AT&T Should Be Investigated For 'Fraudulent' Data Policies, Says PK 138
zacharye writes "AT&T on Monday announced a new plan that will let developers pay for the data used by their apps and services. The data consumed by apps that make use of this new feature would not apply toward a user's data cap. The new service was pitched as a way for content providers to ease customers' growing concerns over wireless data usage, however one public interest group sees the feature as a slap in the face to AT&T subscribers. 'This new plan is unfortunate because it shows how fraudulent the AT&T data cap is, and calls into question the whole rationale of the data caps,' Harold Feld, legal director of Public Knowledge, said in a statement. 'Apparently it has nothing to do with network management. It's a tool to get more revenue from developers and customers.'"
Well, yeah... (Score:1, Interesting)
" 'Apparently it has nothing to do with network management. It's a tool to get more revenue from developers and customers.'"
Well, yeah. And the customers buy it anyway. Darn that free market.
network neutrality killer ? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is another kick in the balls of network neutrality. These people won't stop until they get anyone that touches a bit in transit to pay for the privilege. The end-user already pays. They wanted the source of the data to pay (despite that they pay for their connectivity). Now they want the provider of the app that receives data to pay. I wonder what other such innovations are waiting for us in the future.
Re:So now AT&T is saying it's NOT a capacity p (Score:5, Interesting)
While I tend to believe that this is AT&T being corporate money-grabbing assholes, I have to disagree on the inference you made, that "we will allow the apps on our network if devs pay for bandwidth" implies "there is no capacity problem".
Charging for something is a way for regulating demand for a scarce supply of something. It's literally Econ 101, supply and demand. AT&T has to charge someone for the capacity used, such that the rates charged for it will regulate it. If there's a capacity problem, the rates go up. When the rates go up, demand goes down, and the capacity eventually reaches equilibrium based on price. It's how any producer sets the price of something in limited supply and high demand.
If demand is high enough for a sustained amount of time, then it's in AT&T's best interest to expand the production capacity (i.e. increase bandwidth available on their network), thus raising the supply. The marginal price goes down, but they are selling more total bandwidth, so their total revenue goes up. If they don't expand in a timely manner, a competitor comes in with better service for the same price, and all AT&T's customers leave and join the competitor.
In any case, you need to attach a price to the thing in limited supply so that it self-regulates. If no one pays for it, that's when there's a capacity problem.
If you want to argue about AT&T selling unlimited data plans that aren't really unlimited, that's one thing. You can also argue that bandwidth is not a true "physical" resource that takes cost to produce; once a certain capacity is in place, you shouldn't charge for usage. You can also argue that spectrum itself is scarce and the government grants a monopoly to these few companies, so competition is limited or nonexistent, and so they should be regulated. These are all fair arguments. But the general inference of "devs pay for bandwidth" => "no capacity problem" is fallacious.