Sprint Will Sell a $12 Wireless Plan that Only Connects to Facebook or Twitter
blogs.wsj.com
blogs.wsj.com
Or maybe I'm wrong about the corporate vision.
In wired world, the carriers were granted monopoly to dig the trenches, and the fact that they now abuse that monopoly without giving access to other players is what riles people.
Wireless world is fairly fragmented - carriers are separate from equipment companies, which are separate from tower operators. Anybody can buy up some equipment and tower space and just start offering mobile voice+broadband. Or start on MVNO to piggyback existing infrastructure and expand from there.
Really? Unless you can participate in the multi-billion dollar spectrum auction, you can't use any of those towers or disparate device providers. The right to use a large block of spectrum in a given geographic area is a monopoly of sorts for that carrier. Given the capital and scale needed to enter the market, it's no wonder we have so few wireless carriers to choose from.
That's actually not all that true. While both the 2010 Open Internet Order and the more recent NPRM for a new version have provided looser rules for mobile broadband, (fixed wireless has the same rules as fixed wired broadband), its been on the FCC radar, and a number of big players pushing for more full neutrality than the current NPRM offers for fixed broadband have also been advocating for the same treatment for mobile broadband as fixed rather than two separate models.
> In wired world, the carriers were granted monopoly to dig the trenches, and the fact that they now abuse that monopoly without giving access to other players is what riles people.
In the wireless world, companies rely on exclusive monopoly licenses to spectrum, so its an ongoing -- not merely historical -- monopoly on which they rely.
No, its not. The particular mechanism for managing scarcity may be a policy choice, but the scarcity is pretty fundamental.
That is why you can't have two FM radio stations on 106.7.
are not even close to comparable. Cellphone towers do not use frequencies and powers that travel nearly as far as those employed by radio stations.
>The scarcity isn't artificial.
Nope, it's artificial.
The next generation of base stations performs beamforming for physics-based channel sharing in addition to CDMA ("algorithm-based" channel sharing). Beamforming effectively allows you to employ a sizable number of "virtual antennas", each aimed separately at individual receivers. With multiple base stations it's an even more effective strategy because you can create signals that constructively interfere at a point rather than along a line. Everyone gets their own spatially-localized signal and can transmit their own spatially-localized signal because the same trick works in reverse for reception.
So no, there isn't fundamental spectrum scarcity. Perhaps there are too few beamforming base stations installed, but that's a problem to be solved through investment in new technology, not by allowing carriers to impose business models that de-commoditize bandwidth.
Also beamforming doesn't work as well from the mobile station because you don't have multiple, sufficiently separated antennas.
Beamforming gives roughly the same advantage to TX and RX. While I'm sure mobile stations will eventually take advantage of it for power conservation purposes, very large advantages still stand to be gained even from a one-sided implementation at the base stations which can have multiple sufficiently separated antennas.
Radio astronomy provides a very good example of this: from Earth, stars look like point radiators, yet VLBI astronomy still yields an insanely powerful RX advantage once you get up to effective apertures the size of Earth.
That is the key points. In the near future it'll be artificial but it hasn't been until those exist in sufficient quantities and with sufficient QoS. Simply because it is technically possible for them to get away with less spectrum doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of installed base stations don't function that way at present and that the technology wasn't available to get that performance until super recently.
That is like saying everyone could buy an autonomous cars and so human driver error is no longer an issue.
There are real limits on their rate of capex.
The carrying capacity for wireless customers (and carriers) could increase to above where it is now, but not the point where frequency coordination is unnecessary.
Why not? The ISM bands haven't become unusable even in densely packed residences with large numbers of Netflix-streaming cable cutters. Yes, cell phone towers have a longer range (which puts them at a small constant factor disadvantage), but they are also professionally maintained and can therefore make use of directional antennas and beamforming which gives them a constant factor advantage proportional to investment.
We have the technology to provide service to any reasonable density of people. It's a matter of cost, not scarcity. As opposed to, say, healthcare, this is a problem that markets should be very good at solving.
