With the wireless Broadband access more services can be provided with good quality of service... and more and more, the operators are becoming as transport networks and probably not making enough revenue from the services they provide.
Claims are filed with FCC against AT&T for charging for Apple's FaceTime video conferencing on its 3G and 4G networks, and AT&T seems not to have a competing service to offer here!
See text here.
Claims are filed with FCC against AT&T for charging for Apple's FaceTime video conferencing on its 3G and 4G networks, and AT&T seems not to have a competing service to offer here!
See text here.
I've been following this for some time — ever since AT&T released a perhaps unwise blog post about its rationale behind blocking FaceTime over cellular.
ReplyDeleteThis is, of course, not a particularly new issue — Skype has raised concerns about this sort of behaviour by MNOs for some years now.
Although it's fair to say that AT&T does not offer a competing service, FaceTime does (in my opinion, at least) compete with standard voice services, perhaps, in particular, international voice services, in the sense that it is a clear substitute, with people choosing to use FaceTime over making a traditional call, predominantly because of the pricing. Operators keen not to lose out on revenue decide to require a premium payment for use of VoIP services, with "VoIP" and "non-VoIP" tariffs — basically, a means of trying to retain profitability in the face of new forms of competition, and particularly new competition with much lower operational and market entry costs.
I don't like it, but I do understand it — operators, and Internet access providers used to bundling services with access, are being forced to think very carefully about what I tend to consider is a second wave of liberalisation.
Delving into some of the competition law aspects of this could be fun, and I'd be very happy to have that debate!