European Carriers Want Google, Facebook to Contribute to Mobile Data Costs

[Djhg2000]

This is just too stupid.
If the carriers can't handle their customers then that's their problem.

 

[mchuf]

It amazes me that every one of these "problem" sites are based in the US. Aren't there any european based sites that use excessive bandwith? First the EU commision wants to investigate Google on anti-trust charges and now this. Is there a stealth trade war being waged on the US by the EU?

 

[jgiron]

no way!
however, i don't the service companies might consider it if they got part of the revenue and have a stake in the organization.

 

[Guest]

Telco companies are just greedy, the majority of telco networks are designed to handle max maybe 30% of subscribers instantaneously accessing the system, any more and the system dies, recently an incident occurred which caused residents of locally 3 major counties to phone 911, the network was unable to handle the congestion and shutdown.

When telco companies do network planning they use forecasting and statistical analysis to predict what is the probably percentage of users accessing the system at any 1 time, unfortunately with smartphones which theoretically have an always on connection, their forecast were off by a large margin and now they need money to upgrade the system to handle the extra volume that they did not predict, cue Google/FB lawsuit

 

[Guest]

I'd say its true there's no reason for anyone to pay the companies to provide the services they already charge too much for anyway, but personally I would find it hilarious if facebook and google decided to block mobile access to their products/sites unless companies paid them, maybe it would make how unimportant mobile internet access really is (for the average consumer anyway, it does have benefits to business) a bit more obvious.
It's not really google's job to entice people to use less bandwidth, sure optimizations can make the same operations require less data, but the more features people become convinced they need (regardless if they actually do), the more data that they'll need to keep up. I personally don't like the idea of limiting the amount of data one can use, even though I don't use any at all myself. It just seems like a really temporary way to push the problem aside rather than actually working to devise a working solution or to implement newer infrastructure.

 

[ATIWOLF]

Hm. [citation][nom]surrept420[/nom]Right....Cause they can't afford it with me already paying 90 bucks a month for smartphone with not so unlimited data usage of 5gb a month. And thats with a small amount of usage minutes for voice.[/citation]

Hm. I didn't think European companies were so overtly greedy. This news changes my notion a little bit.

 

[awood28211]

Everyone wants subsidation for their subscribers using the plans they bought. Wth?

 

[servarus]

[citation][nom]MrBachelor[/nom]In a word, no. It is the carrier's responsibility to provide the service they agreed to provide. It is no different than a company selling more widgets than it can produce in a given time. You sold the service when you activated the account/phone. It is not Google/Facebook/Apple fault that carriers wrote and sold poor contracts (ie. unlimited data plans).[/citation]
Seconded. So much on being 'great' ISP.

 

[jimmysmitty]

[citation][nom]dredg98[/nom]Wireless Carriers should improve there networks instead of making them faster no NEEDS 4g WE NEED BETTER NETWORKS![/citation]

You must not understand 4G then. 3G is based off of WiFi technology. It has a certain range and speed per tower. 4G is based off of WiMAX. WiMAX is a newer standard from intel and is usually on most newer laptops and netbooks.

WiMAX can provide a faster bandwidth speed at a further range per tower and a much much faster bandwidth speed at the same range as WiFi.

So in data and cell phone terms, 4G is a better network. Verizon will be providing a 15Mbps 4G LTE (and that may just be the low end) and since each tower can cover a larger area on that speed, it will take less towers and therefore cost less while providing much better coverage than 3G did.

As for the providers in Europe, they probably didn't develop the network as much as was needed. Its almost as if carriers like Verizon could see the smartphone craze coming. I mean their 3G network is massive compared to anyone else, they have the fastest 4G network coming and even in their landline services they have better stuff. Maybe they should take some advice from Verizon and plan for the future.

 

[lashton]

toms would NEVER ban the spammers because although they are spammers it affects thier membership

 

[svdb]

I'm French so I can comment all I want on this: the France Telecom CEO is a complete moron. Either he doesn't understand that without Google and Facebook he'd have NO customers for his crappy data plans, or he's incredibly GREEDY.

 

[feeddagoat]

Compared to america, british (no too sure about the rest of europe) tarrifs are fairly cheap. Roughly £25-£35 gets you 500ish mins, unlimited text and data (data capped between 512mb and 3gb). Tesco mobile has £10, 1month contracts with 500min, unlimited texts and unlimited data (capped @ 512mb). That's nothing to complain about tbh. Yes it isn't fair that those companies should pay burt let's face it, I'm sure google and apple at least could take a cut of their endless millions to help improve data speeds. No fair yes, do I care, no. If it pays for 4G here at no cost to me I'm happy

 

[pinkfloydminnesota]

If it wasn't for Google and Facebook et al, the data providers wouldn't have customers paying for devices and connections so they could use these ad supported services.

Google and Facebook have a better case to charge the ISP's than the other way around.

ISP's can and do charge someone for accessing this data.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

socialism doesn't work. your system is messed up you're broke and now you want to take money from US companies because your socialism has failed you.

 

[idisarmu]

Everybody settle down and just hear them out! Their proposal isn't that weird... I mean- Nvidia started subsidizing my heating bill after I bought a Fermi based card.

 

[dark_lord69]

[citation][nom]The Greater Good[/nom]Yeah, and I'd like Honda to help pay for my gas.[/citation]
LOL!!!! YES!! THANK YOU!!

All I have to say to them is good luck with that. (It will never happen.)

 

[Guest]

Already people are paying the carriers for whatever data plans they are using for browsing. The carriers want the websites also to pay them. The websites are already paying their bandwidth providers for the traffic generated by the people visiting their websites.

Technically speaking, it is an attempt to milk the cow at multiple places. It is known to be futile and harmful to the cow.

 

[jj463rd]

[citation][nom]accolite[/nom]Whats up with all these spammer in the comments section?sdfsdfsddfdsfhnhnzzjjj13 wuxie102kasjfhak8899meijin66laizi94hajs87I suggest toms ban these spammers and then prevent the mac address of the spammers from registering.[/citation]

Apparently the websites in the multiple spammers posts are listed as Chinese websites.

 

[jisamaniac]

Thanks EU for not handling your economy properly and trying to make others pay for your mistakes.

 

[cpatel1987]

Uhh is this even a debate? Carrier's responsibility 100%. You provide the technology, and yet you didn't anticipate the huge flux in usage? Your gonna tax big websites because they are popular? What a joke.