In the US, much of the population has essentially no choice over who to buy broadband from, with local monopolies enshrined in law and a nationwide duopoly providing access to high-speed connections for three quarters of the nation. That made net neutrality a much more theoretical issue,” Evans wrote. “When I lived in London I had a choice of a dozen broadband providers. As well as beating Netflix on its own terms, perhaps by offering better programming or a cheaper subscription, the new service would have to deal with the fact that some Vodafone subscribers will get Netflix without affecting their data caps, but streaming from the startup will eat up their limit very quickly.īut if net neutrality is already weak around the rest of the world, without such negative outcomes becoming widespread, why has the US reacted so strongly – and negatively – to the changes domestically? A glance at Reddit, the self-proclaimed front page of the internet, reveals the scale of the response: 16 of the 25 stories on the site’s homepage are about net neutrality, with all but two of them linking to the exact same page.Īs San Francisco-based, British-born, venture capitalist Benedict Evans noted, the biggest distinction is competition. Sometimes referred to as a “two-speed internet”, this runs the risk of entrenching incumbents at the top of the field, while making it very hard for startups to grow to the same scale.Ĭonsider, for instance, trying to advertise a new video-streaming service to New Zealand’s Vodafone customers. The second is more systemic: an exclusive list of apps and services that receive preferential treatment divides the internet into haves and have-nots. The first is that breaking the internet down into packages renders pricing confusing and difficult to compare, providing cover for mobile operators and ISPs to increase overall costs and pocket the difference. Supporters of net neutrality cite two major concerns about these practices. Three’s “ Go Binge” plans do similar having “teamed up with Netflix, TVPlayer, Deezer, SoundCloud and Apple Music” to exclude them from data caps. Virgin Mobile doesn’t charge extra for its packages, but does offer free data on three apps – Facebook Messenger, Twitter and WhatsApp – for subscribers. A “Social Pass” offers unlimited Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter for NZ$10 for 28 days, while a “Video Pass” gives five streaming services – including Netflix but not YouTube – for $20 a month.Įven British carriers are experimenting. In New Zealand, Vodafone offers a similar service: for a daily, weekly, or monthly fee, users can exempt bundles of apps from their monthly cap. In Portugal, with no net neutrality, internet providers are starting to split the net into packages. One such package for video provides 10GB of data exclusively for YouTube, Netflix, Periscope and Twitch, while one for messaging bundles six apps including Skype, WhatsApp and FaceTime. In Portugal, mobile carrier MEO offers regular data packages, but it also offers, for €4.99 a month, 10GB “Smart Net” packages. Outside the US, where net neutrality laws are weaker and rarely enforced, ISPs have been experimenting with the sorts of favouritism that a low-regulation environment permits. Their fear is that in an unregulated internet, ISPs may charge customers extra to visit certain websites, demand fees from the sites themselves to be delivered at full-speed, or privilege their own services over those of competitors. On the other side of the battle are companies relying on the internet to connect to customers. Net neutrality is unpopular with internet service providers (ISPs), who struggle to differentiate themselves in a world where all they can offer are faster speeds or higher bandwidth caps, and who have been leading the push to abandon the regulations in the US.
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