# Will FCC's 'serious concerns' derail AT&T's video service DirecTV Now?



## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

From the Dallas News:



> Dallas-based AT&T may have hit another major snag in its effort to transform the telecom company into a media and entertainment giant.
> 
> The Federal Communications Commission said in a letter sent Wednesday to AT&T that it has "serious concerns" about whether rivals will be able to compete with AT&T's new online video service. The subscription service, called DirecTV Now, is scheduled to debut in late November and will cost $35 per month for 100-plus channels. It'll go head-to-head with traditional cable providers and online streaming services, including Sling TV.
> 
> ...


Entire Article here: http://www.dallasnews.com/business/business/2016/11/10/fcc-says-serious-concerns-atts-directv-now


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## slice1900 (Feb 14, 2013)

With Trump going to the White House, the FCC will shift from 3/2 democrat to 3/2 republican, and they'll almost certainly back off trying to enforce any sort of network neutrality, let alone blocking "network neutrality lite" AT&T is using with zero rating. AT&T just needs to wait a couple months and this whole thing will go away.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

Right. Ajit Pai will likely be Chair at least for a while, Rosenworcel will likely have to step down at the end of the year as well unless she finally gets re-confirmed.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

FCC should have every right to be concerned as ATT is violating the Net Neutrality laws. There are zero rating their own product and not allowing everyone else to do the same. 


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

peds48 said:


> FCC should have every right to be concerned as ATT is violating the Net Neutrality laws. There are zero rating their own product and not allowing everyone else to do the same.


What does the law say? FCC regulations are written based on laws written by Congress. Sometimes Congress is explicit and the FCC doesn't have leeway to interpret the law. Other times Congress is vague and the FCC follows the opinion of the appointees. How much of Net Neutrality is explicit law and how much is changeable regulations?

The explicit law would be harder to change. Regulations can easily change based on who the appointees are.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

James Long said:


> What does the law say? FCC regulations are written based on laws written by Congress. Sometimes Congress is explicit and the FCC doesn't have leeway to interpret the law. Other times Congress is vague and the FCC follows the opinion of the appointees. How much of Net Neutrality is explicit law and how much is changeable regulations?
> 
> The explicit law would be harder to change. Regulations can easily change based on who the appointees are.


Net Neutrality stipulates that if you are going to zero rate one service you must also allow to zero rate some else's service. A la T-mobile.

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## Gordon Shumway (Jul 25, 2013)

peds48 said:


> Net Neutrality stipulates that if you are going to zero rate one service you must also allow to zero rate some else's service. A la T-mobile.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
> 
> But to James Long's point, is that an FCC rule, or is it law? Answer: It is a rule, which means the FCC can easily dump it.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

Gordon Shumway said:


> > Net Neutrality stipulates that if you are going to zero rate one service you must also allow to zero rate some else's service. A la T-mobile.
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
> >
> > But to James Long's point, is that an FCC rule, or is it law? Answer: It is a rule, which means the FCC can easily dump it.


same can be said about a law, it can easily be dumped as well. The point is that such rule is active today and my post is based on that.

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## AZ. (Mar 27, 2011)

What ever is worse for the consumer will happen.....Its all about the corporations now.....Remember they are people.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

peds48 said:


> same can be said about a law, it can easily be dumped as well. The point is that such rule is active today and my post is based on that.


Laws cannot be dumped as easily as rules ... which is why I asked the question.
If you don't know the answer that is fine - but the answer is important.

Laws have to go through congress (both house and senate) and be signed by the president. That process requires sponsorship, political will at multiple levels, a majority decision at several levels (committee and full body), concurrence between the bodies and in all but rare cases approval from the president. That is not easy compared to the commissioners changing a rule at the FCC level.

Is Zero-Rating a violation of explicit law or an FCC rule?


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## slice1900 (Feb 14, 2013)

It isn't clear that zero rating is in violation at all. Sprint is zero rating as well.

The net neutrality regulations, such as they are, come from the FCC not congress. With full republican control of congress/presidency in a couple months, the regulations are almost certain to go away. Worse comes to worse, if the FCC is able to make things tough on them now, AT&T could simply choose to delay the introduction of Directv Now a few months.


