FCC Approval Of Zero Rating Shows Companies Can Still Violate Neutrality Under New Rules, They Just Have To Be More Clever About It

from the it's-neutral-if-I-say-it-is dept

We've discussed more than a few times the awful precedent set by AT&T's Sponsored Data effort, which involves companies paying AT&T to have their service be exempt from the company's already arbitrary usage caps. While AT&T pitches this as a wonderful boon to consumers akin to 1-800 numbers and free shipping, as VC Fred Wilson perfectly illustrated last year, it tilts the entire wireless playing field toward companies with deeper pockets that can afford to pay AT&T's rates for cap exemption.

So how will the FCC's new net neutrality rules impact AT&T's plans? There's every indication it won't. The rules are still a few years and a few legal challenges away from becoming tangible, and in the interim, the FCC is telling companies that none of the zero rated efforts currently in play should be impacted. Meanwhile, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Norway, Chile and now Canada all realize the threat posed by zero rated apps and have passed net neutrality rules that outlaw zero rating. The FCC, in contrast, has consistently implied it sees zero rating as "creative" pricing.

That's given AT&T the justifiable confidence to sally forth with its dangerous precedent. After all, injecting a gatekeeper like AT&T (with a generation of documented anti-competitive abuses under its belt) right into the middle of the wireless app ecosystem won't hurt anyone, and has nothing whatsoever to do with net neutrality. Isn't that right, AT&T?:

"AT&T mobile and enterprise CEO Ralph de la Vega characterized the effort as a billing method and not a speed issue, which could be interpreted as a violation of neutrality. He said his initial belief is that the net neutrality policies passed by the FCC last week won’t impact the company’s plans. "It never was an issue of net neutrality,” he said. “I’m very pleased it looks like that will not be impacted."

My guess is that the FCC is going to be so busy trying to appease all of the folks fanning their faces over "heavy handed government regulation," that it will probably give ample leeway to services like this. And that's a problem. As I've noted a few times, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are smart enough to avoid ham-fisted neutrality abuses like outright blocking or throttling services, and U.S. telecom regulators have already shown they're perfectly ok with all manner of anti-competitive behavior -- provided you pony up a half-assed technical justification for plausible deniability.

Blocking Google Wallet to try and give your own mobile payment service a leg up is perfectly okay, provided you offer a feeble, faux-technical explanation that leans heavily on network security. Double dipping and forcing Netflix to pay new interconnection fees just to reach your customers is okay, provided you argue you're just negotiating fair, run-of-the-mill peering arrangements. Making the biggest and most popular music services cap exempt (in the process hamstringing independents and small companies) is just great, provided you dress it up as consumer freedom. Don't like that HBO's streaming app could cannibalize your pay TV subscribers and set top revenues? Just refuse to make the app work and offer a rotating crop of excuses.

U.S. regulators haven't seriously batted an eyelash over any of these. Are these anti-competitive? Are they net neutrality issues? If we agree net neutrality is about preventing gatekeepers from abusing their dominant market position to hurt smaller companies, then aren't these all at least part of the broader conversation? With ham-fisted throttling and blocking off the table, ISPs and cable companies have shifted their focus to abusing gatekeeper power without looking like they're abusing gatekeeper power. If a company's really good at it, it can even trick consumers into rooting against their own best self interests (all the Redditors who don't understand the bad precedent set by T-Mobile's Music Freedom plan are a great example of this).

So again, while it's great the FCC grew a rare spine and crafted tougher net neutrality rules that are legally defensible, they won't mean much if the FCC isn't willing to be as consistently creative and aggressive in enforcing the rules -- as carriers are going to be when in comes to tap dancing around them.

Filed Under: fcc, music freedom, net neutrality, playing favorites, zero rating
Companies: at&t, t-mobile

Comcast Blocks HBO Go From Working On Playstation 4, Won't Coherently Explain Why

from the we're-helping! dept

About a year ago we noted how Comcast has a weird tendency to prevent its broadband users from being able to use HBO Go on some fairly standard technology, including incredibly common Roku hardware. For several years Roku users couldn't use HBO Go if they had a Comcast connection, and for just as long Comcast refused to explain why. Every other broadband provider had no problem ensuring the back-end authentication (needed to confirm you have a traditional cable connection) worked, but not Comcast.

HBO Go is part of the cable and broadcast industry's "TV Everywhere" initiative, the shortfalls of which we've tackled previously. HBO Go, as part of the TV Everywhere initiative, requires you prove you're a traditional cable customer before you can access most online content. For example, if you want to watch HBO Go on your Roku 3, the HBO Go app simply needs Comcast servers to quickly confirm that you are a paying cable customer. Comcast's refusing to make this part of the connection process work, effectively restricting users from using bandwidth they pay for, over hardware they own, to access content they also pay for.

