AT&T Immediately Establish Internet Fastlanes - To no-one's surprise

http://bgr.com/2018/02/23/att-net-neutrality-wireless-plans-ugh/amp/

The body isn’t even cold yet, but AT&T is wasting no time in rolling out new “features” that fly in the face of net neutrality. The company has expanded its “sponsored data” program to prepaid wireless customers, offering content companies the option to “sponsor” their data so that it doesn’t count against users’ caps.

This, in case you’re wondering, is what you find under the definition of “paid fast lanes” in the net neutrality false promises hall of fame.

As of right now, the only three services using AT&T’s sponsored data program are DirecTV, UVerse, and Fullscreen. By a huge coincidence, those are three video services owned by AT&T. “Now your plan includes sponsored data. This means, for example, that customers who have DirecTV or U-verse TV can now stream movies and shows … without it counting against their plan data,” AT&T told customers in a text message earlier today.

This flies directly in the face of a statement AT&T made just last year, when it was trying to persuade consumers that the FCC’s net neutrality repeal wouldn’t be the end of a free and open internet. “AT&T intends to operate its network the same way AT&T operates its network today: in an open and transparent manner. We will not block websites, we will not throttle or degrade internet traffic based on content, and we will not unfairly discriminate in our treatment of internet traffic,” executive Bob Quinn said at the time.

By any definition, offering paid fast lanes to companies constitutes “discriminating” against internet traffic. I’d say that only prioritizing traffic from AT&T-owned companies, or companies willing to pay up, constitutes unfair discrimination, but then again I’m not an AT&T lawyer.

 

[AnOminous]

"We'll never do this thing we'll immediately do the instant you let us!"

 

[76LD910]

This is common in European mobile data plans and has been for years.

 

[Ravelord]

So it seems they are just adding some services, without compromising QoS. That's perfectly fine, but if the"standard" prices were already high I would like a price adjustment so the "standard" package is cheaper, and then you pay for extra services you want. I still would like a law to ensure QoS though.

 

[Autopsy]

Oh, I agree. Any tax on a business is inevitably felt by consumers. How much consumers will feel it depends entirely on how AT&T structures the whole bribe system.

This would be an absolutely valid argument if the change had anything to do with speed; people could very well hop from one service to another if a site gets throttled. Instead, we're dealing with the much more niche issue of Bandwidth Consumption, for which there are already winners and losers. I'll illustrate the point this way:
If Vimeo ponies up to get a faster speed and Youtube doesn't, Vimeo might see a huge increase in traffic by the token of 'user-friendliness'.
If Youtube ponies up to get a faster speed, it doesn't see any increase in traffic, because for the end-user nothing has changed. It's break even, but Youtube has to buy in to compete. This is essentially a tax, highly anti-business and somewhat anti-consumer.
^the arguments people keep framing for some reason ("fastlane" in the thread title?)
If Vimeo ponies up to provide free data and Youtube doesn't, Vimeo might see an increase in traffic, mostly from an untapped market. May have a marginal impact on Youtube, but it's not nearly enough to take over the video streaming market. Also, if Youtube actively chooses not to provide free data, it is extraordinarily unlikely that buying in would be a net benefit to Vimeo.
If Youtube ponies up to provide free data, it sees an unknown quantity of increase in traffic, because clients that would normally avoid their service while outside of WiFi can now use it easily, readily. It's profitable, but if it turns out that paying the costs is a net detriment to Youtube's bottom line because the new market is too small or too cheap, they can simply drop out.
^the thing that's actually going on right now. The biggest concern I see is AT&T shilling AT&T products with free data, but since they're garbage, I don't see them overtaking the market this way.

So it seems they are just adding some services, without compromising QoS. That's perfectly fine, but if the"standard" prices were already high I would like a price adjustment so the "standard" package is cheaper, and then you pay for extra services you want. I still would like a law to ensure QoS though.

