AT&T Just Declared War On An Open Internet

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Stuff like this would easily be remedied if there were no data caps. Think about it, if there were no data caps on your mobile or home internet, none of this would be an issue. The solution? Ban data caps. Ta-daaa! :D

But AT&T’s zero rating model is pretty much the nightmare scenario that internet advocates and pro-competition observers have been warning us about. That’s because AT&T owns DirecTV, and is now giving DirecTV Now privileged access to AT&T’s wireless internet customers. The corruption is so obvious here that it doesn’t need a fancy net neutrality metaphor — AT&T is clearly favoring a company it now owns over competitors.
 
Wait....AT&T wants to make more money and defeat its competition?!?! Madness!!

I just jumped on the DirecTV Now bandwagon last night. I just shaved $60 a month off my comcast bill. Competition is good because Comcast now has 2 choices. Compete or put data caps everywhere and lose all of their customers.
 
Ultimately, hopefully, this won't matter later. But, I'm kind of pinning my hopes on Google's high speed Wifi to roll out. Not to say Google wouldn't put in caps at a later date either though. :cry:

This lack of ISP competition in the US absolutely sucks.
 
Comcast is doing the same, telling you what does and doesn't count towards your data cap, and of course reminding customers that if instead of streaming TV/Movies you buy a TV/Movie channel package from them, none of that counts towards your data cap.

Net Neutrality = DEAD!
 
At this point, the FTC can join the FCC because the actions of big telcom are in violation or about to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.
 
Stuff like this would easily be remedied if there were no data caps. Think about it, if there were no data caps on your mobile or home internet, none of this would be an issue. The solution? Ban data caps. Ta-daaa! :D

But AT&T’s zero rating model is pretty much the nightmare scenario that internet advocates and pro-competition observers have been warning us about. That’s because AT&T owns DirecTV, and is now giving DirecTV Now privileged access to AT&T’s wireless internet customers. The corruption is so obvious here that it doesn’t need a fancy net neutrality metaphor — AT&T is clearly favoring a company it now owns over competitors.

But does it prevent you from using netflix or hulu or comcast on demand? Nope.

Net Neutrality states that no matter the data in the packet it all gets treated the same, meaning it isn't throttled or restricted. It doesn't state you get it all for free. It's a legally murky grey area. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I don't think they are in violation as long as they don't try to charge extra for non DirecTV programming. (Which they aren't. What you pay for is a flat data amount regardless of content.) That would be anti competitive.

There is a danger however. AT&T could go, we're charging $50/month for 10GB data. Well everyone knows if you stream movies/youtube, you will EASILY eat that up giving you no other option but to get DirecTV.
 
But does it prevent you from using netflix or hulu or comcast on demand? Nope.

Net Neutrality states that no matter the data in the packet it all gets treated the same, meaning it isn't throttled or restricted. It doesn't state you get it all for free. It's a legally murky grey area. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I don't think they are in violation as long as they don't try to charge extra for non DirecTV programming. (Which they aren't. What you pay for is a flat data amount regardless of content.) That would be anti competitive.

There is a danger however. AT&T could go, we're charging $50/month for 10GB data. Well everyone knows if you stream movies/youtube, you will EASILY eat that up giving you no other option but to get DirecTV.

It doesn't prevent you from using them, but it uses their ownership of the distribution network to incentivize using their service.

Internet providers shouldn't be allowed to grant their own streaming services preferential treatment on their network as it creates an uncompetitive environment.

There is nothing stopping them from offering smaller and smaller bandwidth limits while at the same time making it so that their own services don't count towards the cap.
 
While I am a huge champion of Net Neutrality, I can't help but wonder why action on it is necessary.

It would seem to me that every single case where we envision bad outcomes from the lack of Net Neutrality is covered by other laws already, like for instance laws on anti-competetivr behavior.

