Verizon Betrays Net Neutrality By Excluding Video App From Data Caps

Megalith

Megalith

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Verizon’s go90 video platform will no longer count against customers’ data caps, but this decision is regarded by many to be a violation of the FCC’s net neutrality rules.

Verizon and other carriers have argued that zero-rating programs, like the one snuck in today, are beneficial to consumers and do not violate the FCC's net neutrality rules — but their arguments are based on a market of artificial scarcity they have created, and now intend to exploit.
 
Technically it isn't... They aren't hindering, blocking, or throttling network access/traffic to other video services.

They are in a cost perspective... which could be seen similarly though. What is the difference paying per MB for ANY data vs having to pay for specific services? Probably the fact users can decided how much data and what kind to consume. But it does put a pretty heavy biased toward the ISP's owned content and creating a barrier for competition.

Though its an obvious problem Comcast has been building up to for years with their data caps and exceptions for their owned streaming services.

IMO the main problem is that major ISPs provide not only access to content but the content as well.
 
I don't think this argument will go very far. It's ultimate foundation is built on the concept of "artificial scarcity". I suspect that the mobile carriers can provide legally valid data that the scarcity is not "artificial". So the best that happens out of this is that everything counts against the cap since that is both profitable and compatible with the principles of Net Neutrality.Cap free mobile is not going to be coming from the big carriers anytime soon since it is not good business for them.
 
dandirk said:
Technically it isn't... They aren't hindering, blocking, or throttling network access/traffic to other video services.

They are in a cost perspective... which could be seen similarly though. What is the difference paying per MB for ANY data vs having to pay for specific services? Probably the fact users can decided how much data and what kind to consume. But it does put a pretty heavy biased toward the ISP's owned content and creating a barrier for competition.

Though its an obvious problem Comcast has been building up to for years with their data caps and exceptions for their owned streaming services.

IMO the main problem is that major ISPs provide not only access to content but the content as well.
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From a cost perspective It's essentially a tax.
 
dandirk said:
IMO the main problem is that major ISPs provide not only access to content but the content as well.
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The ISPs fought tooth and nail against net neutrality, and even though it passed, they're acting like it isn't even there. It's rather fascinating.
 
I don't understand. Doesn't network neutrality apply to data priority rather than data pricing? That is, provider A can't pay to have priority over provider B? What we're seeing here is that Verizon is including access to Go90 in their package but it's not slowing down any other provider. Right?
 
the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.[/qoute]
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DocSavage said:
The ISPs fought tooth and nail against net neutrality, and even though it passed, they're acting like it isn't even there. It's rather fascinating.
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People act as if Net Neutrality was accomplished because they put that title on a set of regulations.
 
dandirk said:
Technically it isn't... They aren't hindering, blocking, or throttling network access/traffic to other video services..
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They aren't proactively targeting other services, they are hindering all services except their own. There may be no violation in a semantics sense, but in anyone with integrity sense they are.
 
So is this similar to tmobile's binge thing? So is tmobile in violation as well?
 
samm said:
So is this similar to tmobile's binge thing? So is tmobile in violation as well?
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I don't think T-Mobile has their own video service though. They are indiscriminately allowing other video services to offer unlimited streaming of lower quality videos, presumably to lower mobile network congestion.

What Verizon appears to be doing is offering their own video service and only themselves to have unlimited streaming. This is anticompetitive. It allows them to market their video platform as a means of reaching an audience with unlimited streaming, where as their competitor's video service will use up customer's data caps and limit their advertising potential.
 
It also allows Verizon to essentially charge users a fee for competitive video services by means of low data caps.
 
Wah fucking wah. Do something for YOUR customers instead of bitching about the competition.
 
The problem with this service is that as the article states it is a loop hole. They are telling people if you pay us money then we will let our customers access your data without it counting against them. You are giving a priority to these services then. They are telling their customers to use this service unless you want to risk paying us more due to going over. Avoid Pandora because that will make you go over your data for the month, instead us Verizon Music and you get unlimited music for free. Don't use this app or you will go over your data, instead make sure you use this app instead and you will never have to worry about data usages. That is no different than Comcast saying we are going to charge you a $2 video stream fee if we notice you are using youtube, vudu, Netflix or any other none Comcast sponsored site. Then telling youtube, vudu, Netflix and the rest if they pay $25,000 a month they will make them a sponsored site meaning their users won't be punished. This is what caused this all to come about before. ISPs were trying to make people pay to not throttle down their traffic or do anything else to try to restrict access to it. It doesn't matter if you slow down access or try to scare your customers away from using the service and instead point them to only the ones that pay you money. You are still getting paid by companies to give them special privileges on your network. So it is not even for all people and is a violation of the intent of net neutrality. Might just be that the rules need to be redefined some to close this if this is a 100% useable option to get around the law. Would be easy enough for everyone to cut their data caps to 20GB a month and charge you double the current overage fee, then say that any app or site from this list doesn't count against that and make those sites and apps pay them a lot of money to get onto that list to avoid having their user base drop by a drastic amount.


samm said:
So is this similar to tmobile's binge thing? So is tmobile in violation as well?
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Not exactly, T-Mobile throttles down the quality of all videos outside of their own service which is given to you data free. So if you watch a video on youtube you are forced on wifi or cell data to watch a reduced quality video. however if you watch it through their service you get the highest quality possible for you and it doesn't count against your data usage.