The opposite, they want to improve QoS at the already valuated price. By having companies chip in, they can keep their current margins and give consumers better service for effectively no/little expense. I personally believe current rates are way above breaking even and they're highway robbery, but I have no actual way of knowing that for certain, so I'm just pleased to see that I might get some free data out of it.

 

[repentance]

Welcome to how the internet works in Australia. Honestly, this is a benefit for consumers, although not as much of one when they're the only game in town.

While we've had lots of value added stuff for a long time, when Netflix first launched in Australia and ISPs were offering free Netflix subs on unlimited plans, internet speeds slowed to a crawl in many places. I remember a lot of discussion at the time about whether streaming services should be required to pay for the additional load they were putting on the network. People were also accusing ISPs of throttling non-Netflix traffic.

Unmetered content isn't a huge advantage for home connections any more, but it's still a pretty big selling point when it comes to mobile phone data.

 

[AnOminous]

So it seems they are just adding some services, without compromising QoS. That's perfectly fine, but if the"standard" prices were already high I would like a price adjustment so the "standard" package is cheaper, and then you pay for extra services you want. I still would like a law to ensure QoS though.

AT&T rips you the fuck off in every imaginable way. This is actually fairly benign as their fuckovers usually go, but they'll do worse. They're just testing out what they can get away with and will ramp it up as time goes on. This one will probably get few people to scream bloody murder.

I've only been with those cocksuckers for as long as I have because iPhonefag. This may change. It's unlocked already, I just haven't made the switch.

 

[CWCchange]

They're a "natural monopoly" in that the initial cost of laying down a ton of infrastructure makes it hard to enter the market, but small businesses do still manage to do it these days, albeit the areas they cover are far smaller than something like AT&T. And once you've already resolved to break it up, why not give them overlapping coverage?

It would be splitting hairs to break AT&T up at that level, and when shit is competitive, mergers will happen. That's how the market works.

Outside of AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, internet from regional providers like CenturyLink and Charter are even more shitty. Why not actually have some balls to require the oligopoly to innovate with better speeds as a condition for favorable governmental policy? I mean, places like South Korea are the same, except speeds are way faster. More left-wing antitrust action expecting a different outcome is gay and retarded.

 

[DNA_JACKED]

"The body isn’t even cold yet, but AT&T is wasting no time in rolling out new “features” that fly in the face of net neutrality. The company has expanded its “sponsored data” program to prepaid wireless customers, offering content companies the option to “sponsor” their data so that it doesn’t count against users’ caps.

This, in case you’re wondering, is what you find under the definition of “paid fast lanes” in the net neutrality false promises hall of fame."

So this horrible defiance of net neutrality is something t mobile did under net neutrality for years while nobody gave a shit?

These poor bellyaching millennials. They might have to get off their phone even less now thanks to lower cap usage! How ever will they cope?

 

[Manah]

I don't really see the issue with offering a premium service for a price, it's not like they're intentionally lowering the rates of other services or anything, they're just removing data usage for their personal services and anyone who wants to tag along with a little cash, just seems like a bunch of bellyaching to me.

It's as if they're going to roll it out slowly or something.

 

[Morag]

It's as if they're going to roll it out slowly or something.

Other companies do it, why is it a problem when they do it and not ones like t mobile?

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

"The body isn’t even cold yet, but AT&T is wasting no time in rolling out new “features” that fly in the face of net neutrality. The company has expanded its “sponsored data” program to prepaid wireless customers, offering content companies the option to “sponsor” their data so that it doesn’t count against users’ caps.

This, in case you’re wondering, is what you find under the definition of “paid fast lanes” in the net neutrality false promises hall of fame."

So this horrible defiance of net neutrality is something t mobile did under net neutrality for years while nobody gave a shit?

These poor bellyaching millennials. They might have to get off their phone even less now thanks to lower cap usage! How ever will they cope?

Leftists have some weird thing where they think writing something into law makes it like a physical law of the universe. Enforcing laws is hard. Especially something like net neutrality.