There are two different scopes of monopoly here. My house is bathed in the waves of at least four different cellular networks; that's not really a monopoly.
That's surprising to me. How can the FCC charging billions for mobile spectrum licences? [1] It would seem to me that there are government-granted monopolies for both wired and wireless.
[1] http://www.networkworld.com/article/2307154/network-security...
This is basically the old AOL or CIX model.
It's not a perfect analogy, but I'd compare it to broadcast media. The barrier to entry for creating a new TV channel is absurdly high compared to that of creating a website. Imagine a world where suddenly creating a website meant negotiating with Internet providers to get included in the standard packages. It's just a huge step back, but the majority of consumers might not notice the difference. (At least not right away.)
I can live without any of my most visited websites - they are not business important. But my business web site? The local calendaring etc? My mobile plan loses all value if I can't use those on the go.
Another reason for why these offers will fail is status. If you bought such a package, you better not tell your peers, because it lowers your status among them. Well, your peers will know it anyway, because you cannot just open this Youtube video they posted on their Facebook timeline. This is a bigger issue with Sprint's targeted customer: poor people and kids.
It would be a good strategy, if Sprint compensates these offerings by also offering an instant access choice. If a customer with a Facebook package opens an external resource, she/he shall see a page where she/he can buy 24h Internet access for less than $2.
---
If providers stop offering "undiscriminated" Internet access, others will fill this gap with new "Real Internet Access".
My point wasn't that the Internet would suddenly become a set of pre-packaged channels. It's just that, if you leave it up to the average internet subscriber, I can see a future where the desires of many price-conscious consumers ultimately how Internet service gets structured. I suspect my parents, for instance, would be willing to trade reduced Internet access for much lower prices.
Sure, plenty of people would still go for the "Real Internet Access" option, but for a ton of consumers the Internet would cease being as open as it is today, and I'm not so sure they wouldn't be totally okay with that, if it meant paying a lot less.
Net Neutrality is not about how a company forms their products for their customers. It is only about (backbone) providers trying to extort money from companies which happen to send traffic through the pipes of those providers, because their customers asked for that traffic. Providers, offering QoS based access is not a matter of Net Neutrality.
It would automatically avoid interference by ensuring that links are never overlapping (eg: receiving an unintended sender's signal), but ensuring links are either parallel or perpendicular.
Say a broadbank link today costs $100/mo for 50Mbit. That will remain. It may even get better. They'll say "Look! We used to charge $100/mo for 50Mbit, and now we give you 100Mbit for the same price! We're innovating!"
Meanwhile on the other end, they'll offer the $20 package with 500 Premium Websites, and the $10 package with Facebook & Twitter & Google, but not DuckDuckGo. Or whatever.
And then, as you'd expect, millions will sign up for the cheap packages (because when it comes down to it, most people make a decision based on price and that's it). And the cable cos will still say: "We're still offering totally neutral 100Mbit internet - just like the good 'ol days! We're good guys! It's not our fault that people want the value packages. The free market has spoken."
And then the new players wonder why they can't get any traction until they too pay up to be part of the "value" packages, and the nightmare is real.
Facebook's free access in India and some other countries is part of their internet.org project (or the team that deals with that). In that model, Facebook has a partnership with the local telecoms. The telecom opens access to that domain for every customer and Facebook pays the telecom for the data access.
At least AOL had internet access!
From a business perspective it's brilliant: selling benefits, as opposed to a commodity (bandwidth). Ie. The price charged for the good sold no longer has relation to the cost of the good.
Now just imagine if we bought other commodities the same way. Would you buy gas by distance, e.g. 'enough gas to drive from LA to NY for $50†' -- a great deal if you drive a Hummer, but pretty bad for a Prius.
†The actual cost would be much more, but you get the point.
I think a better analogy might be something like water or electricity. Imagine separate line items on your electric bill for the refrigerator, the TV, the lights, etc. You bought a game console, that's $50/month extra for the game console electrical package.
