[opendtv] Re: Charter seeks FCC OK to impose data caps and charge fees to video services
- From: "Craig Birkmaier" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "brewmastercraig" for DMARC)
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2020 08:20:47 -0400
On Jun 24, 2020, at 4:49 PM, Manfredi (US), Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Charter seems to have difficulty understanding that the reason people buy
their broadband service, paying monthly fees corresponding to different speed
categories, **is** essentially 100% for Internet streaming. Arguably, it
should be Charter paying the large OTT services, for giving them this new
business model, on a silver platter.
What the customer chooses to do with broadband service is irrelevant. Yes
streaming is the 800 pound gorilla in the room, but Charter is not asking to be
treated by different rules than competitors: THEY ARE being treated by
different rules than competitors.
To be fair they agreed to this as part of the deal to acquire Time Warner
Cable. This story is about their desire to be treated the same as competitors.
The data cap issue is mostly irrelevant for fixed broadband. We have never
exceeded our data cap, despite using an HDTV streaming VMVPD service. The
industry now offers service tiers that provide customers with performance
levels with data caps that are appropriate for most homes.
The real issue here is the fact that Charter cannot charge the big streaming
services for co-location of servers, as is now common for competitors.
Charter seems to ignore that indeed, the market has changed, and that it is
to promote these different technological evolutions, throughout history, that
postal and telecom services have forever been mandated to be neutral. These
are common carriers. The common carriers themselves, plus the consumers,
benefit from neutrality of the common carriers.
This is now mostly of “historic” relevance. As Bert notes, the market has
changed - regulated telecom services have largely been replaced with vastly
improved cellular and VOIP services that operate under a much lighter
regulatory touch.
And Bert forgets that Netflix et al tried to force ISPs to cover the rapidly
increasing cost of transporting their bits. Fortunately, with some nudging from
the FCC the streaming giants were forced to work out new service agreements
with the ISPs - the most important aspect of these agreements was the
installation of edge servers at the ISPs which SIGNIFICANTLY reduced the need
to fill the WANs with duplicate streams of popular content. And the streaming
giants agreed to pay the ISPs for hosting these co-located servers...
Except for Charter, which was forced to provide co-location for free under the
TWC merger agreement.
Charter's goal seems to be, force consumers backwards, to ca. 1980, where
network subscribers could obediently be limited to old fashioned, linear,
walled garden TV. Limit use of broadband for what, just email?
An absolutely ridiculous conclusion. If Charter or nay other facilities based
MVPD wanted to force consumers to subscribe to legacy MVPD bundles, they could
provide these bundles at competitive prices. Instead they are allowing
customers to move to VMVPD bundles that are only marginally less expensive than
the legacy services.
Sadly, little has changed, and the media conglomerates continue to push up the
price of (V)MVPD bundles.
Data caps? Well, if this is to make more gradual the need for increasing
broadband speeds, give the consumers some control. For instance, allow
consumers to decide what streaming quality they agree to be limited to. This
could be less than their peak broadband service. A consumer who buys 1 Gbps
broadband service might be okay with limiting their streaming quality to SD
or ED, or even HD, as opposed to UHD. Problem solved.
The problem has already been solved. As we have seen with other industries that
the Internet has disrupted, the rate of improvement in ISP speeds - and
cellular data as well - renders concerns about data caps irrelevant. Streaming
video posed a much bigger hurdle than e-mail and streaming audio, but it is now
well within the capabilities of both wired and wireless data services.
One thing has changed: for the most part, the walls are crumbling. The major
exception is the control that the media congloms have over high value
entertainment/sports content. With my VMVPD bundle I can access the content I
am paying for anywhere, anytime, on any device.
The TV industry is continuing to prop up its legacy model, including market
based protections. They could learn a lot from the radio industry, which is now
embracing streaming and cloud based services. My local talk station has become
part of Radio.com. I can still tune into the local broadcasts, OR I can stream
the station, AND I can now time shift content broadcast over the past 24 hours
via cloud based servers - I don’t need to mark programs for recording as is
needed for almost all DVR services.
If you leave it up to the genii at today's FCC, after the terms of the merger
expire for Charter, the FCC would tell them, "No problem. You want to revert
back to 1980, you are free to block any and all OTT service, with our
blessing."
That is not what Charter is asking for Bert. You need to “come out of the
basement“ and acknowledge that we live in the 21st Century...
Regards
CraIf
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