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Re:The end of the level playing field by toast0 on Sunday February 05, 2017 @11:55PM (#13576598)
If people are paying for data on one carrier, that another carrier is offering for free (for whatever reason), that can be a reason to switch; that's why T-Mobile is offering it. In the US, it's relatively simple to switch your cell phone service, and there are many choices: 4 mainstream national carriers, all of them have prepaid brands, and many MVNO options as well.

For home internet, if you have a choice, it's usually between only two companies with different technology, and often significantly different bandwidth options, there's not much room to compare on price, and very little room to compare on routing or terms of service.

Re:The end of the level playing field by cylinder on Monday February 06, 2017 @01:46PM (#13582607)
My point was saying nobody is going to switch away from a carrier because that carrier is offering free data.

I think people are missing the point of the posted article, or maybe I am. As I understand it, the complaint is that giving free data for the incumbent tech giants' products gives them a distinct advantage in the marketplace over small / startup offerings which do not have deals for free data. This advantage means the "level playing field" of the internet frontier is dead.