Zero rating implentation strategies

Tue Sep 1 17:12:58 UTC 2015

On 15-09-01 12:36, Christian Kuhtz wrote:

> Zero rating is not a new concept. It has existed in the mobile world since the days of the dumb phone.

Yes, but is now in a different scale and when you start to zero rate
content that comes from CDN (aka: many IPs which may also serve non zero
rated content).

>  Got a reference to why this was killed by the regulator in Canada?

Bell Mobility zero rating its own MobileTV offering was decided in
January 2015 by CRTC:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2015/2015-26.htm

##
The Commission finds that Bell Mobility Inc. (Bell Mobility) and
Quebecor Media Inc., Videotron Ltd. and Videotron G.P. (collectively,
Videotron), violated subsection 27(2) of the Telecommunications Act by
exempting their mobile TV services Bell Mobile TV and illico.tv from
data charges. Subsection 27(2) prohibits Canadian carriers from
conferring an undue disadvantage to others, or an undue preference to
itself or others.
##

> 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.

What I am after is what sort of logic is used to determine whether a
packet is to be counted towards total monthly usage or not.  Is it based
on sourse IP address ?  DPI equipment looking at content ? And more
importantly, if it is possible to zero rate any flow that is below a
certain speed. (whether from a radio station or some heart monitor).