Re:T-Mobile begins blocking iPhone users from enabling iClou...
by btown on Monday January 10, 2022 @06:05PM
(#29884292)
Wouldn't most carriers have peering relationships with Apple for Apple TV content? Presumably iCloud Private Relay traffic could be sent over that connection as well, meaning that of all the VPN-esque solutions, Apple's is the most efficient from a traffic exchange perspective.
(Of course, it was likely never about the traffic exchange itself, but rather the ability to route, shape, and track traffic dynamically on a host-by-host basis, as others have speculated.)
Re:T-Mobile begins blocking iPhone users from enabling iClou...
by aeonflux on Monday January 10, 2022 @07:07PM
(#29885078)
I am guessing that AppleTV traffic is very low compared to Netflix or YouTube. Anyway I guess this setup must be super complicated. Apple is probably partnering with tons of entities to provide this all over the world. It must be a huge challenge at Apple scale. I wonder if they have any long term goals, which are not obvious.
Re:T-Mobile begins blocking iPhone users from enabling iClou...
by j16sdiz on Monday January 10, 2022 @09:03PM
(#29886283)
the apple vpn provider is cloudflare, which just do free peering
When everything is encrypted and goes over the ISP just to the VPN endpoints, they can't do anything. In the end, they will have to arrange peering not with content providers but with VPN providers, who works for Apple.
PS. There is a lot of tension in current setup, even without Apple stepping up. In the old fashion market, the last mile is the king. Big grocery chains have direct access to users, so they are the strong side in the relation with producers. They can position brand X over Y, if they have better margin. They also create their own brand Z rip-off and sell that directly. Just look what Amazon does in that space. When it comes to ISP, they have direct users and have very little to say. They are basically dump pipes, just like the power line.
T-Mobile was very vocal in the past in that space. They often wanted the MANGAs (heh) of the world to pay them a share from their ads. I remember T-Mobile threatening, that they might replace some ads with their own ads. Since they provide the users with phones, they can install their own certs on devices. Chrome has SSL pinning not only, to save users from hackers, but to save their own business model being attacked by ISPs.