With energy the infrastructure is regulated, with regulated rates. While the provider of the actual electricity is competitive without duplicating the infrastructure. This makes so much sense, it should be clear to treat telecommunications the same way.
I used this when talking to my father recently, who leans fairly right and has been posting some links using the party line "free market" and "less regulation" arguments against net neutrality, and it seemed to make an impression.
I'm politically right of center and would like to point out that a non-trivial number of my philosophical peers used to assume "net neutrality" had more to do with a reincarnation of the fairness doctrine than data transit (I'm not even kidding). I'd like to believe that's changing, slowly, but it would take some convincing for me to accept that most of those who argue in favor of free market solutions have any understanding that this is a data ownership--rather than political--issue.
Besides, the issues have become so complex thanks to lobbying efforts by these monopolies that I think your analogy is probably the best approach to help educate the public at large as to the dangers that might arise if this sort of nonsense takes hold further (and sadly, I fear it will--I was afraid of this the day the cable companies were allowed to become ISPs).
I see this as the USPS equivalent of charging you by the size and weight of the package (which they do, unless you are using a flat rate envelope). The flat rate envelope being the equivalent of some "package" internet deal a la the OP.
A healthy company in a healthy market loves additional demand. Imagine if there's some new kind of fruit that everyone wants to buy. The local supermarkets are flooded. Are they going to say, "this fruit is too popular and causing too much strain on our infrastructure, so we demand additional compensation from the fruit growers"? Hell no. They're going to say, "This is awesome! We're making so much cash! Hire more workers! Build out the stores! Buy more magic fruit!"
Many ISPs have managed to set up their product offerings such that they don't want additional use of their product. That's a major screwup on their part, and one they should fix.
It's interesting to look at cellular carriers, which started out this way but have mostly overcome it. For example, AT&T started out offering "unlimited" plans to iPhone users, and inevitably iPhone users used "too much" and this caused trouble. Now they only offer metered plans, and the attitude is different. Oh, you want to stream video constantly and use dozens of GB per month? Come right this way, we have a plan just for you, and you'll get a nice bulk discount. Contrast with Clear, who I used for a little bit as a home connection. They advertise "unlimited" and say it's suitable for replacing a home broadband connection, but if you actually try to use it that way, they throttle you into the ground and tell you to stop being abusive.
Techies as a whole seem to be really resistant to metered pricing for internet connections, but I think standardizing on that approach would solve a whole bunch of problems.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/07/29...
That's essentially what the whole net neutrality debate is about. Should internet connections be fungible, or should it be possible for connections to be qualitatively different, not merely faster, slower, cheaper, more expensive?
I work at an ISP. You hit the nail very squarely on the head, these conversations are happening every day.
I believe we're soon going to introduce a "NetFlix" package where all netflix data will not count towards your usage cap. (Of course, the entire Netflix catalog is already locally cached inside our network anyway)
https://www.netflix.com/openconnect/hardware
To answer 1, I would guess this kills the argument for a wired connection, but not necessarily wireless since there are greater bandwidth restrictions. That's just a guess though, since my perception of how far wireless tech has come might be off.
1) Remember their argument is not logical. And it's a secret that we have local caches in our network, so nobody is allowed to know that anyway.
Try to put my site in a package = no access for any of your customers.
i.e. they won't offer a "Netflix" package with Netflix's agreement.
they won't offer a "Netflix" package WITHOUT Netflix's agreement.
I know we're under very strict conditions that we're not even allowed to say we even have local caches, much less who we have caches for.
So we have a however many Gbit link, and we pay $x/month for that whether we saturate it the entire time, or it sits idle.
The internet, on a B2B level, would work fine without these ISPs. The problem is these ISPs + natural monopolies on spectrum + governments + barriers to entry create national networks are abusing that power in the B2C space.
Please don't claim "The Internet" is purely a B2C entity.
EDIT: I'm amused by the downvote. Given I know this is true [e.g. My day job B2B work purely transits non-B2C ISPs like Sprint or Verizon]. ;)
2) Smaller companies are able to provider better service in rural areas or towns than VZN/ATT. It is the effects of capex on their stock price, not the fundamental economics.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/a-city...
