The future of the Internet: Mobile providers wanting to charge per "service" and more...

LordSplodge

LordSplodge

LordSplodge

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There may be trouble ahead for us smartphone users...and Internet users in general.

This article over on Engadget says that "Wireless" (read: mobile) carriers are openly considering charging per service.

Whilst this is currently only a proposal for the American market the webinar mentions Vodafone so I would be in no doubt that it will make its way to the UK. Kind of like a lot of ding-bat policies from over the pond tend to do so. In essence this will allow carriers to charge different amounts for different services. So say 2p per megabyte for FaceBook, more for YouTube and carrier sites (like the Vodafone website) are free.

Now I have a samrtphone and make very little calls but use a lot of data. I do not look forward to being charged more to use, say a vpn to my computers over the "free" O2 content provided. It is the scenario that net neutrality advocates have feared.

You only have to look at what happened to the so called "unlimited" data plans as soon as smartphone usage took off. This is a carriers wet dream.

So when do we think this will be rolled out to landline ISPs?

Oh and the worse bit? They say they can see inside of encrypted packets to tell what they are...

[We use] a number of different methods to accurately identify the application -- methods like heuristic analysis, behavioral and historical analysis, deep packet inspection, and a number of other techniques. What's key is that we have the best application identification available on the market, which means that even applications that are encrypted or use other methods to evade detection will be correctly identified and classified... We essentially feed this real-time information about traffic and application usage into the policy and charging system. Each subscriber has a particular service plan that they sign up for, and they're as generic or as personalized as the operator wants.
Click to expand...


<overly dramatic statement> The future of the Internet is at stake here </overly dramatic statement>

No matter how you look at it the current Internet is under attack. One side we have the carriers who do not want to be providers of dumb pipes (especially those with a vested interest - i.e. media companies) and on the other is the government who don't like the freedom and power it gives the common man (look at the furore over WikiLeaks).
 
And yet there is 3, paving the way for a real unlimited data customer scramble....
 
It's simple, if they start charging for silly things like this I will get rid of my smart phone and simply go back to a normal phone. I managed very well before I had it and I am sure, after a while, I really wouldn't miss it :)
 
AHarvey said:
It's simple, if they start charging for silly things like this I will get rid of my smart phone and simply go back to a normal phone. I managed very well before I had it and I am sure, after a while, I really wouldn't miss it :)
Click to expand...

Same, where a smartphone is quite handy - i don't want my phone to cost me loads of ££ just for checking Facebook etc. so i would gladly lose that functionality if it wouls save me cash.
 
am I the only one that used a phone for texts and the odd call? I don't use it to go online as it costs too much if you don't have it as a bundle
 
AHarvey said:
It's simple, if they start charging for silly things like this I will get rid of my smart phone and simply go back to a normal phone. I managed very well before I had it and I am sure, after a while, I really wouldn't miss it :)
Click to expand...

The bigger worry for me is if this goes ahead that ISPs who are under massive pressure from media providers (or worse *are* media providers) will use this to enforce packet priority.

Hey you want good access to YouTube? You'll need our YouTube account.

Thin edge of the wedge as per usual...
 
AHarvey said:
It's simple, if they start charging for silly things like this I will get rid of my smart phone and simply go back to a normal phone. I managed very well before I had it and I am sure, after a while, I really wouldn't miss it :)
Click to expand...

Double post. Sorry.

EDIT: never mind the implications of not being able to hide (encrypt) what the traffic is like you can do at the moment to avoid traffic management.
 
What's their justification for doing so?

At the end of the day data is data and there is no reasonable excuse for charging differently depending which service or website you use, its a disgusting idea and the fact they're even talking about it makes me angry and concerned, they know progress means we will eventually just have always online mobile devices that communicate over the internet, no more silly rates for texts and calls, just data as thats all it is, of course they don't like that as its all about greed and control using artificial limitations.

The whole net neutrality thing shouldn't even be an issue, we pay our isp to access the internet, so do websites and services pay their host/isp, which is fine and as it should be, anything else and it sounds like they want extra profits and control they don't deserve, if they dare try turning the net into a broken cable/sat tv like subscription service im sure they will have a major fight on their hands, it won't work.
 
The real question here is whether the 3G/4G networks can actually sustain a huge growth in smartphone numbers with all the traffic that this could potentially generate. I suspect not. If we all started watching videos and the like then we would probably bring them to a standstill. Does anyone here have any mobile network data capacity stats and projections?
 
wont happen

there was the same mass scare / panic a few years ago about ISP's doing the same thing and nothing became of it because it would be commercial suicide for any company to do this

that article will just be the result of some crappy marketing department presentation about some amazing new way to make loads of money which is probably never to be seen / used in the real world
 
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I was going to chime in "whatever carrier doesn't adopt this will win all the customers". But then I realised its simply not true, whilst people like the members on this forum you are at least vaguely educated or have at least considered the problems caused by such measures taken by the phone companies, the general public will just sheepishly accept that they now have to pay more to have their internet effectively censored by high charges.

They wont even look at the carrier that has the uncensored version, they'll just go with the carrier with the shiniest phone, which will be the ones charging more, as they have the additional revenue stream to offer better deals.
 
AHarvey said:
It's simple, if they start charging for silly things like this I will get rid of my smart phone and simply go back to a normal phone. I managed very well before I had it and I am sure, after a while, I really wouldn't miss it :)
Click to expand...

Agree with that 100%

....still have an old nokia 8310 around here somewhere :D
 
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