Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless

Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by scarface74 on Thursday February 07, 2019 @09:39PM (#19111015)

In all fairness, T-mobile’s zero rating is not anti-competitive. Any video carrier can sign up for it and no money changes hands. There were some porn sites that signed up for it - ie T-Mobile didn’t discriminate.

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Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by consp on Friday February 08, 2019 @02:47AM (#19112277)

It usually is "free-as-in-beer" since they are allowed to sell user statistics that way (the Dutch T-Mobile zero rated music being an exception due to law). There is no way to opt out of that practice as it is included in most contracts by default. Setting up these methods are also not trivial for companies. The selection process is hidden (there is no information available), looking at the participating services most probably don't bother either due to cost, restrictions or administrative reasons. Streaming your own library is excluded in the contract, so it is not music, only what T-Mobile says is music. I call that censorship.

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Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by scarface74 on Friday February 08, 2019 @08:12AM (#19113785)

It usually is "free-as-in-beer" since they are allowed to sell user statistics that way (the Dutch T-Mobile zero rated music being an exception due to law).

Why would the providers need to buy statistics on their customers? They already know who is listening to and watching what content.

There is no way to opt out of that practice as it is included in most contracts by default.

T-mobile has a setting where you can turn it off and on

Setting up these methods are also not trivial for companies.

Setting up adaptive streaming based on bandwidth available has been a solved problem since RealVideo in the late 90s. All providers do it now. Anyone can set this up with WireCast.

The selection process is hidden (there is no information available), looking at the participating services most probably don't bother either due to cost, restrictions or administrative reasons.

Every streaming provider in the US took advantage of it.

Streaming your own library is excluded in the contract, so it is not music, only what T-Mobile says is music. I call that censorship.

You can stream your own audio through Apple Music through the Music Match (?) Service.

This is all really a moot point now that T-mobile only sells unlimited plans now and if you really want to opt out of compressed video you can pay $10 more.

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Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by shmerl on Friday February 08, 2019 @07:47AM (#19113636)

The need to "sign up" and go through the gatekeeper is a problem already. The whole point of net neutrality is to make sure ISPs aren't going to become such gatekeepers. Whether they charge for passage or not is irrelevant.

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Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by scarface74 on Friday February 08, 2019 @07:56AM (#19113684)

From a customers standpoint. I don’t see the problem. If a company cares about reaching their users they can sign up for the service.

Wireless is different, no matter how much money a wireless carrier is willing to spend, there is a finite limit of how much data can be transferred through the air and only a limited amount of spectrum that is good for cellular service.

The video/music producer can opt out and be treated like all other data and watch their customers prefer providers who went through the trouble of filling out some paperwork or they can be on the same level playing field as their competitors.

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Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by blablablerg on Friday February 08, 2019 @09:40AM (#19114525)

From a customers standpoint, this is exactly the problem.

". In comparison, the countries with prevalent zero rating practices from their wireless carriers consistently saw data prices increase. This makes sense; carriers have an incentive to raise the costs of exploring alternatives in order to make their preferred, zero-rated choice of content more attractive."

Did you even RTFA or did you came here to defend TMobile.

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Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by scarface74 on Friday February 08, 2019 @09:58AM (#19114718)

Yes I did both. The classic zero rating started with T-mobile in the US and no matter what the “F’ing article” said, that in fact didn’t happen with T-mobile. T-mobile is in fact the cheapest of the big four carriers in the US and they have unlimited data. The data cost has gone down over the years.

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Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by gsich on Friday February 08, 2019 @03:43AM (#19112475)

Can I as a private sign up?

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Re:Countries With Zero Rating Have More Expensive Wireless by scarface74 on Friday February 08, 2019 @05:51AM (#19113069)

The last time this came up, someone on HN said they signed their small non profit up.

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