The goal of course is to keep as many users as possible on Comcast's X1 set top platform and away from the most popular Internet video devices. Last I saw, Roku sells around 30% of all streaming video hardware sold in any given month. Comcast clearly can't admit they're being shifty, so when pressed on why it takes them years to set up a simple authentication mechanism, the company usually makes up a rotating crop of bullshit excuses:

"With every new website, device or player we authenticate, we need to work through technical integration and customer service which takes time and resources. Moving forward, we will continue to prioritize as we partner with various players."

Roku had to file an FCC complaint to get Comcast to finally stop doing this. At the time, the filing argued that while "throttling" and "blocking" get all the attention as weapons of discrimination, the TV Everywhere authentication model is also a useful weapon for large cable providers when it comes to harming competing services:

"While an ISP can throttle content delivery speeds to effect anti-competitive discrimination, throttling is only the most transparent of a long list of discriminatory actions than an ISP with market power can undertake. [Additional discriminatory actions may] include control over data caps and authentication to hinder content and platforms that directly compete with the ISP's own or affiliated content."

And the problem wasn't just with Roku. When HBO Go on the Playstation 3 was released, it worked with every other TV-Everywhere compatible provider, but not Comcast. When customers complained in the Comcast forums, they were greeted with total silence. When customers called in to try and figure out why HBO Go wouldn't work, they usually received incorrect statements from front level support (it should arrive in 48 hours, don't worry!).

Fast forward nearly a year since the HBO Go Playstation 3 launch (it still doesn't work), and Sony has now announced an HBO Go app for the Playstation 4 console. And guess what -- when you go to activate the app you'll find it works with every major broadband ISP -- except Comcast. Why? Comcast still won't really say, but the company appears to have backed away from claims that the delay is due to technical or customer support issues, and is now telling forum visitors the hangup is related to some ambiguous business impasse:

"HBO Go availability on PS3 (and some other devices) are business decisions and deal with business terms that have not yet been agreed to between the parties. Thanks for your continued patience."

Since every other ISP (including AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable) didn't have a problem supporting the app, you have to assume Comcast specifically isn't getting something from Sony or HBO it would like (read: enough money to make them feel comfortable about potentially cannibalizing traditional TV/HBO viewers). Comcast's basically using the TV Anywhere authentication mechanism -- as opposed to outright blocking or throttling -- to prohibit its customers from accessing content in a way Comcast doesn't approve of. In this way Comcast's behavior, while not necessarily a net neutrality offense on its surface, is certainly part of the conversation in regards to gatekeeper power.

Fortunately for users in this instance, HBO's about to launch a stand alone app that won't need cable authentication, taking Comcast out of the equation anyway. Still, this is a good example of how crafting net neutrality rules is only part of the conversation about mega-ISP power. It's great to have rules governing the pipes themselves, but they don't mean much if other anti-competitive behaviors can just be hidden behind half-answers and faux-technical nonsense for years on end without repercussion.

Filed Under: blocking, hbo go, net neutrality, playstation 4
Companies: comcast, hbo, sony

Marsha Blackburn Rushes To The Defense Of Awful, Protectionist State Broadband Laws

from the stop-pretending-you're-helping dept

While net neutrality justifiably received a ton of press attention last week, we were quick to point out that the FCC's other major decision -- to start attacking protectionist state broadband laws -- may just be a bigger deal. These twenty or so laws, as we've explored in detail, are written and lobbied for by incumbent ISPs and prohibit towns and cities from deciding for themselves what they should be able to do regarding local telecom infrastructure. If you realize that neutrality violations are just a symptom of a lack of competition, the FCC's decision to start dismantling the onerous parts of these laws strikes much deeper at the root of the problem.

Make no mistake: these laws are the worst sort of protectionism. And despite ISP attempts to make this a partisan issue, most municipal broadband deployments are being approved by Republican voters in Conservative areas. Similarly, Democrats and Republicans alike realize that letting AT&T or Comcast write a law that tells you what you can or can't do (and in some cases even eliminates eminent domain rights) only benefits AT&T and Comcast. Municipal broadband is an organic, community reaction to the telecom market failure they're "enjoying" on a daily basis.