Ya, they may not run it to single residential homes. That doesn't change the fact they can do it to something like an apartment complex or buisness park cheaper than VZN or ATT just fine.
And it isn't just them, there are dozens of these companies that are profitable and do this.
You are fundamentally wrong.
Most of the network that you use was not built by them. Your tax dollars your grandparents (or parents) paid is what built it. They just maintain it, not that that is cheap.
That said, I really hate our spectrum auction system. Going forward, I would prefer use restricted unlicensed bands... I think Europe's model is better than ours too.
I favor using unlicensed bands for a lot of things,[1] but for cellular, dedicated bands auctioned to the highest bidder are probably the way to go.
[1] Specifically this: http://werbach.com/research/supercommons.html.
Wouldn't unlicensed bands that are dedicated to cellular vastly improve coverage for customers? Rather than the auction, tax payer money could be invested into building the network infrastructure and the carriers could lease access at cost (similar to many other utilities today). I can think of a number of advantages:
* Cell providers compete more on price.
* All devices are portable to other providers.
* All hardware uses just one radio.
* Above items then result in better device battery life.
The whole point of auctions is to take a public asset, compensate the public through the auction process, then make it private and let the market manage it. At that point, it's no longer public.
> From a carriers perspective, they benefit from the existing inefficiencies and besides, it would deeply cut into their monopoly profits .
The cellular carriers aren't monopolies. At three or four major carriers, there's much more competition in that space than in, say, the search engine space or the consumer operating system space, or in the mobile operating system space. Moreover, those profits are what motivate companies like AT&T and Verizon to spend tens of billions of dollars a year investing in infrastructure that becomes rapidly obsolete.
Look at our other public infrastructure. It's decrepit. Amtrak still has lots of cars built in the 1970's. Our power companies are running century-old coal fired power plants. You think there's the public will to spend tens of billions of tax dollars each year upgrading cellular infrastructure to keep pace with technology? Once public wireless infrastructure was built, it'd be a fight to just get enough funding to merely maintain it, the same sort of fight we're having with rail infrastructure, water infrastructure, etc. E.g. many rail routes are slower today than they were in the 1960's, because the infrastructure has been allowed to deteriorate.
There's an article on the front page today that gives you an idea of how well our "other utilities" work: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/swim-swam-swum ("Grzybowski sampled again, and the C.F.U. count in the river exceeded 24,196, the highest possible measurement. 'Pretty much raw sewage,' he reported.")
(+): I can't quickly find a coherent dollar amount for any time period, but it is significantly large and a few quick estimates put some investment programs in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
As far as I can tell, there is approaching zero dollars of actual transfers of cash.
The only thing I can even find that subsidizes them is faster depreciation allowances.
There is also the USF, but that is paid for by taxes on telecoms and is used to build rural networks.
Just how much more valuable is a social device/service/product that can access 100% of the population instead of just 80% or 90%?
Not all transfers of value are in cash form. I reside in a "condoland" that used to be a railway switching yard. The railway didn't pay for the land, they just sat on it for a century and sold it for $$$ to a developer. A riskfree windfall to a private company at my expense then and my expense now.
The infrastructure build allowances for telecoms are not any different.
For these reasons, I'm skeptical of anything that governments tender away except on a lease basis, whether it be land, spectrum, infrastructure corridors, etc.
> For these reasons, I'm skeptical of anything that governments tender away except on a lease basis, whether it be land, spectrum, infrastructure corridors, etc.
It's impossible to talk about all of the things local governments have done in one breath, but by and large, it's hard to argue that their efforts have been a net benefit for the telecom companies. Read a typical cable franchise agreement. There's no handouts of land or rights of way, just random money grabs for public services (public access TV, etc), and requirements to build out to unprofitable low-income or low-density areas.
My worry is that, if the majority of consumers start paying to access only the sites they care about, we'll end up in a situation where the Internet looks more like broadcast media than like the world wide web.
