Net neutrality makes comeback in California; lawmakers agree to strict rules | Ars Technica: Wiener's office told Ars that the compromise version will remove a ban on "application-specific differential pricing," which the bill defined as "charging different prices for Internet traffic to customers on the basis of Internet content, application, service, or device, or class of Internet content, application, service, or device, but does not include zero-rating." That means an ISP could sell add-ons to data plans that let customers buy extra data just for a certain type of website or online service. A customer's base data plan would still allow browsing to any kind of website or service in this scenario, but the package of extra data could be restricted just to social media sites, or some other category, Wiener's office explained. The effect would be similar to zero-rating, but Wiener's office said it wouldn't involve exempting any traffic from the customer's base data plan. (Emphasis added)Mobile device users are familiar with their carriers' business models: selling tiered plans based on the amount of data consumed. The more consumed, the higher the price tier. As well as functional costs such as throughput being throttled back once a certain consumption threshold is exceeded.
This story suggests the expansion of this pricing model to landline-based service. And that the development likely motivated providers of advanced telecom service providers to successfully lobby the U.S Federal Communications Commission to recently scuttle its 2015 Open Internet rulemaking that would have made doing so problematic. If landline like mobile providers can sell finite "bandwidth by the bucket" (or scoop of ice cream to use the Verizon Wireless analogy), that provides them a pricing rationale to offer discounted or better service to end users accessing their proprietary content -- the "walled garden" consumer facing model that characterized the early days of the Internet with ISPs like CompuServe and AOL. And telephone service for decades before, when calls were billed based on minutes used and distance of the call.
The real policy issue here is whether providers of advanced telecommunications services should be able to maintain vertically integrated business structures and product offerings based on those business models of the past and whether doing so is good for consumers. At a time when Internet protocol-based telecommunications can provide so much more than the bill per unit voice phone call of legacy POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) or distant TV channels of the legacy CATV model.