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## steveymacjr (Feb 21, 2016)

what is so wrong with Zero Rating?
By the way AT&T allows anyone to "Zero rate" it's called "Sponsored data" think of it as a toll free number for data.

Back to what is so wrong with Zero Rating. Ever since AT&T introduced this i've watched tons more content from networks like FX, CBS, Fox, FOX News, BBC America, among others, I wouldn't have watched these networks online if it weren't for Zero Rating(last month alone i used 10gb of sponsored data). This 10gb is now free to be used to watch NETFLIX if i want.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

steveymacjr said:


> what is so wrong with Zero Rating?
> By the way AT&T allows anyone to "Zero rate" it's called "Sponsored data" think of it as a toll free number for data.


The difference between a toll number and a toll free number is who pays the toll. If I make a toll call I pay the toll, if I call a toll free number the receiving party pays the toll. One way or the other the toll is paid. There is no special preference shown to business A, an affiliate of my local phone company, compared to business B, a competitor. If business A chooses to have a toll free number and business B does not then business A pays the toll instead of me ... but a toll is still paid.

Cell phones (and VOIP services) have weakened the example by having larger free calling areas (calling to any number in the country and often any number in the US and Canada is included) but the rate to a similar location is the same. No bias based on if I am calling a partner of my phone company or not.

A toll free number changes who is paying the toll, but it also changes who is carrying the call. If I make a toll call the call is made through a long distance carrier of my choice. My local exchange carrier hands the call off to my chosen long distance carrier at a local or regional switching center and my long distance carrier is responsible for delivering the call to the destination. In essence, I am making a local rated call to the switching center and paying the long distance carrier for the rest of the connection. When I make a toll free call the call is handed off to whatever long distance company the company with a toll free number chooses. It is still a local rated call to the switching center - but the path to the destination is decided by the company paying for the call.

Netflix has used a "toll free" style system placing servers and connections inside of an ISP's network. All local traffic is rated the same and because Netflix is inside the local network they are considered local.

As long as the partner business is paying a fair rate not charging the consumer is fair. But when "Zero Rating" becomes charging a partner zero for the exact same connection that a competitor is charged more for it becomes an issue.

There are checks in place to make sure that Comcast is paying a competitive rate for NBC Universal content on their cable systems ... that they are not abusing their partnership and charging competing cable and satellite systems more for their content channels or refusing to pay competing content channels a competitive rate on their cable systems. Net Neutrality is an effort to extend that type of fairness to Internet content delivery.


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## Troch2002 (May 8, 2016)

James Long said:


> The difference between a toll number and a toll free number is who pays the toll. If I make a toll call I pay the toll, if I call a toll free number the receiving party pays the toll. One way or the other the toll is paid. There is no special preference shown to business A, an affiliate of my local phone company, compared to business B, a competitor. If business A chooses to have a toll free number and business B does not then business A pays the toll instead of me ... but a toll is still paid.
> 
> Cell phones (and VOIP services) have weakened the example by having larger free calling areas (calling to any number in the country and often any number in the US and Canada is included) but the rate to a similar location is the same. No bias based on if I am calling a partner of my phone company or not.
> 
> ...


There is still a thing called Toll call and Long distance in the USA?


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## poppo (Oct 10, 2006)

Troch2002 said:


> There is still a thing called Toll call and Long distance in the USA?


Yes. Maybe more so if you live rural like I do, and still need a land line. There are some numbers in the same area code that require a 1 prefix and the area code. These are local toll calls. So you have local, local toll, and long distance.


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## steveymacjr (Feb 21, 2016)

I stil don't see how this is anti-consumer.

If i'm a rural customer with no cable service, or a low income customer that doesn't have broadband(or really slow broadband) I could get the $35 Directv NOW package and stream everything on my phone or an AT&T powered tablet and not have to worry about using my data.. more choice!


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

Since DIRECTV is owned by att I don't see how it has much to do with zero rating really. They can simply call it a perk of being a combined services customer. In fact does att call it zero rating anywhere?

And t mobile is getting the providers to pay for the signals to get to them properly for their network so they aren't counting it against data because they don't have to spend the money to get it on their network. Just because it's bartering doesn't mean it's not paying to be on... zero rating is a myth... they are all getting something out of it. 

