T-Online Germany wants to remove flat rates

[Mataresa]

T-Online Germany wants to remove flat rates

Recently Telekom Germany has been discussing removing internet flat rates in favour of different volume rates, where you pay for a certain colume per month at full speed and afterwards you only get reduced slow internet speeds. This in itself is ridiculous, but even worse since they want to exclude T-Online services from this volume to remove internet equality and try to make more people use their services. And lastly they are starting to offer companies like Google the possibility to pay for also being excluded in this volume.

I hope that many people leave the company and move to others, so that this doesn't become a presidence. The internet should remain equal.

 

[Kindo.824]

Yes, we read about this the other week. It's absolutely appalling and I can only hope that the customers react just so and move to another provider. Imagine Telekom losing even only 20% of their customers by doing this - they would rethink their strategy pretty quickly. It's also a small comfort the the government itself has spoken out against this, saying how it's unethical to misuse their near-monopoly like this; that they have a responsibility.

 

[GuyNwah]

TANSTAAFL. While this particular instance may rank as an abuse of monopoly power, we are going to see reversals of unlimited Internet plans more and more often.

There has been a surplus of telecommunication capacity for many years. This caused carriers to compete to give it away, with unlimited usage for private parties becoming a norm to which we think we are now in some way entitled.

No, we're not. It costs money to provide these things, and the businesses that provide them should not be confused with public charities.

 

[atc.710]

A monopoly on the internet...

and i still wonder why people don't like the idea of multiple companies in fierce competition

 

[Mataresa]

Well it is one thing to get rid of flat rates. Although I really hate it, it isn't against the law. But removing internet equality by giving some services a preferred status and punishing others is an entirely different matter.

 

[dragonbird]

My ISP introduced a "fair use" cap last month, which has resulted in a lot of complaints (including official complaints to the regulatory authority).

They're not saying what the cap is, but it's being widely reported as 15GB/mth, which isn't considered acceptable. This is a WISP setup - a fixed, domestic connection to a cell-based system. 15GB may be acceptable for a mobile connection, but not for domestic. (Other ISPs that have limits are at the level of 5GB/day, or allow unlimited download during the night). Oh, yes, and the majority of subscribers are locked into two-year contracts, and are only using this particular connection because the company concerned won't add DSL connectivity. So yes, there's a lot of fuss.

I hit the cap within 5 days of the start of the month, because I'd bought 10GB of games at Steam. The only reason it isn't that big an issue is because my connection is already crap, and the throttling didn't make much difference.

But the one that really gets me is the introduction of LTE. They're advertising as 42MB/s download times, with data plans ranging from 5GB/mth to 20GB/mth. What is the point of paying a fortune for LTE with those kinds of caps?

 

[Demut]

Wow, that is fucked up. And did I understand this correctly? They are threatening Google to block them for their customers? For real? That’d be moronic.

 

[Mataresa]

Wow, that is fucked up. And did I understand this correctly? They are threatening Google to block them for their customers? For real? That’d be moronic.

No not blocking, they are just saying, that they will have to pay to not be included in traffic count, which will be limited in speed, when you reach the amount you paid with your contract. So if somebody watches a lot of youtube or uses other google services, they might end up being slowed down soon. All non T-Onine services would be affected by that.

A lot of German Let's Players are very worried about this trend, cause for example the maximum amount of Traffic per month at maximum speed before being capped that you can get, they say, is going to be 64GB, which would be reached by up and downloads in a couple of days for them. And for us gamers using Steam or GOG wouldn't really be an option anymore, cause you would be over the limit way too fast with that. Not counting all the movies and online series, Internet TV, Streams, Internetradio, feeds and whatever else we use.

 

[Sana_mia]

Wow, that is fucked up. And did I understand this correctly? They are threatening Google to block them for their customers? For real? That’d be moronic.

They want to lower the connection speed to 384 Kbit/s after you reach the alleged maximum.
Here a simulation of what that means... Though the first website in that video would still be available in normal speed just the others won't.

The maximum of allowed traffic is depending on the connection you have for example "16 Mbit/s: 75 GB".
I would really like to have a 16Mbit connection in the first place...
Living next to a big city I can't even have a half of that. Still 75GB thats what, good for a week? Nah probably a lot less.

The 200 Mbit connection gets you a smoking 400GB of traffic allowance but ehm still...

 

[CostinRaz]

The 200 Mbit connection gets you a smoking 400GB of traffic allowance but ehm still...

How much does this connection cost per month?

I certainly hope it doesn't happen. The precedent it would set would be just very bad.

 

[Sana_mia]

How much does this connection cost per month?

I certainly hope it doesn't happen. The precedent it would set would be just very bad.

minimum 60€ a month + a forced 4€ for telephone to mobile phone extra. I can't even book it if i wanted however it requires a glass fiber connection to the house. Forced runtime of 24 months.
Also hard to get out of the "extras" like a norton anti virus for 5€ a month and such crap.

 

[Demut]

Here a simulation of what that means...

Sheesh, that’s bad. I had no idea browsing is that slow nowadays with a connection like that.