That's why it's been amusing to see Marsha Blackburn rushing to the defense of the ISPs and these bills, breathlessly trying to argue that she's just terribly, terribly concerned about states' rights. Almost immediately after the FCC's vote to limit the reach of such laws in Tennessee and North Carolina, Blackburn and Senator Thom Tillis introduced the "States' Rights Municipal Broadband Act of 2015 (pdf)," which would amend the Telecommunications Act to strip back FCC authority over states when it comes to timely broadband deployment.

Both Blackburn's and Tillis' states have passed laws that have prevented municipal broadband deployments from expanding and encroaching on the territories of companies like AT&T, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable and Comcast. EPB Broadband (in Tennessee) and Greenlight (in North Carolina) petitioned the FCC for help in removing state-level barriers to deployment after a decade of FCC apathy to the issue. According to a statement on Blackburn's website, she's not blindly protecting her state's broadband duopoly, she's protecting locals from the FCC's vile assault on their freedom:

"I’m pleased to be working with Senator Tillis on this important issue. As former state legislators, we strongly believe in States’ rights and will fight the FCC’s liberal agenda. Chairman Wheeler’s regulatory appetite appears to know no bounds and is seeping dangerously into the lives of Americans. It is time for Congress to assert itself and protect States once again from unelected Washington bureaucrats."

Just so we're clear: letting AT&T and Comcast write awful state law that strips away "states' rights" to the sole benefit of their monopoly revenues is perfectly fine. But the FCC using its legal authority to restore those same rights -- is a frontal assault on states' rights? Blackburn and Tillis are actually trying to dress up duopoly protectionism as some form of noble ethos in a particularly blistering wave of nonsensical hubris.

Blackburn's effort is unlikely to go anywhere, in part because even the ISPs that write these laws don't want to be publicly associated with them. You'll notice that while many large ISPs felt free to complain about net neutrality rules, most of them remained mute on the FCC's municipal broadband decision -- largely because buying protectionist state law is nearly impossible to coherently defend (as Tillis and Blackburn so deftly illustrate). Both Comcast and AT&T have mergers awaiting FCC review, so any full-throated support for keeping U.S. broadband uncompetitive will have to remain the purview of disingenuous intermediaries.

Filed Under: city laws, fcc, martha blackburn, muni broadband, municipal broadband, state laws, state rights, tennessee

Last Week Was A Victory, But The Fight For The Open Internet Is Nowhere Close To Being Done

from the lots-of-pitfalls-ahead dept

As you know, last week the FCC made a somewhat historic move, to vote to reclassify broadband internet access as a "Title II" telecommunications service, which allows the FCC to implement specific open internet rules that disallow things such as paid prioritization and blocking. This move has been rightly celebrated by many people. However, it is also being attacked by many others. Some of that is nothing more than spewing big broadband companies' talking points. Some of it is merely partisan bickering, as the "net neutrality" fight became ridiculously partisan, even though a vast majority of voters in both parties support net neutrality.

That said, there are some legitimate concerns. They're not the ones that you're likely to hear about (other than on the margin), but rather fall under the fact that this is just one battle in a war that is far from over. So, let's take a look at some of the reasons to still remain quite vigilant in protecting a free and open internet:

1. The details: Yes, as you may have heard, the fully detailed rules are not yet public. This is ridiculous and stupid, but it's the way the FCC operates. If it had released the detailed rules prior to the vote, it would have delayed the entire process. And, while dissenting commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly have been screaming about the travesty that the rules haven't yet been released publicly, what they conveniently leave out is that currently they are the sole reason for the delay. The FCC can't publish the final rules until the FCC has incorporated their dissents, and neither Pai nor O'Rielly have handed in their dissents.
   
   And, yes, there may be some devils in the details. One particular concern is the "general conduct rule." As the folks at EFF have warned, a vague "general conduct" rule allows the FCC to more or less reserve the right to examine practices of ISPs to see if they're "harmful to consumers." While that may sound good in practice, the vagueness of the rule could subject all sorts of perfectly reasonable practices to long and drawn out legal fights with the FCC. It's good that the FCC wants to be able to stop practices that are harmful to consumers, but if it's going to do that it should lay out directly what it believes to be harmful, rather than leaving things open to interpretation.
   
   There are some other unclear details as well: exactly how will the fight play out over "interconnection" which isn't directly a "net neutrality" issue (which is just focused on the last mile from the broadband provider to your home), but rather a way that the big ISPs accept traffic from service providers. The big broadband providers deliberately allowed those interconnection points to clog up in order to pressure service providers like Netflix to pay up. The new rules are likely to try to address that issue somewhat, but it's not entirely clear how. Another area of concern is how it deals with "zero rating" plans, whereby broadband providers let some traffic not count against a data cap. While the broadband providers argue that this is a consumer benefit, that ignores that they put the data cap on in the first place. Exempting users from your own anti-consumer practices isn't really consumer friendly. It sounds like the new rules will deal with these situations on a "case by case" basis as well, and that can be problematic.
   