This isn't going to throttle down the quality, it just if you use their app you don't use up your data.
 
kac77 said:
Come to think of it I think mobile carriers might be exempt.
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from net neutrality? Nope, they wanted to be and complained about how it was going to hurt them badly but they are part of it.
 
even with this turn of events, the go90 service is garbage and won't put a dent in the market. i see this is a pathetic last resort tactic to try to gain some traction in their crappy video service.
 
Exavior said:
The problem with this service is that as the article states it is a loop hole. They are telling people if you pay us money then we will let our customers access your data without it counting against them. You are giving a priority to these services then. They are telling their customers to use this service unless you want to risk paying us more due to going over. Avoid Pandora because that will make you go over your data for the month, instead us Verizon Music and you get unlimited music for free. Don't use this app or you will go over your data, instead make sure you use this app instead and you will never have to worry about data usages. That is no different than Comcast saying we are going to charge you a $2 video stream fee if we notice you are using youtube, vudu, Netflix or any other none Comcast sponsored site. Then telling youtube, vudu, Netflix and the rest if they pay $25,000 a month they will make them a sponsored site meaning their users won't be punished. This is what caused this all to come about before. ISPs were trying to make people pay to not throttle down their traffic or do anything else to try to restrict access to it. It doesn't matter if you slow down access or try to scare your customers away from using the service and instead point them to only the ones that pay you money. You are still getting paid by companies to give them special privileges on your network. So it is not even for all people and is a violation of the intent of net neutrality. Might just be that the rules need to be redefined some to close this if this is a 100% useable option to get around the law. Would be easy enough for everyone to cut their data caps to 20GB a month and charge you double the current overage fee, then say that any app or site from this list doesn't count against that and make those sites and apps pay them a lot of money to get onto that list to avoid having their user base drop by a drastic amount.




Not exactly, T-Mobile throttles down the quality of all videos outside of their own service which is given to you data free. So if you watch a video on youtube you are forced on wifi or cell data to watch a reduced quality video. however if you watch it through their service you get the highest quality possible for you and it doesn't count against your data usage.

This isn't going to throttle down the quality, it just if you use their app you don't use up your data.
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T-Mobile TV is also affected by BingeOn's bandwidth reduction.
 
I don't agree with this but there would seem to be precedent for this to not be a violation of Net Neutrality.

Take AT&T UVerse for example. AT&T UVerse is an internet service, nothing more. UVerse can include TV and Phone service, only because the services it offers are IPTV and VoIP respectively, meaning those services are transmitted over the UVerse internet connection.

AT&T UVerse has a 250Gigabyte cap in most areas. UVerse IPTV and VoIP services are not, nor ever have, been counted against that cap. This has been the case for nearly a decade now. No one seems to care.

How is that any less of a net neutrality violation than what is described in the OP?
 
GotNoRice said:
I don't agree with this but there would seem to be precedent for this to not be a violation of Net Neutrality.

Take AT&T UVerse for example. AT&T UVerse is an internet service, nothing more. UVerse can include TV and Phone service, only because the services it offers are IPTV and VoIP respectively, meaning those services are transmitted over the UVerse internet connection.

AT&T UVerse has a 250Gigabyte cap in most areas. UVerse IPTV and VoIP services are not, nor ever have, been counted against that cap. This has been the case for nearly a decade now. No one seems to care.

How is that any less of a net neutrality violation than what is described in the OP?
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There is a few HUGE differences actually. The first one being that they do not charge companies a monthly fee to be listed as a VOIP or IPTV service that they offer in place of their own service. Companies can pay to have their content added to Verizon's Go90 service. Meaning they can pay to get their content to not count toward a datacap. There is no paying AT&T or any other company to be AT&T's voice or IPTV offering. Vonage can't pay to be listed as an AT&T phone service offering that gets around the data cap or Netflix can't pay to be listed as an IPTV service that gets them around the datacap.

There is also a difference between data that stays on your own network and is one of your core services vs data that leave your network and is a addon service.
 
Quartz-1 said:
I don't understand. Doesn't network neutrality apply to data priority rather than data pricing? That is, provider A can't pay to have priority over provider B? What we're seeing here is that Verizon is including access to Go90 in their package but it's not slowing down any other provider. Right?
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It depends how you look at it.

Let's say the user hits their data cap. Now they have no access to anything except Go90.
 
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