Imagine if the barrier to entry for creating a website were such that you had to negotiate with content and service providers to get your site featured in the right packages. Looking to start up a new e-commerce site? Get included in Comcast's "shopping channel" package. Want to start a sports commentary blog? Make sure you're in AT&T's "unlimited sports" package or you'll be missing out on your biggest traffic source.
My fear is that the majority of consumers won't really notice a difference, at least not right away. They'll be able to get access to all their usual websites, and if it comes at a heavy discount from the full "Internet" package, they won't really get upset if they can't access a particular website. Especially if every service already comes with the top 500-1,000 websites in their language. My mom definitely wouldn't notice any difference, and many of my less techy friends might not either. So if you left it up to the consumer, you might end up right back where you started with pre-packaged TV subscriptions, leaving the majority of the long-tail Internet to stagnate.
Many of the companies we've grown to love today might not have been able to get started in a world without net neutrality. Your next start-up might not have access to Sprint, or AT&T or Comcast subscribers without paying those carriers.
Example: Stripe.com, on Alexa's rankings, is #1,331 in the US. Does that mean every site that uses Stripe is broken, even if you pay for access to the main site?
$12 for access to one app/website? How is this even any kind of deal? I pay $32 for the whole Internet on a T-Mobile plan that is unlimited (OK capped at 5GB).
Worse, it's no deal for the poor who now will be conditioned that Facebook is the "Internet".
EDIT: This submission has made the HN front page but then the url and title was changed. Go figure...
Just because someone is poor doesn't mean they are an idiot... The real fear is other carriers will adopt this idea and then jack up the prices on normal data plans which will railroad poorer people into these types of plans.
It is tempting to overestimate the public's technical understanding. The prevailing mindset is: Out of site is out of mind, and any problems with a website is the fault of the website.
My fear is that communicating information about background forces and decisions to the public will be ineffective. It already doesn't work well in other areas of politics.
(As in, Facebook doesn't have a policy against it)
It would essentially channel all traffic through facebook servers and back out to the internet.
If i only have 'facebook' access, can I use their app? Their app has the browser built in right. So i could potentially just have a link in my profile to a pinboard/bookmark-like service, and see if it allows me full access.
Not really something I'd bother with but for people that want the cheapest rate possible it might be an interesting workaround
I very much suspect Facebook will end up playing whack-a-mole with crazy schemes to tunnel the internet over different parts of its service.
I would probably not buy my child this just out of principle of not supporting anything anti-net-neutraility, but I can certainly see why this plan would make sense for people that aren't poor or stupid.
The funny thing is that if this was marketed as a kid's phone from the start, Sprint probably wouldn't see the same type of net neutrality backlash that they will likely see from this.
I pay $10, also with T-Mobile, however, I only get 3GB of data. I want to note this, because I think 3 GB/month would satisfy a lot of people's needs: I tether daily on my commute, and have never breached 3GB¹. Most of the rest of my time (and, I suspect, most people's) is at work or home, both of which data is covered by WiFi.
I also want to point out that T-Mobile isn't exactly clean either: they're currently heavily promoting that you get "free" data to certain music providers (e.g., Pandora), which also very anti-net-neutral in my opinion.
¹Also, should I actually use that much, T-mobile just slows data down to 2G speeds.
This is pretty horrifying.
Although if this gets more people connected to the internet(at least in some limited capacity) then that's probably a net good for civilization; ability to reach more people in a disaster, more people get educated(at least in a roundabout way).
I think we'll likely see more services like this as most internet users probably spend their time on only a handful of websites anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if FB started buying up some of the larger content holders(BuzzFeed, etc.) so as to consolidate the content under one umbrella without having to worry about copyright issues.
I'm just saying, for instance, how would this handle YouTube embeds? YouTube just wouldn't work in this scenario? I assume FB will launch their own video network as well. I assume these types of deals are quite lucrative for both FB and the carriers.
"What does having Facebook on my phone for only 12$ have to do with my Netflix being slow at home?"
