SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the would-you-like-YouTube^WNetflix^WFacebook^WAmazon-with-that? dept.
Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times writes about Portugal's Internet which shows us a world without net neutrality, and it's ugly. Basically, tiered services get in there through a loophole for zero-rating.
After paying a fee for basic service, subscribers can add any of five further options for about $6 per month, allowing an additional 10GB data allotment for the apps within the options: a "messaging" tier, which covers such services as instant messaging, Apple FaceTime, and Skype; "social," with liberal access to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and so on; "video" (youTube, Netflix, etc.); "email and cloud" (Gmail, Apple's iCloud); or "music" (Spotify, Pandora).
Portugal isn't the only country allowing tiering of internet services. In Britain, the internet service provider Vodaphone charges about $33 a month for basic service but offers several "passes" allowing unlimited video or music streaming, social media usage, or chat, at additional tariffs of up to $9.30 per month. [Ed's Note: This is not entirely accurate - Vodaphone's ISP home broadband offering (17Mbps) is £24/month unlimited usage, the additional figures quoted are for faster fiber connections (38 and 76 Mbps) where available. How you use your connection is irrelevant. This is the same for many European ISPs. Smart phone costs are entirely separate.]
Although both countries are part of the European Union, which has an explicit commitment to network neutrality, these arrangements are allowed under provisions giving national regulators some flexibility. These regulators can open loopholes permitting "zero-rating," through which ISPs can exclude certain services from data caps. That's what the Portuguese and British ISPs essentially are doing.
If the vote on the 14th of December repeals Net Neutrality then consumer options will be greatly reduced while increasing greatly in prices as we can see from Portugal's example.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by meustrus on Tuesday November 28 2017, @07:01PM (1 child)
If it can work, somebody will figure it out. They will start a new business to roll out their technology and fund it with investor backing. The investors will demand a profit strategy, leading to finance becoming a primary concern of this new company. If they want their service to be free to end users, they will need to find another way to do it. This will almost certainly involve monetizing whatever centralized database was easier to set up than a peer-to-peer system.
The end result will look a lot like our current internet architecture, but with one major difference: Instead of a slew of international non-profits managing the core infrastructure like DNS, a Facebook-like for-profit corporation will be in charge of everything.
This, my friends, is how Marxist revolutions turn into Soviet Russia. There will always be leaders, and it will always be easier for the leaders to achieve their goals with centralized authority.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:47AM
One model would be a "cooperative". [google.com]
(I'm seeing a lot of things that appear to be something else but which registered a .coop domain.) 8-(
N.B. I know that there are a bunch of legit electricity cooperatives in rural areas.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]