[183399] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Zero rating implentation strategies
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Tue Sep 1 14:19:36 2015
X-Original-To: Nanog@nanog.org
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <0FEF8847-0B58-4D61-84D5-95B57DF42581@microsoft.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2015 11:19:26 -0700
To: Christian Kuhtz <chkuhtz@microsoft.com>
Cc: "Nanog@nanog.org" <Nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
The regulatory killing of that was probably unrelated to implementation.
The regulators probably objected to the mobile provider creating an =
advantage (no data charges) for their own service against competing =
video services that would incur data charges.
Perhaps that will help you understand what you need for a regulatory =
challenge.
Owen
> On Sep 1, 2015, at 09:36 , Christian Kuhtz <chkuhtz@microsoft.com> =
wrote:
>=20
>=20
> Zero rating is not a new concept. It has existed in the mobile world =
since the days of the dumb phone. Got a reference to why this was =
killed by the regulator in Canada?
>=20
> Mobile networks typically use their packet core (and prior iterations =
of the same termination, rating, billing, management gear) to rate and =
bill specific to each subscriber. It is done with voice minutes, text, =
data. Whether or not you consider the solutions scalable is up to one's =
individual judgement. But this zero rating billing model has and is very =
widely deployed and at massive scale. In fact, there are specific =
interfaces defined for just these purposes in the applicable standards. =
There are many many conceivable ways in which billing mediation and =
associated infrastructure for zero rating can and is implemented. This =
is not new and is very well understood in the mobile industry. Not sure =
what you're after here.
>=20
> Best regards,
> Christian
>=20
>=20
>> On Aug 31, 2015, at 6:01 PM, Jean-Francois Mezei =
<jfmezei_nanog@vaxination.ca> wrote:
>>=20
>>=20
>> Last year, one large mobile operator in Canada started to zero-rate =
its
>> own mobile TV offering. It appears that routers kept counting all the
>> data, but that the company then subtracted usage generated by its =
video
>> servers to come up with billable Gigabytes for each user.
>>=20
>> (This was quashed by the regulator in Canada)
>>=20
>> In the last week, another mobile operator announced it was zero =
rating
>> approved music streaming services (Spotify, Google Play and a few =
others).
>>=20
>> If you are dealing with "foreign" content that comes from servers you
>> don't control, what are the "best practices" to zero-rate content =
from
>> multiple outside sources ?
>>=20
>> To make matters more interesting, the FAQ for that service indicates
>> that if you listen to a music stream that exceeds 128kbps, you MAY be
>> charged for the data, and that you will be charged to listen to =
videos
>> that could be offered by that service, and for non streaming data =
such
>> as album covers, list of songs etc.
>>=20
>> Would this point to specific IPs (streaming servers for low quality
>> 128kbps sound) ? How scalable is this when you start to have a whole
>> bunch of source IPs whose traffic is to be zero rated ?
>>=20
>> Or would another way of doing this to setup private routes into the
>> ISP's network for each approved service, so the data would enter =
through
>> a different interface and be counted separately ?
>>=20
>> Or, and this is my most important question: Is it possible with =
current
>> networking software to zero rate any data flow that is less than a
>> certain value (eg: 128kbs) ?
>>=20
>> Or would current software require network operator to get 5 minute =
usage
>> for each user and only bill if average data rate during last 5 =
minutes
>> exceeded 128kbps ? (which means that your music is billed if you also
>> listen to netflix at same time since total data flows are greater =
than
>> 128kbps)
>>=20
>>=20
>> Of note: not all customers get this treatment, only those with higher
>> end packages. Those with lower end packages are charged for usage by
>> those very same services.
>>=20
>> And for the record, this isn't to setup a similar system, it is to
>> better understand the issue for a regulatory challenge.