Anything less is unworkable in the long run; it's a race back to the cable subscription model and the only question is how long it takes to get there.
How? To use a VPN you have to be able to connect to your VPN server. If you have a service plan that only allows connections to IP addresses that belong to Twitter and Facebook, I don't see how you are going to use your VPN to connect elsewhere.
I think it's a pointless argument though. It's too late to set a system like that up now. The average consumer does not know what a VPN is, does not want to learn what a VPN is, and does not want extra steps in setting anything up on their phone or home internet. And what's the other option? Call AT&T and convince them to pipe everyone's internet to a random VPN not owned by AT&T before sending the traffic out elsewhere? It can never happen.
How Facebook pays for the traffic (to your ISP, not theirs) is somewhat irrelevant (maybe they are a willing participant and sponsoring it), but ultimately as long as the last-mile ISPs know where the traffic is going to/from they know the two parties they can double dip from.
http://willchatham.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/net.png
They really want to make this real. :|
It's rather fascinating to see it inch ever closer to reality.
It was also interesting to see in the WCIT leaks a submission by Ofcom that's surprisingly like my creation here.
Edit: http://i.imgur.com/roimIHy.jpg
And yes, this was a regulatory agency submitting this to the IT-bloody-U. Not even a telco.
To the user, certainly. On the other hand, Sprint still has the $12.
Maybe most of the interesting content to you and me are links, but we aren't most people. Many (most?) people want to see uploaded pictures, write brief messages to each other, and catch up on people's statuses. That is probably the market they're targeting.
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2010-12-15-net_neutrality_l...
Yet here we are with this having been in the WCIT leaks if people didn't have enough of a warning: http://i.imgur.com/roimIHy.jpg
The stuff on the right was created by a regulatory agency acting as part of the ITU. The I. T. U. And yet it took John Oliver for the average person to start at least mildly caring.
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Services like this is common in 3rd-world country: they charge you for a very small monthly fee to connect to a select web services as opposed to the "all of the internet".
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Watsapp, BBM + E-mail only.
The services might grow or reduce depending on the popularity of the web services.
However if such plans become popular, we could potentially lose (or pay lots to preserve) the ability to frequent such sites.
What if I was an up and coming social media site? If all the tweens in the world were on this cell plan (which I imagine is a core demographic of this) how in the world would I be able to gain marketshare?
It's so damn clear. It's sad that society doesn't care.
Sprint is collecting users to be sold to the highest bidder.
"Hi Startup, what to be included in our $10 plan? That will cost you X dollars."
Goodbye open internet. Never thought it would actually die in my lifetime. They should start calling this movement ISP 2.0 :(
In developing countries, those deals were initiated by Facebook and Twitter. Vodafone declined this option, http://www.cellular-news.com/story/Operators/64337.php
"That the company has been approached by Facebook to do so was revealed by the Group's CEO, Vittorio Colao who was speaking at a Vodafone shareholders meeting in New York.
He said that he had been directly approached by Facebook's COO, Sheryl Sandberg but declined to their proposal saying that it didn't make sense.
"There is no reason why I should give my network capacity for free." he stated."
But I guess free is better, if they can get it. They'll consider paying in subsequent iterations.
http://adage.com/article/digital/twitter-facebook-rate-telec...
"Yet the future of the deals remains unclear, particularly after Facebook has soured several operators on the arrangements. Multiple people with knowledge of the partnerships said Facebook cut the deals for subsidized data without paying a cent, often strong-arming carriers into adopting its conditions and footing the data bills.
... Three carriers with sizable global reach -- Vodafone, Telefónica and Singtel -- have staunchly resisted Facebook's advances. Several others, analysts said, are showing rising concerns over the bottom line benefits of zero-rating deals.
... Communicating zero-rating deals to subscribers proved more difficult than imagined, the former employee said. The packages free up data on Twitter, but not other websites, a source of frustration and confusion to users."