   How worried should you be? Moderately worried, though the details still very much matter. While anti-net neutrality types are blathering on about tariffs and rate regulations that aren't happening, this is a legitimate concern that could tie up perfectly reasonable practices in uncertainty.
   
   Should you blame the new rules? Yup. This one is on the FCC. It sounds like the rules got a lot of stuff right, but this may be a push too far. It could have been much worse, but we should still be concerned about some possible problems with the rules and be vigilant about how they are interpreted and applied.
   
   
2. The lawsuits: As you may have heard, pretty much everyone knows that someone is going to sue about the new rules. Last time around, Verizon sued (which was silly because it helped create the incredibly weak rules it sued over, and its "victory" in that case has resulted in these new stronger rules), and either it will sue again or AT&T or Comcast or some combination will sue this time. This will at least create some uncertainty over whether or not the rules will stick, and if the courts toss out these rules too, then we're back to square one -- and in a situation where it may be even tougher to protect net neutrality.
   
   How worried should you be? Moderately worried. While some anti-net neutrality folks insist that because the FCC lost lawsuits concerning its last two attempts to craft net neutrality rules, this time is pretty different. The court ruling in the last one more or less laid out this path. The reason it rejected the last rules was because it said the FCC was trying to introduce "common carrier" rules without classifying broadband as a common carrier. The new rules classify it as a common carrier, so it appears to be following the court's instructions. And, if it goes up to the Supreme Court, you can't tell for sure, but the court's earlier rulings have suggested that on this particular question it gives the FCC wide leverage in classifying broadband. And, in what may not make many Republican anti-net neutrality folks happy, Antonin Scalia was the most vehement in an earlier case arguing (in dissent) that broadband was obviously a Title II common carrier service. But... nothing is ever certain in the judicial process, and cases can come out with strange and surprising rulings. So it's entirely possible that we'll be back for another sort of battle three or four years from now.
   
   Should you blame the new rules? No. Verizon had indicated early on that it was likely to sue over any rules. While it backed down from that position after other broadband providers started stage whispering "shut up, Verizon..." it's still likely that some broadband provider somewhere would have sued over the new rules no matter what. So the legal uncertainty would have lingered. And, again, last year's ruling in the Verizon case more or less said that if you're going to issue these kinds of rules, you need to reclassify. It's likely that some of the legal challenges will argue that the FCC didn't follow the proper procedures in reclassifying, but that's a long shot given earlier rulings.
   
   
3. Congress: Again, it's not at all clear why this has become a partisan issue when the public is all for net neutrality, but it is, in fact, now a partisan issue. And the party that is against net neutrality, the Republicans, has a majority in both houses of Congress. There is already an effort underway by Congress to modify the Telecommunications Act to put in place different "net neutrality" rules that are really just a smokescreen to simply strip the FCC of pretty much all authority to protect consumers against questionable broadband provider practices. Separately, Republicans in Congress have already started to make moves to delay the implementation of the new rules, including demanding that FCC boss Tom Wheeler show up for a hearing to explain himself (seriously).
   
   In theory, it would be better to have a clearer law drafted by Congress, rather than having the FCC make the final decision on this thing, but that theory relies on a competent Congress that obeys the will of the people, rather than special interests. Stop laughing. And, of course, you never know how everything will get twisted around later. As Tim Lee at Vox recently noted, it was the Republicans who rewrote the Telecommunications Act in 1996 that pretty clearly intended for broadband to be classified as a Title II service, which they're now freaking out about.
   
   How worried should you be? Moderately worried. The new rules have certainly shifted the baseline in one direction such that it would be difficult for Congress to completely undermine an open internet in new rules without setting off massive public backlash. But it can still do some damage. That's perhaps more difficult with an open internet supporter in the White House, but it could flip.
   
   Should you blame the new rules? No. The new rules have actually been helpful here. Even if the current proposed change to the Telecommunications Act is a joke, it's much, much, much more friendly towards an open internet than what was being talked about just a few months ago. Furthermore, Congress can change as well and can pass new laws at another time also. There's always the risk that Congress will propose a rewrite to the Telecommunications Act, with or without these rules. But with these new rules in place, it actually may be more difficult to get Congress to completely shift things away from a more open internet.
   
