Why Apple opposes the FCC's repeal of net neutrality
Apple was one of a number of parties that fought the repeal of net neutrality protections, originally instituted in 2015 during the Obama administration. The company has a lot of pragmatic reasons for taking a pro-neutrality stance.
Things were made (mostly) clear in an August letter to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. "An open internet ensures that hundreds of millions of consumers get the experience they want, over the broadband connections they choose, to use the devices they love, which have become an integral part of their lives," Apple wrote.
"What consumers do with those tools is up to them -- not Apple, and not broadband providers," it added.
Assuming it's not reversed by the courts or political maneuvers, the FCC's repeal of neutrality could conceivably let internet service providers block, throttle, or prioritize traffic as they see fit. On a basic level, Apple needs to ensure quality of service on its devices -- people dealing with slow internet access may be less likely to want the latest iPhone, download apps, sign up for Apple Music, or rent a movie from iTunes.
Apple has also had to deal with services being blocked in the past. AT&T, for example, once prevented people from using FaceTime over cellular unless they had a Mobile Share data plan, presumably because it was worried customers with grandfathered unlimited data would bombard its network.
Behind the scenes, Apple is probably worried about rivals signing deals with ISPs, or those ISPs simply favoring their own services. If Comcast decided to prioritize its own TV streaming traffic for example, that could play havoc with material sold on iTunes and Apple's upcoming original video programming.
Lastly, Apple may also want flexible bandwidth for future technology. In its August letter it complained that killing net neutrality could "create artificial barriers to entry for new online services, making it harder for tomorrow's innovations to attract investment and succeed."
The company is rumored to be developing an augmented reality headset, which will likely be highly dependent on high-speed 4G/5G cellular for functions such as Siri and navigation. Apple is also working on a self-driving car platform, which will probably be sold to third parties -- if it hooks into Apple's cloud services in any way, that could generate terabytes of data per car, per day. Apple might have to spend millions on prioritization deals or risk an unusable product.
Things were made (mostly) clear in an August letter to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. "An open internet ensures that hundreds of millions of consumers get the experience they want, over the broadband connections they choose, to use the devices they love, which have become an integral part of their lives," Apple wrote.
"What consumers do with those tools is up to them -- not Apple, and not broadband providers," it added.
Assuming it's not reversed by the courts or political maneuvers, the FCC's repeal of neutrality could conceivably let internet service providers block, throttle, or prioritize traffic as they see fit. On a basic level, Apple needs to ensure quality of service on its devices -- people dealing with slow internet access may be less likely to want the latest iPhone, download apps, sign up for Apple Music, or rent a movie from iTunes.
Apple has also had to deal with services being blocked in the past. AT&T, for example, once prevented people from using FaceTime over cellular unless they had a Mobile Share data plan, presumably because it was worried customers with grandfathered unlimited data would bombard its network.
Behind the scenes, Apple is probably worried about rivals signing deals with ISPs, or those ISPs simply favoring their own services. If Comcast decided to prioritize its own TV streaming traffic for example, that could play havoc with material sold on iTunes and Apple's upcoming original video programming.
Lastly, Apple may also want flexible bandwidth for future technology. In its August letter it complained that killing net neutrality could "create artificial barriers to entry for new online services, making it harder for tomorrow's innovations to attract investment and succeed."
The company is rumored to be developing an augmented reality headset, which will likely be highly dependent on high-speed 4G/5G cellular for functions such as Siri and navigation. Apple is also working on a self-driving car platform, which will probably be sold to third parties -- if it hooks into Apple's cloud services in any way, that could generate terabytes of data per car, per day. Apple might have to spend millions on prioritization deals or risk an unusable product.
Comments
But no matter what, it is a great cause to fight.
Same thing apply to Google, YouTube, Facebook or any other steaming service.
We won’t see changes right away, but over time companies will make whatever changes they can get away with until the internet differs very little from the way network TV is.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was even partially a move to control ‘fake’ news. If content is monetised by service providers the news can be better controlled than it is now. Information control in the name of market freedom... It’s not worth it.
Take for instance the simple idea of picking up a box of lucky charms in the grocery store aisle:
Your devices needs to recognize that OK this is lucky charms -- that alone requires a lot of computer vision work (which cloud processing would probably speed up). OK now let's pull up all the nutrition information (lets pull it from an official data-store somewhere online so we know it's up to date), OK, let's maybe give the user some data about alternatives (poll online profile and retailer purchase history (GPS + online 3rd party integration layer) to identify other foods they may like.) Maybe then recommend some milk as a compliment, but almond milk because you're lactose intolerant (querying a health profile online). What if the user then asks a context-based question to Siri based off the object they're holding like "Hey Siri, when was the last time I bought some junk food?" -- again you've gotta go back to some sort of store to look that information up.
OK, now imagine a good chunk of that is done in real-time for every object you see as you walk down the aisle (gotta pre-buffer after all). What about overlaying enticing animations with mascot cartoon characters over the boxes, or changing the boxes themselves so that when you pick them up you're given a dopamine hit of a good sound and a fun animation plays on the box cover. All this stuff will start taking up very large amounts of data.
Remember there was a time when even someone as tech-involved as Bill Gates said 640K of RAM ought to be enough for anyone
Funny I haven’t heard about any ISPs complaining about losing money.
Further, people forget ISPs didn’t create the Internet, tax payer dollars did. Further federal regulation helped it grow by protecting internet companies from things like State regulation and taxation.
"Further" the Internet STARTED with tax money, but it has been BUILT OUT WITH PRIVATE BUSINESS MONEY.
In two years time there will be a few uppity ISPs that try to do something stupid and a few high profile "OMG! The sky is falling, the-internet-is-over, dogs-and-cats-living-together" over-reactions, but all-in-all there will be no significant difference for the vast majority of internet users and sites in accessibility, speed, or costs.
If I'm wrong... fix it using the legislative branch and executive approval.
Who says the ISPs would abuse their position as gatekeepers of the bits? Why, the ISPs themselves -- from 2005 to 2013:
https://np.reddit.com/r/KeepOurNetFree/comments/7ej1nd/fcc_unveils_its_plan_to_repeal_net_neutrality/dq5hlwd/?sh=45a33b81&st=JAA62V5F
...theyve done it before, they'll do it again. They should be regulated into dumb-pipes, only. My power company doesn't get to charge me more for certain brands I use, they can only charge me the same flat rate and how I use it is up to me. Same thing.
Nonsense. When you use Netflix at home, you're also paying your ISP (often a hefty figure per month). Your ISP then covers its costs in moving the Netflix data with your and their other customers payments. As do the other ISPs.
If you pay an ISP $75/mo for, say, 50gb of throughput, and I pay the same ISP $75/mo for the same, and we each do different things with our purchases data — then yes, it is completely fair that I watched a movie on Netflix for my own enjoyment.
Why should it matter whether it’s used for a movie, or music streaming, or porn, or web pages?