foreign video streaming platforms. Other ISPs like KT are sitting on bigger undersea cables, so they can afford to absorb much more bandwidth without resorting to reputation-destroying surcharges.
- yongjik 3y ago
  That sounds backwards. If competition were actually cutthroat, no ISP could easily demand payment from Twitch, because then Twitch would just say "Due to the unreasonable demand, Twitch streams will be throttled for SK Telecom users to 360p," and the other ISPs would advertise like hell: "Come to us and enjoy Twitch in its full HD glory!" The fact that it doesn't happen is a strong indication that the competition is lukewarm, especially considering that Korean antitrust laws are pretty much toothless and companies collude all the time.
  - kijin 3y ago
    That's why SK Broadband (not to be confused with SK Telecom, a much more popular ISP that shares little infrastructure with SK Broadband) goes to the government and whines about evil foreign companies clogging up their pipes. They can't make the first move in the market, unless everyone else is required to do the same. Korean telcos do collude all the time, but even here, a surcharge for consumers who were previously promised unlimited data is not something they can get away with.
Xelynega 3y ago
If I have to pay more to access one service than another, that's against the idea of net neutrality(making services equitably easy to access). I don't understand how net neutrality applies in the opposite case though. If the hosting party is paying relative to their usage, how does that have anything to do with my access as an end user?
- zeroCalories 3y ago
  I'm suggesting that users pay for data by the byte, similar to how users pay for mobile data in most countries. I don't see how that violates nn.

kijin 3y ago

> Why not charge the end user? The entire country is a single market, with 3 major cellular carriers and a handful of broadband carriers all competing for the same population. The competition is so cutthroat, they even publish monthly reports of which ISP stole how many customers from whom. Obviously, no ISP wants to be the first to charge the end user more, or become known as the one that throttles YouTube, and risk losing hundreds of thousands of customers in an instant. Much easier to make the whole thing look like a business disagreement. Note that it is always SK Broadband that whines the loudest about foreign video streaming platforms. Other ISPs like KT are sitting on bigger undersea cables, so they can afford to absorb much more bandwidth without resorting to reputation-destroying surcharges.

yongjik 3y ago
That sounds backwards. If competition were actually cutthroat, no ISP could easily demand payment from Twitch, because then Twitch would just say "Due to the unreasonable demand, Twitch streams will be throttled for SK Telecom users to 360p," and the other ISPs would advertise like hell: "Come to us and enjoy Twitch in its full HD glory!" The fact that it doesn't happen is a strong indication that the competition is lukewarm, especially considering that Korean antitrust laws are pretty much toothless and companies collude all the time.
- kijin 3y ago
  That's why SK Broadband (not to be confused with SK Telecom, a much more popular ISP that shares little infrastructure with SK Broadband) goes to the government and whines about evil foreign companies clogging up their pipes. They can't make the first move in the market, unless everyone else is required to do the same. Korean telcos do collude all the time, but even here, a surcharge for consumers who were previously promised unlimited data is not something they can get away with.

Xelynega 3y ago

If I have to pay more to access one service than another, that's against the idea of net neutrality(making services equitably easy to access). I don't understand how net neutrality applies in the opposite case though. If the hosting party is paying relative to their usage, how does that have anything to do with my access as an end user?

zeroCalories 3y ago
I'm suggesting that users pay for data by the byte, similar to how users pay for mobile data in most countries. I don't see how that violates nn.