Again follow the money. Someone at another company is likely pushing this agenda because they can't compete as well.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

poppo said:


> Yes. Maybe more so if you live rural like I do, and still need a land line. There are some numbers in the same area code that require a 1 prefix and the area code. These are local toll calls. So you have local, local toll, and long distance.


And it's a massive racket that is basically going to get worse since it's all about paying to keep up a system that many people have left so they have fewer people paying to keep it up. VoIP is where we are headed. Cell and home.


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## poppo (Oct 10, 2006)

inkahauts said:


> And it's a massive racket that is basically going to get worse since it's all about paying to keep up a system that many people have left so they have fewer people paying to keep it up.* VoIP is where we are headed. Cell and home.*


Not going to happen any time soon unless someone foots the bill to provide rural folks with something that actually works. I get no cell service where I live and I'm only 30 miles out of the city. Sat internet is expensive and just has too much latency for decent VoIP, and a WISP like I have is expensive and also has issues with VoIP. I think many people don't realize just how many people live rural and don't have cell service, cable, etc. . Most of the people around here still use dial-up.

And before anyone says "Too bad for you for living rural', don't forget where most of the food you eat comes from.

A little old from last year, but a good read about AT&T broken promises about providing high speed



> In FCC filings, AT&T has argued that its promise to offer broadband to all residents in its territory is no longer relevant because the 200kbps broadband standard from 2007 is now outdated. In other words, AT&T is under no obligation to offer customers the speeds they need to use the modern Internet.


http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/internet-nightmare-att-sells-broadband-to-your-neighbors-but-not-to-you/


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

poppo said:


> And before anyone says "Too bad for you for living rural', don't forget where most of the food you eat comes from.


I didn't know cows and corn needed high speed data to grow.


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## Troch2002 (May 8, 2016)

poppo said:


> Yes. Maybe more so if you live rural like I do, and still need a land line. There are some numbers in the same area code that require a 1 prefix and the area code. These are local toll calls. So you have local, local toll, and long distance.


I just assumed most land lines had Unlimited calling even long distance at no additional charge . I mean it is almost 2017.


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## Troch2002 (May 8, 2016)

poppo said:


> Not going to happen any time soon unless someone foots the bill to provide rural folks with something that actually works. I get no cell service where I live and I'm only 30 miles out of the city. Sat internet is expensive and just has too much latency for decent VoIP, and a WISP like I have is expensive and also has issues with VoIP. I think many people don't realize just how many people live rural and don't have cell service, cable, etc. . Most of the people around here still use dial-up.
> 
> And before anyone says "Too bad for you for living rural', don't forget where most of the food you eat comes from.
> 
> ...


Farms are all over the place.
And most have room for Cell towers, and most farmers allow such for the simple fact its garentee income, which pay their land taxes.

Your more than likely to not have service living in the woods, than on a farm.
Just saying.
Even Amish land they have 4G LTE in PA.
They probably have Unlimited local and long distance from there phone booth too.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Troch2002 said:


> I just assumed most land lines had Unlimited calling even long distance at no additional charge . I mean it is almost 2017.


A landline having unlimited nationwide (no toll charges) calling would be the most unlikely situation. You are much more likely to see unlimited (no toll) on cell or VoIP lines. You are more likely to see local calls billed on a landline (metered service) than be offered an unlimited (no toll) calling areas.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

Troch2002 said:


> I just assumed most land lines had Unlimited calling even long distance at no additional charge . I mean it is almost 2017.


And they are still regulated liek they where 30 years ago, so the pricing structures just dont change easily.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

poppo said:


> Not going to happen any time soon unless someone foots the bill to provide rural folks with something that actually works. I get no cell service where I live and I'm only 30 miles out of the city. Sat internet is expensive and just has too much latency for decent VoIP, and a WISP like I have is expensive and also has issues with VoIP. I think many people don't realize just how many people live rural and don't have cell service, cable, etc. . Most of the people around here still use dial-up.
> 
> And before anyone says "Too bad for you for living rural', don't forget where most of the food you eat comes from.
> 
> ...


First to be clear, I mean even cell calls will become voip calls...