   
4. The next FCC: One of the key talking points among anti-net neutrality types is that if this FCC can just make this decision to reclassify, the next one (especially under a Republican president, in which the balance of the FCC would shift to 3 to 2 Republicans to Democrats as commissioners) could just flip it back. Current Republican commissioner Ajit Pai's big filibuster of a speech at the open meeting last week appeared to be his pitch to become the next head of the FCC. And, of course, there's the argument in the other direction, which is that a new FCC with a Democratic majority might go even further with the new rules, and bring back all the "bad stuff" in Title II like rate regulations and tariffs.
   
   How worried should you be? Not that worried. Despite what some say, it's not that easy to just flip this switch. Note that this process alone has taken basically a year. The FCC has to propose the rules and allow for the slew of comments and then go through this entire process again before it can switch the rules again. It could happen, but by the time it does we'd already be under the existing rules for some time, and when the predicted "harms" of the new rules don't come to pass, the scare stories from anti-net neutrality types won't be even remotely believable. As for the idea that a new FCC might bring back rate regulations and tariffs, that seems ridiculously unlikely. At this point you have basically no one who supports such an idea -- either on the FCC or in the public. The FCC would have to go through a whole new proposal/comment period on such an idea, and it would be so astoundingly unpopular that it's difficult to see it getting anywhere at all.
   
   Should you blame the new rules? Nope. The FCC is going to flip flop back and forth based on the party in the White House anyway, and all the talk claiming the FCC has become "more partisan" is a lot of bunk. There have long been fights along party grounds on certain issues, and that won't change.
   
   
5. The lack of competition: This probably remains the largest ongoing issue in the fight for an open internet. For years we've been arguing that the attack on net neutrality is really just a symptom of the lack of competition in the market, and that's still true today. Beyond the new rules, if we want to really protect an open internet, we need much more competition. It's notable that the new rules do not (as some wanted) include unbundling requirements, which would have made infrastructure providers let other service providers buy access wholesale to resell, creating competition at the service level (rather than at the network level). Many other countries have this type of unbundling, and it's resulted in a much more competitive broadband market in those places.
   
   This is also why the FCC's other vote last week may turn out to be the bigger deal. This was the FCC's decision to preempt state laws (generally written by the broadband providers themselves) that blocked municipalities from offering up municipal broadband. Municipal broadband is not a panacea, and there have been some notable failures. However, there are plenty of success stories as well, including some impressive ones in which communities join together to create a strong broadband offering where the giant legacy players have failed to keep up.
   
   Separately, we're finally starting to see third parties jump into the market. Lots of people point to Google Fiber, but that's just one of a few new and growing entrants. And many of those smaller providers have both embraced the FCC's new rules and pointed out that with those new rules, they may be able to deploy their services more widely, since it will help them get access to things like telephone poles that were blocked in the past. On top of that, while in the past, alternative means of broadband were more hype than reality, the technology for air-based broadband (from wireless systems, satellites, drones, balloons and blimps) is getting rapidly better and may offer a legitimate third-party option. Those technologies are all getting a lot cheaper as well, so it's entirely possible that we could get more significant competition in the future -- especially if there's more open spectrum available.
   
   How worried should you be? Absolutely worried. The lack of competition is the real travesty in all of this, and while you can be hopeful about some of the things coming down the road that should add to the competitive market, for many of us, there are almost no competitive choices for broadband.
   
   Should you blame the new rules? Nope. Some anti-net neutrality types are trying to argue that the new rules will reduce competition, but it's hard to find any evidence to support that. Enough small, independent and third-party broadband providers have come out in support of the new rules that it's difficult to take seriously the complaint that it will discourage those competitors from entering the market. They seem to be arguing exactly the opposite.
   
   
6. The games Comcast/Verizon/AT&T will play: When it became clear that there were going to be open internet rules of some sort on the last mile, all of the big broadband providers played the interconnection trick, letting their interconnection points with Netflix clog up in order to get the same result it wanted in the first place: get the internet companies to pay extra to reach its users, even as everyone is already paying for their own bandwidth. And, lately, there have been various games around "zero rating" in which the broadband players (mainly on the wireless side) pretend that they're offering a "consumer benefit" by exempting certain traffic from the unnecessary data caps that the broadband providers themselves set up.
   
   It seems quite likely that even with the new rules, the big broadband providers will look for loopholes and other tricks to try to chip away at an open internet, allowing it to put toll booths into the internet stream. That's been their focus for a decade now, and it's unlikely that they're going to give up now. The big broadband providers simply hate the idea of just being "dumb pipes" and feel like they need to extract extra money for all of the activity happening on those pipes. It's not clear how they'll plant to get around the rules, but it seems inevitable.
   