You are hearing more about the connection-throttling issues Netflix has with Verizon currently, but it ultimately falls under net neutrality too, as Verizon is trying to de-prioritize connections to Netflix.
The only thing worse than comcast determining what kind of internet you have is letting the FCC determine what kind of internet you have.
"The market" will offer the good stuff and people can choose, right?
Nothing is wrong with rotten food, it's some of my favourite, everything from alcohol, cheese, bread, etc. I bet you probably eat something that's rotten, and would oppose the government mandating that all food be 'fresh'.
As for unsafe cars I don't see why auto wreckers should be prevented from selling cars, or charities should be prevented from being gifted 'clunkers'.
The only thing that could be wrong with any of those things is being deceptive about the quality of the good, eg, passing off a rebuilt car as new, unpasturized milk as pasturized, etc.
Plans like this would be perfect for my kids, a safe walled-garden until they are old enough to make decisions for themselves. I'm not sure why the FCC needs to prevent the market from offering services like this... I mean I could hack the phone to do the same thing but it would be nice to save on internet at the same time.
So yes, I trust the competitive market far more than the government to provide me with the goods and services I need at a fair and reasonable price. (Note that the current telco situ is about as far away from a competitive market as one can be, the solution is competition, not regulation)
As for trusting the competitive market on this, I just have two words: natural monopolies.
* This word has completely lost its original meaning.
A significant amount of of Facebook's business model is based on advertising. Now, those links go where? Nowhere? Error pages?
All of those funny tweets containing links? Do those timeout?
Are the top 500 sites supposed to create closed-loop experiences?
I think people are in some kind of serious denial about the drastic increase in bandwidth being demanded by customers.
I don't think Sprint's solution is healthy for the state of the internet, but I do think something will have to change.
I personally don't use any high bandwidth services. I don't watch Netflicks, or a lot of Youtube - and yet I'm stuck with higher and higher internet bills and I have to subsidize other people's use of the internet. Frankly, that's ridiculous.
Ultimately I think the system will have to revert to the $/Gb system we used to have. If we all reverted back to that, I think you'd see some very competitive pricing.
However the selective traffic stuff.. that's a bit scary. I don't think they should be allowed to look at our traffic in the first place. I understand you need to look at the packets to be able to route them, but anything past that just seems like it should be illegal.
http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/mobile-internet.htm...
It would have only 1 GB of 4G, unlimited 3G, but I personally don't use much data anyways, 3 GB would be $10 extra per month.
I'd also like to add a VPN to that package, I've used PrivateTunnel in the past, does anyone have a better recommendation for a VPN service?
https://www.privatetunnel.com $12 for 50 GB, which would last me a long time on a mobile phone since I use WiFi most of the time.
Basically $11 per month for unlimited everything and it would be encrypted through multiple services.
Back on topic: I don't see anything wrong with Sprint offering this package. Nobody is forced to purchase it since there is sufficient alternatives from both Sprint and other service providers. I personally wouldn't use it and am not sure what people would do if they needed to Google something, but if people want it, let them buy it.
Unrelated again: Why was Twitter (TWTR) up 20% today?
Not everything you see on facebook is hosted at facebook.com, and people will very quickly realize that.
Operation Boycot Sprint
=======================
Get yourself and everyone you know out of sprint. Is completly possible to keep your cellphone number so please do it; we must show how serious we are about net neutrality.
Sprint is clearly addressing a legitimate need in an innovative way and making money in the process.
I do not thing this comes under net neutrality issue. The difference between Sprint and Comcast is that Comcast has put cables in cities using public land and has got a virtual monopoly over the markets. They can screw us from front and behind and we have to suffer it silently.
I get the whole internet for $32 a month that is unlimited (5GB cap) with unlimited texting. Come on dude...
1993 - 2014
EDIT: My original title and url... $12 A Month For Facebook – Sprint Tramples Over Net Neutrality With New Prepaid Plan http://www.droid-life.com/2014/07/30/12-a-month-for-facebook...
We changed to the WSJ article not because it was best, but because it was the handiest one that wasn't breathy with drama. That's why I asked for pointers to more substantive articles, if there are any.
