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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: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday November 29 2017, @07:55PM
The issue described in that linked article isn't going to get any better without net neutrality. In fact, it'll probably get a hell of a lot worse.
Right now we have issues where Twitter/Facebook/Google/etc will arbitrarily remove or block content. And that's a bit annoying, but it's easily solved by telling them to fuck off and using a different website.
Without net neutrality, we could easily lose that choice. When Facebook contracts with Comcast to become the official social network of Comcast, and any competing social networks are blocked, then you can't just go elsewhere. Look at the original article. The ISP offers a "Social" tier which includes Facebook, Instagram (...which is also Facebook), Twitter, Snapchat...but does it include Diaspora*, GNUSocial, or Mastadon? If you're unhappy with the actions of the big four, too damn bad, because that's the only plan you can get.
So is your argument that we should make Facebook a heavily regulated public utility so they can't engage in censorship, but allow the ISPs to do whatever they want? That seems completely backwards. The problem isn't that Facebook limits content; the problem is that ISPs want to prevent you from taking your business elsewhere. And it's a lot harder to take your business elsewhere if you don't like your ISP -- in many areas you might have exactly one choice, and building a competing service is at best an extreme logistical challenge and at worst completely illegal.