   How worried should you be? Somewhat worried. The big broadband players are incredibly crafty at trying to figure out loopholes and ways through the rules. The interconnection and zero rating cases are just two examples, and both were pretty clever. The zero rating one was particularly clever in that they could pretend to be "consumer friendly" by protecting you from the anti-consumer rules that they themselves set up. It's kind of brilliant in how evil it is. The problem here is that we just don't know what form this attack is likely to take, but it's definitely going to happen.
   
   Should you blame the new rules?: No. The big broadband players have been playing these games for ages, and the new rules actually do make it much more difficult for them to play at least some of these games. That's why last week was a victory for the open internet.

It should be noted that some net neutrality critics are running around and claiming that these new rules mean the death of the internet, and will lead to the government deciding what content and services are allowed on the internet. If true, that would be an attack on the open internet, but it's simply not true. Don't worry too much about it. That's just FUD.

The reality is that last week was a victory, but it's hardly the end of the fight to protect the open internet. There are some legitimate concerns about both the rules that were passed, as well as the actions that others (including Congress, the FCC and broadband players) may take in the future. And we need to be vigilant about all of this in order to make sure that the internet remains open and free.

Filed Under: ajit pai, congress, courts, fcc, general conduct, net neutrality, open internet, threats, title ii, tom wheeler
Companies: at&t, comcast, time warner cable, verizon

Netflix's Love Of Net Neutrality Notably Absent In Australia, Where It's Striking Cap Exempt Deals With ISPs

from the he-just-smiled-and-gave-me-a-vegemite-sandwich dept

Here in the States, Netflix has been an incredibly vocal supporter of net neutrality, arguing that all traffic should consistently be treated equally by incumbent ISP gatekeepers. The company has also frequently lambasted usage caps, arguing that they're not a very effective business model, and are basically used by incumbent ISPs to protect traditional TV revenues from internet video. One Netflix exec at one point called caps "almost a human rights violation." A few years ago, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings similarly lambasted Comcast on Facebook for exempting its content from usage caps on some devices:

"Comcast no longer following net neutrality principles. Comcast should apply caps equally, or not at all. I spent the weekend enjoying four good internet video apps on my Xbox: Netflix, HBO GO, Xfinity, and Hulu. When I watch video on my Xbox from three of these four apps, it counts against my Comcast internet cap. When I watch through Comcast’s Xfinity app, however, it does not count against my Comcast internet cap...The same device, the same IP address, the same wifi, the same internet connection, but totally different cap treatment. In what way is this neutral?"

Oddly, Netflix's position on this issue seems to differ depending on the hemisphere. In Australia, Netflix is taking a notably different stance. The company has struck a new deal with Australian broadband ISP iiNET that exempts all Netflix content from the company's usage caps when the service goes live on March 24:

"Following confirmation from Netflix that it will launch locally on 24 March, iiNet’s broadband, Naked DSL, NBN and iiNet TV with Fetch customers will have access to as much Netflix content as they like, without it counting against their monthly quota....Paul Perryman, Netflix’s Director of Business Development, said the iiNet partnership will play an important role in the launch of the Netflix service Down Under. "Working with iiNet to offer quota-free Netflix content gives more people the opportunity to familiarise themselves with who we are and what our service offers," said Paul."

While iiNet's position on copyright trolls is consumer friendly, their usage caps are certainly less so. iiNet service features usage caps starting at 100 GB, and users that exceed their allotment often face overage fees of around fifty cents for each additional gigabyte. According to Netflix, HD service consumes around 7 GB per hour. Content streamed in the 4K format consumes significantly more. Reed Hastings' concerns about cap-exemption being a notably unfair policy are seemingly absent from press coverage from the launch.

Australian broadband ISPs managed to get consumers used to usage limits much earlier in broadband's lifecycle there. As a result, metered usage is generally all they've known, so you'll tend to see slightly less public opposition when compared to markets where consumers got used to unlimited, flat-rate data. It's also worth noting that other streaming services (like ABC's iView or Foxtel's Presto) are already cap-exempt, so Netflix feels it too must be cap-exempt if it wants to enter the market on equal footing. Still, it's odd to see Netflix -- a hugely vocal net neutrality supporter -- suddenly go mute on a subject that's so near and dear to its heart. You'd like to think Netflix may become more outspoken on the subject once its service -- and the concept of net neutrality -- gains a foothold down under.