As for the original submission not gaining traction, (a) that's fraught with randomness, and (b) traction doesn't prove goodness—if it did, linkbait (for example) wouldn't be a problem.
Spin? Come on... The article was right on. I know people like to pretend everything has two sides but in this case...NOPE. This Sprint plan is totally bad for consumers and the future of the Internet itself. Any one who thinks otherwise is a troll or just an idiot.
I'd rank the urls as :
1) Original Source
2) Droid Life
3) WSJ
Personally.
There are probably other substantive articles on this story out there. If any of you finds one, we'd be happy to change it. No one is attached to the WSJ article; it's just better than the one that preceded it, which was obviously (at least for this site) sub-par. I'm surprised this is controversial.
Why is Wikipedia more special than Project Gutenberg or the Internet Archive?
OpenStreetMap? Hudong or Baike? Github? Debian/Ubuntu? Representing Wikipedia as the only free source of all human knowledge is about on the same level as a monopoly on free exchange of ideas. If not today, then at some point, or in some subject areas.
It's disgusting. Wikipedia Zero may have good intentions, but in practice it is vile.
To stop them from doing that, on any non-fundamental basis like an alternate opinion about the value of long term effects, is morally depraved.
If you have 4 choices, all of them bad, is that really a consensual transaction? No. It isn't.
There is a finite amount of wireless companies capable of operating in a region due to the natural monopoly of the fact two parties interfere with each other when using the same band.
Forcing people to do things against their will can never result in a better outcome than respecting people's rights. And in this age, anyone can educate themselves about why.
No? You don't like that? Well, it was a purely voluntary transaction on par with what you suggested.
Natural monopolies exist in the real world. Pretend they don't at your peril.
You won't be able to disprove the legitimacy of the concept of rights with a trite example, it would require a more serious discussion than we'll have here.
The fact you don't understand what the walls scenario is identical to what you are stating is okay is depressing.
It is only when anyone is able to produce a good and distribute it, given sufficient capital, that your mental model is appropriate. No one can simultaneously control the same spectrum in the same geographic area without creating interference with each other.
Retail stores? Sure, what you are saying makes sense.
Things with natural monopolies? Not so much.
You ignoring this principle and claiming moral high ground makes you appear as a troll hence all the downvotes you are collecting.
To respond directly to your point, you're not entirely incorrect. However, if I pay for the "unlimited destinations package" which is what all current plans are, then there should be no "behind the scenes" throttling of particular sites for non-QoS reasons.
Everyone should have access to the ENTIRE Internet. Shame on Sprint for trying to turn it into a universally walled garden.
What you said about false advertising is correct, and I agree, that would be fraud.
"Both of them want to do it by choice, because it benefits them, in their view."
It benefits the provider, certainly, but the consumer may have no choice if they want these services. Their bill just went up, but there's little they can do about it.
So yes, in the context of what's available (without forcing people to make what you want), both parties are choosing from among what exists.
"both parties are choosing from among what exists."
""Both of them want to do it by choice, **because it benefits them**, in their view.""
But yet we do prevent that. Regulation is about optimizing a large basket of outcomes. Focus purely on a single case and of course you won't be able to understand why that case suffers.
Or, looked at a different way, regulation is about internalizing externalities -- often including present internalization of expected future externalities -- in order to enable decisions made based on optimizing the utilities of the individual participants to be more in line with optimizing global outcomes.
Regulation that violates rights cannot have a positive outcome. That principle is cognizant of a wider range of cases than one of trying to optimize narrow outcomes (like a 'neutral' internet); the unseen consequences of rights-violations always overwhelm any narrow benefit.
In my philosophy, corporations have no inherent rights, only those privileges society chooses to bestow upon them, and can choose to revoke at any time for any reason. So it is literally impossible to violate Sprint's rights.
You must find some other way to reach your desired outcome, because framing it in terms of "rights" leads to the inevitable question of what rights a person or entity might have. And you will never get everyone to agree on that.