Comments on: With $15M from Andreessen Horowitz, ItsOn wants to arm operators with options

By: GW

GW — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 16:38:41 +0000

I agree with tomchr. It looks like jjj is one of the few who sucks down tons of gigabytes and expects the rest of us to pay for him! We won’t know exactly what they are doing until ItsOn launches later this year with a major mobile operator, but I read all the ItsOn press and from what I can tell they will offer instant on-device selection of “big buckets of data” for people like jjj, but they will also offer on-device selection of smaller buckets of data and more custom tailored time based plans and plans for collections of apps, and free services that are sponsored. This is really cool (!!) and my family could use some price relief on our massive cell phone bills! As long as there is always a choice for buckets of data (big and small) along with lower cost choices too, then there is no net neutrality issue.

By: tomchr

tomchr — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 08:14:54 +0000

Hi JJJ
I agree there should always be net neutral plans available in any market. The problem that Its on or others are attacking is in my opinion the problem of many users subsidizing few. If you look at the traffic pattern of operators you will soon discover that a small percentage originates more than half of the traffic. A system where everyone pays the same for access regardless of usage will disfavor those who use a little. You could argue that MB price pricing will take care of that, but then you run into a second problem and that is that users have little notion of MB, and more importantly the value of a service is poorly reflected in MB. I see a big market, and especially within the prepaid markets of users that wants to buy an hour of Facebook for 1 ringit to connect to family. The same user would also sometimes want the one hour Internet package for 2 ringit. As long as the customer chooses and prices are fair the kill scenario you describe will not happen. And the real bonus for the society is that new segments today not on internet due to price will get easy and affordable ways to explore the world on Internet.

But as a final comment, I fully agree with you that a situation where no net neutral plan is available will be a big step in killing the net as we know it. I would not like that either, but I hope you see at least some of my points…

By: jjj

jjj — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 07:15:14 +0000

I hope they go broke and fast, them and everybody else that attacks net neutrality.
Killing the internet is not cool people!