Effects of FCC''s imminent Net Neutrality reversal

TomOnBoard

As the FCC has/is about to abolish Net Neutrality in the USA, so-called 'fast lanes' that will have to be paid for will be introduced.

How will this affect Irish users?

ED E

Shoudnt really change, they lost something we didnt have.

Exactly, Meteor/eir have been violating it for a while now, as above. I've always strongly suspected Virgin Media of deliberately throttling stuff too, an example being the Netflix issues a couple of years ago.

ThisRegard

ED E wrote: »

Shoudnt really change, they lost something we didnt have.

It's not really the same though. Had they asked for an additional €5 for faster and higher quality Spotify streaming, at the behest of Spotify, for example then it's comparable,

ED E

ThisRegard wrote: »

It's not really the same though. Had they asked for an additional €5 for faster and higher quality Spotify streaming, at the behest of Spotify, for example then it's comparable,

And that perception, is the big danger. That perception creates monopolies.



Imagine you could only park in a shopping centre car park for 1hr per month. But that restriction didnt apply to Tesco and Lidl. What do you think would happen to Spar, Supervalu, Centra, Aldi, M&S.......

donspeekinglesh

ThisRegard wrote: »

It's not really the same though. Had they asked for an additional €5 for faster and higher quality Spotify streaming, at the behest of Spotify, for example then it's comparable,

It's exactly the same. This example gives YouTube etc an advantage over other sites. If you're on this plan where are you going to stream your music from, YouTube, or Vimeo?
It makes it difficult/impossible for competitor sites to build up enough traction.

ThisRegard

You can use any other site unhindered. The phone companies are providing what people want, you don't have to buy that particular package and can go with an all in package and it doesn't matter what app you use.

When it comes to the point apps paying providers to be bundled into their packages, and throttling for those that aren't, that's when I'll get worried.

ED E

The point went totally over your head.

rogue-entity

What Eir/Meteor are doing is called "Zero Rating", they exempt certain services from the monthly data cap. At best, you might hope they are doing this of their own volition at services they objectively consider popular to tempt customers over to their platform; at worst, they are being paid by these same services for the privilege.

In a previous example, YouTube vs Vimeo was made; if I'm browsing video from my Eir mobile, I know if I browse YouTube that I won't eat into my data cap, but if I use a competing service, I will ergo I am more likely to use YouTube so it benefits one company unfairly over another by influencing consumer choice.


Excuses like "the phone companies are providing what people want" and "you don't have to go with that package and can get an all-in package" are quite disingenuous.


First, folks are price-sensitive, and there is a justifiable perception of Irish companies being a rip-off. If a phone company offers a cheaper package that includes unlimited access to a selection of services/sites, but doesn't hinder or throttle access to competing services or sites on the internet but which are subject to the package data cap, then those select sites in the unlimited category have a distinct advantage and more customers are likely to use those services rather than competing ones.

Second, it can be assumed that the companies getting these favours are paying for it and that is considered distortion of the market - something net-neutrality rules are supposed to prevent.