Is Optus making iTunes Music Store usage unmetered?
6-Jul-2008I’m going out on a limb. I think Optus is going to be giving more than just iPhone users unmetered access to Apple’s Internet properties.
Yesterday I downloaded Season 2 of the best TV ever.
Thankfully HBO have been gradually adding seasons of The Wire to the US iTunes Music Store, and I’ve been buying them and making my way through them.
I was a bit concerned with how big a season is. 7.5GB is a good chunk of my 30GB quota. Not too big a deal but last month iTMS Daily Shows & Colbert Reports, work VPN and random tinkering put me over the 20GB mark.
I checked the Optus web-based usage meter how much of my quota I had used in the first 5 days of July: About 2.5GB.
I set off and downloaded four episodes. About 2.5GB of files. When they had finished downloading I waited a couple of hours and went back to check the Optus usage meter. It had registered 259MB of activity. Maybe it was being particularly slow to update. Anyway, I downloaded the remaining 5GB, watched two episodes and went back to check my usage: 3.8GB.
Curious.
Because I needed to put one of my Office 2007 Home licenses on the kids’ PC, I downloaded it (298MB) and checked usage again: 4.1GB and holding steady.
7.5GB of “The Wire” from iTunes cost me about 1.3GB in usage quota. 298MB of installer from Microsoft (via Digital River) cost me about 298MB of quota.
Cue Twilight Zone theme.
I’ve hunted through my contract and I can’t see anywhere where it says Apple is some Internet usage metering haven. My only explanation is that Optus can’t, or won’t, just give iPhone users free access to Apple Internet resources and they’re engineering their network to treat everyone like an iPhone user.
I can’t think of any explanation for why Optus is charging me somewhere between full rate and zero in quota. Is there something I’m missing? Secret Optus brownie points for not using BitTorrent? Most people who complain about the Optus usage meter say it over-counts their traffic.
Very odd.
I can think of an explanation, although I’m not sure if I believe it myself.
I was under the impression that the iTS uses Akamai for ‘content distribution’. As I understand it, this means that a given download can happen from any one of Akamai’s servers. Which one you get depends on many factors such as network topology, server load, the movement of sunspots, etc.
Given this, it’s possible that you downloaded some of your content from an Akamai server that just happened to be in the Optus free quota zone. Whether by misconfiguration or by happy accident, your iTunes client just happened to hit the right servers to minimise the impact on your quota. And for other downloads you happened to hit other servers where the traffic does count against your quota.
Like I said, it’s *an* explanation.
By the way, seconded on the excellence of The Wire. The first season got me through recovery after my appendectomy last year. Now commencing on season 2 (in between Dr Who episodes, which has replaced Angel as the default mindless viewing choice…)
And lastly I highly recommend the experience of purchasing and renting content from the Apple TV. The HD is not quite broadcast quality (let alone disc quality) but is still perfectly watchable, and better than DVD at any rate. Apparently (ie CONFIRMED) movies are coming to the Australian iTunes store soon. Give it a try, I know we definitely preferred the experience of downloading particularly when compared with the dodgy local video store.
Since getting a US iTMS account during my trip last year I’ve been very tempted to get an Apple TV.
However, dinosaurs that we are, we only have a CRT that’s certainly not widescreen and therefore off the edge of the Apple TV supported configuration map. Australian iTMS TV content still sucks the big one too, so when we run out of US credit card we may be stranded with the rest of our fellow information super backwater inhabitants.
Note that Digital River is an Akamai-like content distribution network. That doesn’t rule out your thesis, but it’s a potential counterpoint. Optus putting a random Akamai server in the free download zone does sound a little random :)
I think the best explanation is that it’s an anomaly or accounting error. Optus granting Apple’s content a free ride is a much juicier rumour, though.
This excellent post by Simon Hackett explains the situation regarding unmetering the ABC iView content, which also uses Akamai. It is very interesting and not unrelated to the subject at hand.
With the way the traffic appears to be partially metered, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was an Optus half-assed attempt to unmeter the ABC, iTunes, or both by using a whitelist of Akamai IP addresses as Simon describes. That’s what it feels like.
Well, I have a mixed feelings about Optus.Once it appears as a very professional company…
but be prepared for surprises!!! I have used them for 5 years for my mobile service.It was very good and I was happy.One nice day they have changed the system and suddenly
the retrieval of the message took me much more longer because the new answering
mashine started to talk much more slower what costed me time(and money).I have lot of
messages and do not want to spend extra time with them just because my mobile company decided to suck more money out of me.The other issue was that their web site
looks very nice but when I started to use ADSL with them it was a pain to find the usage meter.Today (when I already know where to look for it) is easy but try to do it first time…
thanks god I have found some help here : http://www.thenerdfiles.com/page37.html
The optus bill is a creation of super scietifical individual.It took me 2 hours till I got to the
point that I was understanding what they talking about.Well maybe I have to go back to study some sneaky marketing bussiness or I am getting to old…