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Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

meo.pt

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Re: Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

#31

Post by Aaargh20318 »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #4
andrepd wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a matter of (absolute) pricing, but of (relative) preference. It's giving established players a significant advantage that puts independent actors in a weakened position.

So is there no network access at all other than these apps? I don't see that clarified on the page. Personally, I wish Comcast (being the only high-speed option for much of the US) followed this model for TV, where I only want 2 channels but can't pay for less than 80 or so.

> So is there no network access at all other than these apps? I don't see that clarified on the page.

No, the 'regular' access goes out of your normal data cap, and of course they have every reason to lower that cap as much as possible so you're more or less forced to buy these packages.

This is just the first step, they are trying to get consumers used to paying for special data packages like this. The next step is to keep lowering regular data caps, etc.

Re: Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

#32

Post by jimktrains2 »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #24
jimktrains2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don't see this as an attack on Net Neutrality, you're just charged differently for what you use. Nobody will stop you using Facebook when you have a Music subscription, nothing is throttled. Doesn't the OP show that you need to have the social media subscription to use facebook, implying it'd be blocked otherwise? EDIT: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/22/16691506/portugal-meo-in... > But based on Meo’s websi…

> you pay around $8 a month to specifically get more “Social” data, so you can use your regular allotment for everything else The problem with this is that this creates an incentive for the operator to lower the regular allotment so they can sell more of these packages. > I still don't understand why the endpoint being connected to matters at all. It doesn't matter, it's just a way of extracting more money from custo…

>>> you pay around $8 a month to specifically get more “Social” data, so you can use your regular allotment for everything else

> The problem with this is that this creates an incentive for the operator to lower the regular allotment so they can sell more of these packages.

The quote is from the linked article explaining the situation. I think 0-rating is a terrible idea for the reasons you said, among others.

Re: Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

#33

Post by superice »

AndrewGaspar wrote: post #14
superice wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand 'the case' here. The case is that your music startup now has no chance of competing against Spotify, TuneIn, Play Music, or Soundcloud because it would go against your general internet data, not the music specific data bundle.

Many telecoms zero-rate their own phone service now, too, even though it's generally delivered over IP on modern phones and networks. Skype and FaceTime count against my data cap. No consumer I know would want a change to the status quo that phone calls are free. Why shouldn't this be generalized to other popular services? If consumers prefer the service and are willing to pay for it, especially in mobile broadband w…

Zero-rating your own services is something entirely different than zero-rating services of other companies though.

It is no different than a car manufacturer paying for their own highway lanes. If half of the highway lanes are BMW-only, would you still buy any other car? Free market resolve this by competition based on price, but if I wanted to start my own car manufacturing company, I wouldn't be able to compete because a smaller player in the car market wouldn't have enough funds to get the various levels of government to implement MyNewCarBrand Inc. Roads (TM)

Re: Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

#34

Post by AlexandrB »

r3bl wrote: post #25

That example shows zero rating, not "pay $5 to access certain websites", as most people assume once it circulates through the NN debate. Still problematic, but not as quite as those who share it make it seem. "Pay $5 to use social media" and "pay $5 to use your data plan for anything you want and have additional data specifically for social media" is not the same.

> Still problematic, but not as quite as those who share it make it seem.

It's anticompetitive. What if I made my own social media network tomorrow? Could someone get additional data for it at discounted rates? No.

It creates another barrier to competing with the incumbents.

Re: Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

#35

Post by crankylinuxuser »

r3bl wrote: post #25

That example shows zero rating, not "pay $5 to access certain websites", as most people assume once it circulates through the NN debate. Still problematic, but not as quite as those who share it make it seem. "Pay $5 to use social media" and "pay $5 to use your data plan for anything you want and have additional data specifically for social media" is not the same.

Nope. That's a bad argument - they're mostly the same, and in some ways zero rating is much worse.