Filed Under: australia, data caps, net neutrality, zero rating
Companies: iinet, netflix

Nokia CEO: We Have To Get Rid Of Net Neutrality, Otherwise Self-Driving Cars Will Keep On Crashing Into Each Other

from the not-just-packet-collisions dept

It would be an understatement to say that net neutrality has been in the news quite a lot recently. One of the supposed arguments against it is that requiring all data packets to be treated equally within a connection will prevent companies from offering us a cornucopia of "specialized services." The main example cited is for medical applications -- the implication being that if net neutrality is required, people are going to die. Speaking at the Mobile World Congress that is currently underway, Nokia's CEO Rajeev Suri has come up with a novel variation on that theme, as reported by CNET (via @AdV007):

Suri emphasises that self-driving cars need to talk over wireless networks fast enough to make decisions with the split-second timing required on the roads. "You cannot prevent collisions if the data that can prevent them is still making its way through the network", said Suri, discussing Nokia's drive toward instantaneous low-latency communication across the network.

Yes, according to Suri, there are going to be terrible pile-ups on the roads unless we get rid of net neutrality. Leaving aside the fact that low-latency communications across the internet will come anyway -- if there's one thing that's certain in the world of digital technology, it's that everything gets faster and cheaper -- there's another problem with this argument.

Self-driving cars that are so reliant on such guaranteed, high-performance networks are hardly going to be very resilient in real-life situations -- and certainly not the kind of system that the public will want to entrust with the lives of themselves and their families. If self-driving cars are to be widely accepted, one of their key features must be the ability to work safely even with the flakiest of internet connections. Suri's attempt to use this emerging technology as a weapon against net neutrality instead undermines the argument for self-driving cars themselves.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: autonomous vehicles, net neutrality, rajeev suri, self-driving cars
Companies: nokia

Breaking: House Judiciary Committee Tells FCC It's Going To Block Net Neutrality Rules

from the protecting-the-Internet-by-selling-out-my-constituents dept

While the FCC may have buckled to public demand and voted to finally approve tougher net neutrality rules last week, if you thought that meant an end to the hysterical over-reaction to what appear to be some fairly basic consumer protections, you're going to be gravely disappointed. From editorials lamenting the FCC's attempt to "strangle startups in their cribs", to claims the agency is murdering "innovation angels", we're clearly entering an entirely new, bloody chapter when it comes to divorcing net neutrality reality from rhetoric.

At the vanguard of this assault are ISP-loyal politicians, who intend to throw everything but the kitchen sink at the FCC over the next few months in the hopes of if not destroying the rules -- at least delaying them -- while publicly flogging the FCC for good measure. That apparently starts with FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly lagging on providing their dissenting edits so the rules can't be released, followed by a gauntlet of at least five potential hearings over the next month aimed at shaming the FCC for destroying the Internet.

A letter from the House Judiciary Committee Members (pdf) to FCC boss Tom Wheeler complains that the FCC is pursuing the "most oppressive and backward regulatory option possible," which is odd since a growing list of companies that actually sell broadband -- like Cablevision, Frontier, Sprint and Sonic -- all say the rules won't impact their businesses in the slightest, since most of the heavier utility-components of Title II won't be applied. So why is the House Judiciary Committee fighting the rules? Because they're just super worried about the health of the Internet:

"We will not stand by idly as the White House, using the FCC, attempts to advance rules that imperil the future of the Internet. We plan to support and urge our colleagues to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution disapproving the “Open Internet” rules. Not only will such a resolution nullify the ‘Open Internet’ rules, the resolution will prevent the FCC from relying on Title II for any future net neutrality rules unless Congress explicitly instructs the FCC to take such action."

Of course any measure that makes its way to the President's desk will be vetoed -- and a Congressional Review Action still requires a presidential signature or enough votes to override a veto, both of which are extremely unlikely. The only real way to overturn the agency's new laws is either via lawsuit (which the FCC has gone to great length to avoid losing this time after the courts repeatedly told them they needed to classify ISPs as common carriers to be on solid footing) or through a party change (and therefore an FCC leadership shift) in 2016.

Until then, the House Judiciary Committee hopes to keep the hysteria momentum rolling by flinging around some now well-worn falsehoods, like claiming that the White House acted improperly when it publicly proclaimed it preferred Title II rules:

"We are also troubled by the manner in which the ‘Open Internet’ rules were formulated. On November 10, 2014, President Obama urged the FCC to impose Title II regulations on the Internet. Shortly thereafter, you began making statements in support of a Title II approach. Certainly, the timing of your support for Title II following the President’s recommendation calls into question the degree, if not the existence, of the FCC’s independence from the White House."