I certainly hope AT&T gets challenges and have their asses handed to them on this, I don't have high hopes that it will happen given that it was mostly the executive branch championing Net Neutrality, and the incoming administration is likely not favorably inclined :(
 
Stuff like this would easily be remedied if there were no data caps. Think about it, if there were no data caps on your mobile or home internet, none of this would be an issue. The solution? Ban data caps. Ta-daaa! :D

But AT&T’s zero rating model is pretty much the nightmare scenario that internet advocates and pro-competition observers have been warning us about. That’s because AT&T owns DirecTV, and is now giving DirecTV Now privileged access to AT&T’s wireless internet customers. The corruption is so obvious here that it doesn’t need a fancy net neutrality metaphor — AT&T is clearly favoring a company it now owns over competitors.

While another poster mentioned throttling, it's just as important as data caps. AT&T can say that Directv isn't covered by caps, and it can also say that Directv streams/content will travel at the full rated bandwidth for your account while a competing service like Netflix will be throttled to 2400baud. Another self promotion scenario for Directv, you can watch Netflix at 720p or 1080p based on the bandwidth limit of your account, or with promoted Directv content your bandwidth will be increased to allow 4K stream on one or more devices.

Either of these scenarios would unfairly promote AT&T content over other services without touching the issue of data caps.
 
never been a fan of data caps. Only cap I want to see is the actual speed of my internet and local storage space.

nearly everything is digital nowadays. Games, movies, music. Talking about streaming 4k uhd and you'll burn though that 100-300gb monthly data cap in a jiffy. Heck download 3-4 games and your almost over it.

Rant over, hopefully in the coming years new tech allows us to move past this bs.
 
Grand Theft Auto V is a 50gb download for Xbox One. For those with a 100 - 300 gb cap, that is anywhere from 50% to 17% of their total bandwidth just to download the game before they pay cap penalties! Trump already appointed the biggest anti Net-Neutrality figure to put together his FCC team. We should all expect changes that will hurt the consumer and benefit ATT and Comcast. Ddata caps will be expanded and we as consumers will be paying big time. These mega corporations can expect to see huge revenue boosts due to consumers paying more while receiving no benefit from the changes.
 
Seems they're really channeling the spirit of Ma' Bell.

This is what happens when corporations get this big, they decide to play by there their rules.
 
This just such bs. The funny thing is they make it sound like they doing you a great service to you also.
 
I knew stuff like this would happen. A company would use their data cap to push their own services. This is so unfair, If their services don't count against data caps then it should be for every service (including your own) if you want services to not count against the cap then it should be open to all that apply.
 
There is a danger however. AT&T could go, we're charging $50/month for 10GB data. Well everyone knows if you stream movies/youtube, you will EASILY eat that up giving you no other option but to get DirecTV.
I think this is what people are worried about. To say it more generally, this act itself isn't really scary, ATT hasn't really done anything bad. The scary part is what this act implies for the future.
 
This has been going on for years and years.
Do you get internet via your cable or phone provider?
Does your cable provider count on demand tv shows/movies/etc against your cap even though it uses your internet connection?
Ohh no, but that uses the ip network on a setup box. That's different than what i get on my computer.

Not to most systems it's not. It's exactly the same.
 
Ultimately, hopefully, this won't matter later. But, I'm kind of pinning my hopes on Google's high speed Wifi to roll out. Not to say Google wouldn't put in caps at a later date either though. :cry:

This lack of ISP competition in the US absolutely sucks.

We just need more billionaires to decide to spent $20 million through 20 billion per town / city per ISP that you want and we are all set.
 
We just need more billionaires to decide to spent $20 million through 20 billion per town / city per ISP that you want and we are all set.

Certainly a large issue. And further, when GF looked in to some cities, it finds exclusivity agreements barring competition. I think it would literally take a collaboration between Googs, MS, Netflix, Facebook, etc, to come together to build out a robust US internet. Not sure how likely that is to happen.
 
This has been going on for years and years.
Do you get internet via your cable or phone provider?
Does your cable provider count on demand tv shows/movies/etc against your cap even though it uses your internet connection?
Ohh no, but that uses the ip network on a setup box. That's different than what i get on my computer.