Second, yes many are out there, but at some point, they will want to stop messing with the lines way out in rural areas and supply them with the newer wireless services that have already begun testing in many areas and this will open up to the conversion to voip for landlines. Its probably another 5 years out before it starts to really become cost effective but at some point it will be so cost effective they will do it. It won't just be about maintaining the physical lines to peoples houses so far out of town but also the backbone to keep it running. Less people on it means less money to keep it going, and the economics will push the conversion...


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## poppo (Oct 10, 2006)

Troch2002 said:


> Farms are all over the place.
> And most have room for Cell towers, and most farmers allow such for the simple fact its garentee income, which pay their land taxes.


Yes farms are all over the place. Cell towers aren't. They are not going to put up a tower for maybe a dozen households. We (in the area) have already tried for years.

My point was that some of us don't live rural by choice to get away from the city, but have been running farms for generations.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

inkahauts said:


> Since DIRECTV is owned by att I don't see how it has much to do with zero rating really. They can simply call it a perk of being a combined services customer. In fact does att call it zero rating anywhere?.


internet is treated different regardless if you own the internet and content. Same reason why Comcast can't ride its content free and not provide the same benefit to everybody else



inkahauts said:


> And t mobile is getting the providers to pay for the signals to get to them properly for their network so they aren't counting it against data because they don't have to spend the money to get it on their network. Just because it's bartering doesn't mean it's not paying to be on... zero rating is a myth... they are all getting something out of it.
> 
> Again follow the money. Someone at another company is likely pushing this agenda because they can't compete as well.


Not true, T-Mobile does not charges anyone to let their content ride at no cost to the content owner. See qualifications below.

http://www.t-mobile.com/content/dam/tmo/en-g/pdf/BingeOn-Video-Technical-Criteria-March-2016.pdf

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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

inkahauts said:


> Since DIRECTV is owned by att I don't see how it has much to do with zero rating really. They can simply call it a perk of being a combined services customer. In fact does att call it zero rating anywhere?


In AT&Ts case they call it sponsored data. Sponsored data was introduced about 3 years ago. Meaning a company pays the data charge. I saw the term also used in the Directv app.

So theoretically DIRECTV should be paying AT&T for your airtime. That will likely be part of the investigation.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

NR4P said:


> So theoretically DIRECTV should be paying AT&T for your airtime. That will likely be part of the investigation.


I agree - that would be a key.


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## trh (Nov 3, 2007)

Troch2002 said:


> Farms are all over the place.
> And most have room for Cell towers, and most farmers allow such for the simple fact its garentee income, which pay their land taxes.


Just because farms have room for towers, doesn't mean much. Cell companies only put towers in where there is enough usage to get a return on that investment and where they need to install one to cover a desired area. Sure, driving down the interstate through farm country you'll see lots of towers in the fields. But it is the demand by the interstate traffic that dictates those towers. Get away from a major road and in the middle of a bunch of farms, there isnt a demand and not that many towers.

Tower companies also pay a rate based on the demand and availability of where they need to locate a tower. (They will pay you more for a tower in NYC because of demand and limited space to install a tower, than they will in BFE).

Also, that fee they pay is income to the farmer, therefore they have to pay taxes on it. How much is left to pay their bills will certainly vary.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

peds48 said:


> internet is treated different regardless if you own the internet and content. Same reason why Comcast can't ride its content free and not provide the same benefit to everybody else
> 
> Not true, T-Mobile does not charges anyone to let their content ride at no cost to the content owner. See qualifications below.
> 
> ...


They require the company to spend money they would have to to provide that particular signal. Its the same thing, just semantics and technicalities...

There is a cost to do it, and they are simply telling people if you pay for that cost and then hand us the prepared signal, we wont charge you for it.... Its marketing to say free even though its not free for the companies to get their content on the service. I have no issue with it, but its still not truly free from beginning to end. someone is spending money to make this happen, and T mobile is the one dictating who is spending the money.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

NR4P said:


> In AT&Ts case they call it sponsored data. Sponsored data was introduced about 3 years ago. Meaning a company pays the data charge. I saw the term also used in the Directv app.
> 
> So theoretically DIRECTV should be paying AT&T for your airtime. That will likely be part of the investigation.


Yeah, that could be key in some way...