Yes, because the "timing" of things is enough to make them illegal, right? You'll note the letter falls well short of claiming the White House broke the law, because despite whatever disdain the White House has for the law on a wide variety of topics, they did nothing wrong here. As we've noted previously, it's perfectly routine and legal for the White House to express its policy desires to the FCC, and every President in the last thirty years has done so (like when George W. Bush pushed the FCC for weaker media consolidation rules, or Bill Clinton urged the FCC to ban hard liquor ads on TV).

Republicans were already planning a rewrite this year of the Communications Act, and you can be dead certain that effort will be rekindled with a keen and aggressive eye on making regulators as ill-equipped as possible when it comes to doing anything about the nation's stagnant telecom duopoly. You know, for the health of the Internet.

Filed Under: bob goodlatte, congressional review act, fcc, house judiciary committee, net neutrality, open internet, tom wheeler

Wall Street Journal Upset That Wall Street Isn't Upset About Net Neutrality

from the isn't-the-market-always-right? dept

A few weeks ago, after it was more or less confirmed that the FCC was going forward with full Title II reclassification of broadband, we noted that the stocks of the big broadband companies actually went up suggesting that Wall Street actually knows that reclassification won't really impact broadband companies, despite what they've been saying publicly. Perhaps this is partly because those same companies have been telling Wall Street that the rule change won't have an impact.

However, for the Wall Street Journal -- which has become weirdly, obsessively, anti-net neutrality -- this is an abomination. The newspaper has spent months trying to whip everyone into a frenzy about how evil net neutrality is, using some of the most blatantly wrong arguments around. Just a few days ago, the WSJ turned to its former publisher, now columnist, L. Gordon Crovitz to spread as much misinformation as possible. This is the same L. Gordon Crovitz who a few years ago wrote such a ridiculously wrong article on the history of the internet that basically everyone shoved each other aside to detail how he mangled the history. He, bizarrely, insisted that the government had no role in the creation of the internet. Crovitz also has a history of being wrong (and woefully uninformed) about surveillance and encryption. It's difficult to understand why the WSJ allows him to continue writing pieces that are so frequently factually challenged.

In this latest piece, Crovitz suggests that Ted Cruz didn't go far enough in comparing Obamacare to net neutrality, arguing that net neutrality is even "worse."

The permissionless Internet, which allows anyone to introduce a website, app or device without government review, ends this week.

Um, no, actually, the reverse. The rules say that no website or app needs to get permission. The government isn't going to be reviewing anything, other than anti-consumer practices by the large ISPs.

Bureaucrats can review the fairness of Google's search results, Facebook's news feeds and news sites' links to one another and to advertisers. BlackBerry is already lobbying the FCC to force Apple and Netflix to offer apps for BlackBerry’s unpopular phones. Bureaucrats will oversee peering, content-delivery networks and other parts of the interconnected network that enables everything from Netflix and YouTube to security drones and online surgery.

None of this is true. The BlackBerry thing isn't real. It's a stupid political stunt cooked up by the telcos to try to make the new rules look bad. But the rules do not, in any way, apply to Google's search results or Facebook's news feed or any other content online. It covers internet access services, and all it does is put in place some straightforward rules against discrimination.

Still, all this fear mongering isn't working. Following yesterday's decision by the FCC, the folks over at Quartz noticed that the big broadband stocks have actually had a pretty damn good month: Which brings us back around to the Wall Street Journal. The paper of record for Wall Street, which normally likes to suggest that markets are "right" about everything, is absolutely positive that the markets are wrong about this. And it's furious. It has an article demanding that broadband investors need to "wake up" to what's happening with net neutrality:

Investors actually seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler unveiled his proposal on Feb. 4, sending cable stocks higher. Investors were cheering the chairman’s assurance that the commission wouldn’t invoke the Title II power to regulate prices.

But investors, beware: Broadband’s new status opens the door to the possibility of a future that is far less lucrative and more uncertain for the companies that provide it.

Bullshit. Frankly, things can always change in the future, in either direction, so claiming that things might change is meaningless FUD. At the end of the article, the WSJ pretends that maybe the reason why stocks are up is because investors expect that the broadband players will win an eventual court battle, but that seems like wishful thinking on multiple levels. Let's go with Occam's Razor on this one. The market is up because everyone knows that Title II won't make a huge difference at all for the prospects of broadband companies. Multiple Wall St. analysts have been saying this for months, as have the big broadband companies to the analysts themselves.

The Wall Street Journal should take a page from its own playbook: maybe the markets do know best.

Filed Under: gordon crovitz, investors, market, net neutrality, title ii, wall street, wall street journal