WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight

Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by hot_gril on Thursday September 28, 2023 @12:24PM (#37691896)

Is net neutrality even law anymore? T-Mobile has had Binge on for a long time, which zero-rates certain video streaming services. And part of that was even under the old net neutrality laws.

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Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by toast0 on Thursday September 28, 2023 @12:36PM (#37692081)

Binge On doesn't fall under strict net neutrality, but they are at least publicly open to all lawful and licensed content audio/video providers, and the technical requirements are not very high. I don't know what the actual onboarding process is like, but they've got a lot of providers signed up...

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Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by hot_gril on Thursday September 28, 2023 @01:04PM (#37692521)

https://www.t-mobile.com/tv-streaming/binge-on/apps-list.htm... doesn't list all that many providers if we're talking about all video streaming services worldwide. I notice a large one under the gaming category missing, Twitch.

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Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by toast0 on Thursday September 28, 2023 @01:18PM (#37692713)

I think they've got to be licensed for US customers, or T-Mobile USA isn't going to include them. Twitch does seem to be a notable missing provider; Amazon video is on the program though, so maybe there's some technical or product thing on Twitch's side.

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Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by hot_gril on Thursday September 28, 2023 @01:41PM (#37693002)

Even US-only. Broadcast networks category is pretty slim, for instance.

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Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by technothrasher on Thursday September 28, 2023 @12:35PM (#37692067)

No, but the now Democratic majority at the FCC is currently actively trying to bring it back.

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Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by bombcar on Thursday September 28, 2023 @01:24PM (#37692789)

Some states implemented their own versions of net neutrality.

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Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by hot_gril on Thursday September 28, 2023 @01:42PM (#37693011)

Gotta disable in-flight messaging while flying over certain states ;)

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Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by burkaman on Thursday September 28, 2023 @02:54PM (#37693981)

Net neutrality is the law in California, but T-Mobile says Binge On is ok because any video streaming service can participate for free. It sounds reasonable to me and apparently the California regulators are fine with it.

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Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by hot_gril on Thursday September 28, 2023 @04:30PM (#37695390)

I'm fine with it, but it also clearly violates net neutrality.

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Re:WiFi without internet on a Southwest flight by burkaman on Thursday September 28, 2023 @05:11PM (#37695919)

Here's the California law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Internet_Consumer_P.... T-Mobile Binge On is zero-rating. T-Mobile's claim is that they aren't getting paid for it, and that any video provider can participate, so they aren't only zero-rating "some content in a category". It sounds like that second part isn't true, so they are probably violating the law but nobody is being harmed so nobody has sued.

I agree that allowing any form of zero-rating is not full net neutrality because it isn't treating all packets the same, but I don't think it's fair to say that therefore there is no net neutrality in California. It's a very strong and effective law and gets like 95% of the way to full "dumb pipe" net neutrality.

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