Really its an odd situation to even question it though, because they could also easily call it part of the service you are paying for when you bundle. I mean how is this any different than a company with internet caps not counting their on demand delivered movie library towards the cap if they also are subscribing to their tv packages but they do count vudu movies against it.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

inkahauts said:


> I mean how is this any different than a company with internet caps not counting their on demand delivered movie library towards the cap if they also are subscribing to their tv packages but they do count vudu movies against it.


That would be the target of the next investigation. AT&T|DIRECTV being big puts them in the crosshairs. If the FCC is successful in keeping Comcast, AT&T and the other major companies following the rules they will be able to work their way down to smaller companies.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

James Long said:


> That would be the target of the next investigation. AT&T|DIRECTV being big puts them in the crosshairs. If the FCC is successful in keeping Comcast, AT&T and the other major companies following the rules they will be able to work their way down to smaller companies.


Yes but why is it wrong in the first place? It's all products they sell and people pay for. And when bundled they get an additional incentive. Just like triple play from cable companies. Unless they are going to outlaw bundling entirely this is hypocritical really. The market will fix this one if there's actually anything wrong with it.

Personally I think all these incentives will help every consumer. The more stress put on att network and systems because of this the more money they will have to invest to make their network and backbone better. Just as T mobile has gotten these other providers to help them with as well on the backbone side as quid pro quo. Plus everyone wants faster networks too and this will help drive the economics to make that happen sooner for every carrier.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

inkahauts said:


> They require the company to spend money they would have to to provide that particular signal. Its the same thing, just semantics and technicalities...
> 
> There is a cost to do it, and they are simply telling people if you pay for that cost and then hand us the prepared signal, we wont charge you for it.... Its marketing to say free even though its not free for the companies to get their content on the service. I have no issue with it, but its still not truly free from beginning to end. someone is spending money to make this happen, and T mobile is the one dictating who is spending the money.


 again, incorrect. You can choose to do the down scaling yourself of have T-Mobile do it for you. And even if they provider were to spend any money down scaling, that would be a moot point as what we are discussing here ATT giving priority over any other service and not making that offer available to anyone else. With T-Mobile you don't pay them to ride for free on their network and anyone is welcome to join.

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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

inkahauts said:


> Yes but why is it wrong in the first place?


Large vertically integrated companies keeping others out of the marketplace. If that doesn't sound wrong to you then another 1000 or 10,000 words on the topic is not going to help.



inkahauts said:


> Personally I think all these incentives will help every consumer. The more stress put on att network and systems because of this the more money they will have to invest to make their network and backbone better. Just as T mobile has gotten these other providers to help them with as well on the backbone side as quid pro quo. Plus everyone wants faster networks too and this will help drive the economics to make that happen sooner for every carrier.


One does not increase speed by increasing data usage, filling available capacity.

The "help" T-Mobile is getting from content providers is the acceptance of providing a lower quality product to T-Mobile customers. Limit your feeds to 1.5 Mbps or let T-Mobile limit your feeds to 1.5 Mbps or force your customers to pay T-Mobile more to see your content (or choose a competing provider that has agreed to limit their feeds). This helps with consumption of capacity but the cost is a lower quality service.

Increasing demand gives the carriers a reason to go to the government and request additional bandwidth. There are only two ways to increase capacity ... one is to add additional bandwidth (such as adding LTE bandwidth to an existing cellular or PCS carrier) and the other is to REDUCE data usage on existing bandwidth (the T-Mobile way of forcing their users to consume less bandwidth by decreasing the quality of their streams). Wireless companies are going after more OTA broadcast spectrum. They can use their increased data usage to demonstrate a "need" for that additional bandwidth.

The concept is fill all you have as you ask for more.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

James Long said:


> Large vertically integrated companies keeping others out of the marketplace. If that doesn't sound wrong to you then another 1000 or 10,000 words on the topic is not going to help.
> 
> One does not increase speed by increasing data usage, filling available capacity.
> 
> ...


Prove that one massive company can keep another massive company from succeeding....

Att and DIRECTV now and not counting it's data against a cap will not impact sling or T-Mobile or anyone else that is in this business now from being able to stay in the market in any way and gaining some sort of large market share. Heck prove that att isn't doing this because of t mobile and their streaming stuff. Why can't this be reactionary vs predatory.

