[Nerd City] INSIDE THE MIND OF AJIT PAI (Net Neutrality) - General

You can still get broadband and internet service in Portugal that doesn't involve data caps right? [editline]13th December 2017[/editline] Is there a reason data caps exist? Like on one hand it gives consumers an option to maybe pay less for something that they may not use as much as others, but I also think data caps as a concept is an anti-consumer thing.

[QUOTE=Firo;52973304]Bandwidth and congestion have little to do with data caps. I understand that they do help limit the heavier users, but if that was their purpose then why would anything apart from constant HD streaming or big downloads need to be capped? Facebook and Twitter browsing has no right to be on a zero-rate plan just to alleviate congestion. Providers can even implement better ways to handle congestion per-tower, but data caps are way easier, and way more profitable. My point is, if you even have the option to pay extra for unlimited Facebook, then the base cap is far far too low. The only reason for having it that low is to milk as much from customers as possible with these "consumer-friendly packages".[/QUOTE] I'm not gonna say caps are there solely to control congestion/bandwidth issues, but it's a way to manage the problem. A real solution would be just to disable the caps altogether, leaving behind a "reasonable use" clause and hunt down people who make the experience worse for everyone, but that'd devolve into bandwidth gestapo pretty quick and a shifty definition of "reasonable use". We all know how that turned out in the US, at least this way is fair for everyone. I agree with your reasoning! However, you can't buy unlimited facebook on that package, what you can buy is extra 10GB bundles on your cap for social apps (which is separate from your general cap). I've never known anyone who needs those packages, though, since the base caps are pretty generous, but that's admittedly anecdotal evidence I can't back up :(

And yeah, data caps aren't the same as throttling the speed for certain sources.

[QUOTE=MrJazzy;52973355]You can still get broadband and internet service in Portugal that doesn't involve data caps right? [editline]13th December 2017[/editline] Is there a reason data caps exist? Like on one hand it gives consumers an option to maybe pay less for something that they may not use as much as others, but I also think data caps as a concept is an anti-consumer thing.[/QUOTE] Oh yeah, all landline contracts are cap-less. Only mobile contracts have caps in them, and I don't think I can even subscribe to an "unlimited" cap mobile contract (I think I could before, but ANACOM, our FCC, [URL=https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.anacom.pt%2Frender.jsp%3FcontentId%3D1254812&edit-text=&act=url]stepped in and made "unlimited" caps illegal[/URL]).

Don't think you can get unlimited mobile data caps anywhere, tbh, so while you could argue that these packages are anticompetetive and such in a way they're certainly not the nightmare that the US could (and would) see if net neutrality was reppealed.

[QUOTE=EcksDee;52973132]This is your mind on non-net-neutrality. Make sure you don't become like this and normalize bullshit.[/QUOTE] I don't see why. I don't have the packages and I have no problem whatsoever...

[QUOTE=Rocâ„¢;52973503]I don't see why. I don't have the packages and I have no problem whatsoever...[/QUOTE] Yet... And that's the problem, they wait until you least expect it and then slowly creep it in, [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog"]boiling frog metaphor[/URL] style.

[QUOTE=Van-man;52974238]Yet... And that's the problem, they wait until you least expect it and then slowly creep it in, [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog"]boiling frog metaphor[/URL] style.[/QUOTE] It's been like this for a few years already. I doubt there would be changes for the worse. People usually catch up to this shit. There was this one time when they gave us a month of extra data, and said we could opt in to it for the next months for a fee. In reality, you ended up paying that fee even if you didn't accept it, most likely even without your knowledge, let alone your consent. People found this out, and DECO started investigating into it right away, and warning people about the scam.

[QUOTE=PacificV2;52971286]I was loving the video until he struck Portugal as an example of a lack of net neutrality gone wrong. He didn't do his research (which is just going to the [URL=https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/923701871092441088]source tweet[/URL] and scrolling down until people start yelling in gibberish and waving portuguese flags around), which I find weird. [URL=https://www.snopes.com/portugal-net-neutrality/]This is patently false.[/URL] The package bundles shown in the video are just discounted data caps for those applications, and while you could argue that places apps which aren't present in any bundle at a disadvantage, those bundles reflect what the market wants and consumes. Nobody is pissed off about this, and we, just like the US, enjoy our net neutrality very much. The "oh but that's Portugal, the US would never stand for this" joke lands a little off.[/QUOTE] Zero-rating is important though, because it does bring up that it can be difficult to fully define net neutrality. Although zero-rating does fall a bit more on the black side than in the gray area, there is still ISP-level caching.

[QUOTE=PacificV2;52973188]But there isn't enough bandwidth to go around? [/QUOTE] [I]Then maybe the greedy fucks running these companies should hold off on buying their sixth Merc S-class [B]and upgrade the god damned infrastructure like they were told to do 15 or 20 years ago.[/B][/I]

Oh my god, this channel is incredible.

[QUOTE=PacificV2;52973188]But there isn't enough bandwidth to go around? This is a mobile service, the towers have maximum bandwidth limits and have to deal with congestion. Data caps help to ensure that towers can serve every customer without being overloaded. If this was on a landline service, sure, bandwidth and congestion is so less of a problem there that pulling caps would be nothing else except evil, but right now I see a whole different situation from where I'm standing. [editline]13th December 2017[/editline] I'm gonna double down on saying that Portugal has, due to the EU, enshrined laws on net neutrality. If this even starts happening, the lawsuits will start coming in from consumer protection agencies (which are pretty strong in Europe), the government is gonna start snooping around and demanding answers, and the EU will go down on them. Oh, and of course, their competition would use the free PR to convince people to jump over to another carrier. It's a losing situation. I don't see it at all comparable to what happened in the US with minimum wage. I simply don't see it happening with our current laws. [editline]13th December 2017[/editline] [URL=http://berec.europa.eu/eng/netneutrality/zero_rating/]Because I recognize, just like the EU, that zero-rating apps and packages can help consumers instead of being predatorial.[/URL] Net neutrality laws exist solely so that the consumer isn't harmed, and that's not at all what Portugal's situation is - if anything, some companies are affected by not being "the chosen" and are therefore put at a disadvantage, but the process through those apps are selected seems clear and transparent enough from where I'm standing. We need to be on the lookout if shady stuff starts happening, for sure, but right now nothing's really gone wild. I'm currently on a package that zero-rates most of the apps I use, and that's the main reason I jumped from my previous carrier to my current carrier, since in all truth they all basically offer the exact same service. There's a LOT of nuance people here aren't acknowledging, and a lot of hardline comments which ignore what the market really is, but that's alright and expected. Portugal never comes up on the news positively :P Hit me up if I can clear out anything for you, I'll do so at the best of my ability.[/QUOTE] "if anything, some companies are affected by not being "the chosen" and are therefore put at a disadvantage" This is one of many reasons net neutrality is important, it's not just "protect consumers", its also to protect small business and allow new websites/services to be used and exist. If a company can afford to provide zero rating for one service it can provide it to them all of them or should limit it's bandwidth in a more reasonable way, you can do qos on another level if that's your concern. But yeah, fuck that, it's a blatent violation of neutrality and the EU should pull it's head out of their ass on this issue. Data caps on their own don't fall under net neutrality, but they shouldn't exist to begin if you actually know how internet works. Either way you need to support a level of peak traffic, whether or not someone uses data in a month will bring up the average but peaks are typically only mildly affected and currently ISPs dont even bother properly supporting peak use. For years i dealt with internet that would go to shit near peak times and data caps do literally nothing to resolve the actual problems ISPs claim they have, its just another money gouging method.