foregoneconclusion said: My highly educated critical thinking tells me that it's kind of odd that providers that constantly advertise blazing fast internet speeds to everyone are worried that their networks can't actually provide blazing fast internet speeds to everyone.
A corollary to that would it's kind of odd and disappointing that everyone isn't up in arms about providers that constantly advertise 'up to' blasting fast internet speeds that their networks don't provide to everyone (and conditionally to anyone), and that since the FCC defined 'broadband' all providers dropped the use of the word.
Products may get cheaper, and are often more cheaply made, but services almost never get cheaper, and in the US, that will probably never happen to any significant degree.
That said, I see little problem with att wanting to mitigate unnecessary bandwidth. They offer a choice, and that's a good thing, even if not everyone can appreciate it. Speaking of which, if the 'majority of people' never realize they're in Stream Saver mode, is there an actual problem?
What att could (?) do is meter the streaming on a per device basis or let the user set the stream for a given device. Your big screen TV gets 1080, your iPad 1080/720, and your phone 1080/170/480 as you see (nyuck nyuck) fit. Call it Tailored Swift Streaming or something and offer a small discount for those who opt-in. Amazon and Netflix meter their streams based on the user's throughput. This wouldn't be that different of a concept. No idea if it's possible, maybe just something entertained during a caffeine buzz.
Politics aside, I only see this as a desperate attempt to reduce investment into an overwhelmed infrastructure and data network while continuing to command the highest possible prices.
Faster service? No. Better video? No. More data? NO!
Shouldn't things be getting better, stronger, faster, and cheaper?
Like with T-Mobile, this is undoubtedly nothing more than an attempt to reduce congestion on their network. I turned off T-Mobile's Binge-on when it started even though I rarely watch video.
But the reality is that many people won't really care very much and some people won't even notice. And that's fine. Those who don't want the service can just turn it off. All-around the negative effect on the consumer is very small but there is a justifiable positive effect—less congestion equals better network performance for other services and less data used on the individual's plan.
The difference AT&T is just doing this to save data traffic, T-Mobile is doing this for the same, true, but the video streaming from many sites don't count against your data cap. It's free steaming like with the free music streaming. Leaving more data for other things. Unlike AT&T that's still using your data.
Coming soon from AT&T: SUPER STREAM SAVER!!! It'all reduce your streaming video quality to CD-ROM from the 1990s level. Mmmm...who doesn't want that? Best of all, it's a free feature being rolled out to all AT&T wireless subscribers! Stream 4x as much video without going over your limit. Show off that lovely 4K Android flagship display using SUPER STREAM SAVER from AT&T.
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Products may get cheaper, and are often more cheaply made, but services almost never get cheaper, and in the US, that will probably never happen to any significant degree.
That said, I see little problem with att wanting to mitigate unnecessary bandwidth. They offer a choice, and that's a good thing, even if not everyone can appreciate it. Speaking of which, if the 'majority of people' never realize they're in Stream Saver mode, is there an actual problem?
What att could (?) do is meter the streaming on a per device basis or let the user set the stream for a given device. Your big screen TV gets 1080, your iPad 1080/720, and your phone 1080/170/480 as you see (nyuck nyuck) fit. Call it Tailored Swift Streaming or something and offer a small discount for those who opt-in. Amazon and Netflix meter their streams based on the user's throughput. This wouldn't be that different of a concept. No idea if it's possible, maybe just something entertained during a caffeine buzz.