Not to most systems it's not. It's exactly the same.
Agreed, but it's getting closer to a non neutral network in general. Before, your tv box was a separate device and mostly limited to tv from a specific provider. When you buy a TV box you don't expect anything "open" about it. It runs on the same internet as everything else, but it simply isn't the same experience. You don't buy a tv box thinking "I'm gonna do my banking on this, watch some netflix, research some things for work, and check my email".

With TV and general computing merging more and more together the line becomes blurred, and with that blurry line it becomes easier and easier to imagine a company like ATT to use your same argument, but extend it onto other services as well.

"Well, if tv services can be zero rated why not zero rate our email service..."
"Why not zero rate a specific social network site"
later....
"Our internet pricing has slightly increased, this is not related to our zero rating various services..." (it is related)

The scary part is that it is easy to see aggressive strategies like these that would attract many people, and eventually we live in a future where the internet is a bunch of fractured networks. In that future I don't get the information I want, I'll get whatever information my network wants me to get. And I stay isolated from everyone on different networks.
 
there is only one way i would ever agree to(pay for) a data cap,
1: it's a reasonable data cap for my usage
2: unused data is carried forward each month and it's added on top of the monthly limit
 
Welp, just remember when you go to the voting booth in 2yrs for mid-terms cause ain't nobody on their way in now going to give two flying fucks about it.
 
I wonder just how many of you guys have ATT/Verizon service and you are here complaining about this.... DOES NOT COMPUTE.
 
You see companies all the time offering some special or incentive to get you to buy their product or go with their service. I don't see this being much different.
 
This has been going on for years and years.
Do you get internet via your cable or phone provider?
Does your cable provider count on demand tv shows/movies/etc against your cap even though it uses your internet connection?
Ohh no, but that uses the ip network on a setup box. That's different than what i get on my computer.

Not to most systems it's not. It's exactly the same.

Not quite the same. With AT&T you can stream EVERYTHING without any consequences. That has the potential to be a game changer. While you could argue one could get on demand movies non-stop, it is not the the same.
 
I wonder just how many of you guys have ATT/Verizon service and you are here complaining about this.... DOES NOT COMPUTE.
This is ATT AND directTV. Now if this was about giving me a competing cable service that I could use my cell service to use in order to have more options is one thing, but this is not that :(

Also, still doesn't make it right to prop up your services and artificially limit competition.
 
You see companies all the time offering some special or incentive to get you to buy their product or go with their service. I don't see this being much different.

Clearly your comprehension of this issue is beyond your intellectual grasp. Please kindly leave this thread immediately, and try to get smarter. Thanks!
 
You see companies all the time offering some special or incentive to get you to buy their product or go with their service. I don't see this being much different.

Offering something special is a bit different than handcuffing your competition and giving perks only to your service.
 
And I am just sitting here with no data caps on Charter (TV/Internet, note that the no cap ISN'T dependent on having TV service) not giving a fuck. I will never have ATT/DirectTV service so this won't bother me.
 
And I am just sitting here with no data caps on Charter (TV/Internet, note that the no cap ISN'T dependent on having TV service) not giving a fuck. I will never have ATT/DirectTV service so this won't bother me.
This is more to do with mobile device streaming on cellular than landline limitations.
 
Clearly your comprehension of this issue is beyond your intellectual grasp. Please kindly leave this thread immediately, and try to get smarter. Thanks!

Maybe you should stop being so butt-hurt. This isn't going to cause me to go running to AT&T for service. Their issue for me isn't how much I can stream; it's their high pricing. Unless they change that they're not an option for me.
 
Maybe you should stop being so butt-hurt. This isn't going to cause me to go running to AT&T for service. Their issue for me isn't how much I can stream; it's their high pricing. Unless they change that they're not an option for me.

Still not smart enough. :( Please leave the thread. /youfailed.
 
If cellular streaming is limited by the technology involved, then why is streaming DirectTV over it ok and free?
It's ok because there is no ruling on data caps. It's how cell companies make money on their contracts now, before it used to be with talk minutes, now its with data.

Either way I don't like it, if you are going to open up unlimited streaming then you should open it up for more than just your paid for services.
 
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