Hasta La Gadget!

Telia raised hackles in March when it proposed charging Swedish subscribers extra if they wanted to use voice over IP. On top of the net neutrality issues, the proposed price premium would have been a slap in the face to Skype, the country’s homegrown VoIP pioneer. While Telia’s Spanish subsidiary Yoigo has no problems with such a split, Telia itself must have had a change of heart: as of now, all regular plans will continue to treat internet telephony as just another set of data packets. Only a new, ultra-basic Telia Flex Bas plan excises the option. Unfortunately, most everyone will have to pay the price for equality — new subscriptions will have their data plans “adjusted” to compensate for increasing data use, and those paying daily will see their maximum rates jump from 9 SEK ($1.40) to 19 SEK ($2.90). As painful as the price hike might sound, however, we’d still endure it to avoid carving the mobile internet into pieces.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile

Telia scraps plans to charge extra for mobile VoIP in Sweden, hikes overall rates in compensation originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Sep 2012 02:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today three net neutrality groups—Free Press, Public Knowledge and the New American Foundation’s Open Technology Institute—together released a written statement to AT&T (see below), alerting the iPhone carrier of their intentions to file a formal complaint with the FCC. More »

With the introduction of iOS 6 for the iPhone and iPad came the awesome announcement of Facetime video chat over 3G. Quickly after that appeared news dropped regarding AT&T charging additional fees for such usage. While they denied it initially, the end result is clear. Today a trio of public interest groups have filed a formal complaint with the FCC over AT&T’s fees.

The group has informed AT&T that they intend to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against the wireless carrier for violating net neutrality rules. After all the waiting by users for Apple to make Facetime usable over cellular networks instead of WiFi, only to see AT&T cut out the option unless users paid an additional fee has many up in arms. Here’s what Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood said in a press release:

“AT&T’s decision to block FaceTime unless a customer pays for voice and text minutes she doesn’t need is a clear violation of the FCC’s Open Internet rules.” “It’s particularly outrageous that AT&T is requiring this for iPad users, given that this device isn’t even capable of making voice calls.”

In comparison, rivals from Verizon and other carriers will allow this feature outright, while AT&T looks to bank on the situation. Although according to AT&T they are in compliance of the network neutrality rules because Facetime comes pre-installed. They allow any and all 3rd party apps to be downloaded and installed with no additional charges. Basically those rules only apply to downloaded apps.

We’ll take this moment to ask you guys again. Do you really want Facetime over 3G, or do we just resent paying for things? With the iPhone 5 already being AT&T’s most successful iPhone launch ever surely Facetime over cellular poses a huge task for network stability and bandwidth demand, but AT&T should be up to the challenge. We’ll be hearing more on this soon from both AT&T and the group filing the complaint, we’re sure of it.

[via CNET]

AT&T facing net neutrality complaint over 3G Facetime is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

2012 has been a year filled with stories about Washington trying to regulate the Internet, and now it seems that some of the web’s biggest faces are coming together to do something about it. Google, Facebook, Amazon, and eBay have joined forces to form a new Washington lobbying group called the Internet Association, which aims to “advance public policy solutions that strengthen and protect an open, innovative and free Internet.” The group will be led by former Deputy Staff Director to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Michael Beckerman.

Though we don’t technically know any of the group’s members yet, an anonymous source tells The Washington Post that the four Internet giants listed above are among the Association’s most prominent members. In a statement today, Beckerman said that the Internet’s “decentralized and open model” leads to innovation and job creation, and that we must defend against attempts to “handcuff” the currently-unregulated web. The Internet Association even has its own website up and running today, though there isn’t that much to see there at the moment.

The group will be getting things underway in September, and even though Beckerman has yet to lay out a clear policy plan, we think we have some idea of what it will attempt do in Washington. After all, those four companies have all come out in favor of net neutrality at one point or another, and lately we’ve been seeing Washington trying to pass questionable legislation that would directly affect all of them. Here’s hoping that the Internet Association sticks to its guns when it arrives in Washington later this year, because make no mistake about it – with Facebook, eBay, Google, and Amazon all apparently backing the group, it will have enough sway to essentially get whatever it wants.

Google, Amazon, eBay, Facebook form The Internet Association is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.