And we are way beyond the point of worrying about a tiny startup...


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

peds48 said:


> again, incorrect. You can choose to do the down scaling yourself of have T-Mobile do it for you. And even if they provider were to spend any money down scaling, that would be a moot point as what we are discussing here ATT giving priority over any other service and not making that offer available to anyone else. With T-Mobile you don't pay them to ride for free on their network and anyone is welcome to join.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I'd love to live in your world where massive data like that is easily and freely moved all around the country onto t mobile systems. I bet Netflix would disagree about the costs, something they learned when they started paying people like Comcast not to long ago.

It costs to get stuff on a network, period. T mobile isn't some company just giving away the farm for free and providing things for free that no other company is doing for free.

And again, prove to me that att offering to add DIRECTV now without it hitting the cap when you are paying for that service with the same company is prioritizing it over say sling tv that you aren't paying att for and therefore are not paying att to put it on their network. Yet it's ok for cable companies to basically give you Internet OR Internet AND cable tv for the same price to discourage you from getting satelite. Where is the difference there? From a business standpoint there isn't one. Same as I said earlier about on demand not hitting a cable companies data caps...


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

inkahauts said:


> I'd love to live in your world where massive data like that is easily and freely moved all around the country onto t mobile systems. I bet Netflix would disagree about the costs, something they learned when they started paying people like Comcast not to long ago.


There is a HUGE difference is the smith of data being transmitted over Comcast and T-Mobile. Netflix on T-Mobile is cap at 1.5Mbps, while on Comcast it is a lot more, specially of your are doing 4K.



inkahauts said:


> It costs to get stuff on a network, period. T-Mobile isn't some company just giving away the farm for free and providing things for free that no other company is doing for free.


Apparently you haven't been paying attention on how T-Mobile is doing business. They are known for doing what other company would never do. They aren't giving the farm for free, they "catch" here is that you can stream al you want for free and it does not cost you a penny and T-Mobile can do this without having to spend 6 Billion on the GO90 service as Verizon did or 85 Million as ATT did. So T-Mobile advertises you can watch all the TV you want and they did not spent a dime on buying any TV content. And the proof is in the pudding, they are the only ones with constantly (significantly) subscriber growth for the last 3 years, whiles ATT has been losing subs left and right. So here everybody wins. Contents owners wins as they get their product to their (T-Mobile) customers without paying extra, T-Mobile wins by getting new subs, etc. The losers are ATT and Verizon.



inkahauts said:


> And again, prove to me that att offering to add DIRECTV now without it hitting the cap when you are paying for that service with the same company is prioritizing it xcaps...


Because the laws says so (currently) all broadband got reclassified the same as POTS an as such the FCC can regulate it and they said that you can't use you own service as an advantage and not provide the same "advantage" to everyone else. This is the foundation of Net Neutrality.



inkahauts said:


> Over say sling tv that you aren't paying att for and therefore are not paying att to put it on their network. Yet it's ok for cable companies to basically give you Internet OR Internet AND cable tv for the same price to discourage you from getting satelite. Where is the difference there? From a business standpoint there isn't one. Same as I said earlier about on demand not hitting a cable companies data caps...


There is no difference, and that is the whole point, if Comcast is not going to count their Video on Demand as part of the data cap, then they should not count any other video traffic against the customers data cap. But this may all be a moot point in 2 months once the Net Neutrality gets vacated by the next administration.

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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

inkahauts said:


> Prove that one massive company can keep another massive company from succeeding....


It isn't just about the massive companies vs each other. It is a matter of fairness for all players in the marketplace. And protecting the consumer as much as protecting the providers and carriers against each other.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

James Long said:


> It isn't just about the massive companies vs each other. It is a matter of fairness for all players in the marketplace. And protecting the consumer as much as protecting the providers and carriers against each other.


right. And it seems that the protection varies with the administration currently in place. One "seems" to want to protect the big corporations while the other one "seems" to want to protect the consumer. Which method is better is up to your ideological beliefs.

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## steveymacjr (Feb 21, 2016)

this is all moot anyway... new administration, new FCC direction.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

steveymacjr said:


> this is all moot anyway... new administration, new FCC direction.


 you are right. But since this post started during this current administration we have to deal with what is currently in place.

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