At my trailer, I get "Water Service". I don't get:

     "Drinking water service"
     "Dishwashing water service"
     "Washing machine service"
     "Bath/shower service"
     "Pool/jacuzzi service"
     "Toilet water service"
And upcharging/downcharging per "type" of water isn't done, at least on residential. Now, there may be rates of peak times where water/volume is more expensive for everyone. But that's not watching what devices the water goes to.

And, Zero rating would be like saying "Pay X/month extra and Bath/Shower water is counted as zero". Uh, no. Water's water. Like like how data's data.

Now, about why Zero Rating is worse - you start up a fledgling business that does something novel with a Zero Rated service. Well guess what? All those entrenched players with Zero Rating get an "In", and your new service is pretty much screwed until you can figure out how to get on that list. Zero rating is yet another barrier preventing new players on the Internet.

Re: Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

#36

Post by AndrewGaspar »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #29
zerostar07 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

scroll down the page. those are addons to the basic internet package.

That's what it seemed like to me, but wasn't sure. So basically non-established players are actually free, but established players require additional money? i.e. the opposite of what the parent comment was saying?

It's giving you additional per-app data usage. So if your kid uses 8GB a month on Snapchat, you can pay extra to increase the data cap just for those social apps. Otherwise it would count against your regular data usage.

Re: Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

#37

Post by skocznymroczny »

vaalnl wrote: post #23

It’s funny that this all comes from a misunderstanding based on language differences. A data cap on your web use is pretty common in mobile phone providers. With these packages you can surpass the data cap (10gb) for select services (that you can select your own).. Say you use a lot of spotify but you don’t surf that much this is ideal. Nothing gets blocked or censored, it’s just that you can buy additional MB’s.

Depends on how big is the data cap. Sure, if your package is 10GB, it's fine, but what if the data cap was 250 MB and you could surpass it with a "Netflix" package?

Re: Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

#38

Post by diego_moita »

I am a Portuguese speaker (from Brazil) and I fail to see what the problem is or even how it undermines Net Neutrality.

You pay 4.99 euros, get 10Gb and also get free traffic in one of those uses that provide plenty of competition, no privileges for a specific provider. Seems quite a good deal to me. Kudos to Portugal.

Here in Brazil, net neutrality is protected by law. If I could get one of those Portuguese plans in here I'd jump at it. Quite better than what we have.

Re: Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

#39

Post by mcv »

griffinheart wrote: post #19
vilmosi wrote: post #12

We have this in the UK too. But I don't see this as an attack on Net Neutrality, you're just charged differently for what you use. Nobody will stop you using Facebook when you have a Music subscription, nothing is throttled.

I used to think the same but a little thought exercise proved me wrong, if you ask the question: what happens if the general datacap goes down, even maybe to 0? I'm from Portugal and the different telcos/ISP's don't see others offering this product as a chance to offer a better product they see it as a missed chance to get more while giving less so they don't compete they collude. And this is just looking at it as a…

> what happens if the general datacap goes down, even maybe to 0?

Then I get a subscription with a bigger data cap.

The big problem with a lack of Net Neutrality is when there's a lack of competition and ISPs use their monopoly over their users as a product with which to strongarm the web services I want to use out of extra money. As long as they keep treating us as the customers and not the product, and make it clear what I'm paying for and what I'm getting for that, and I have to option to switch to a competitor that's more in line with what I want, then I'm fine.

It's true that favoring Youtube gives it an unfair advantage, but that's not as big a problem as treating paying customers as products.

Re: Net Neutrality already attacked in Portugal

#40

Post by Goronmon »

diego_moita wrote: post #38

I am a Portuguese speaker (from Brazil) and I fail to see what the problem is or even how it undermines Net Neutrality. You pay 4.99 euros, get 10Gb and also get free traffic in one of those uses that provide plenty of competition, no privileges for a specific provider. Seems quite a good deal to me. Kudos to Portugal. Here in Brazil, net neutrality is protected by law. If I could get one of those Portuguese plans in…

How do they determine what sites get the free traffic? If I start a social networking site tomorrow, how does it get the free traffic that Facebook gets?
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