The Walt Disney Company has conducted a trial over the last several months with Verizon whereby select, in-demand Disney Plus content can be more efficiently streamed on the wireless giant’s Fios wireline network.

Specifically, Disney Plus has trialed Verizon’s Open Caching platform, a technology based on open specifications developed by the Streaming Video Alliance. A joint news release says Open Caching “stores the most requested streaming video content, like Falcon and the Winter Soldier, in network facilities closer to the customer, which results in content starting faster, while also reducing freezing, pausing or playback failure during streaming.”

Said Joe Inzerillo, executive VP  and CTO of Disney Streaming, in a statement: “The ability for us to scale Disney Plus internet distribution and create optimal streaming experiences for subscribers around the content is paramount to our continued success as the flagship streaming service from The Walt Disney Company.

“As we experience increased demand for Disney Plus content, we are encouraged with the success of the Open Cache standards and the growing install base of that platform across global networks like Verizon,” Inzerillo added. "These deployments have given us scale while providing valuable distribution diversity enabling us to engage millions of more subscribers with the highest quality streaming.”

Internet consumer advocacy groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation have long opposed so-called "paid prioritization" schemes whereby large streaming service operators like Disney, Netflix and Amazon are able to negotiate favorable network access terms with ISPs, giving them an advantage over smaller service providers which may not have the same resources. 

Reps for both Disney and Verizon, however, insists the trial can't be construed as "paid prioritization," first and foremost because nobody is getting paid ... yet. 

"Once commercialized, our Open Caching platform, providing greater efficacy and efficiency in managing network resources, will be open to any and all content providers that are interested in leveraging it to provide a better viewing experience for their customers," a Verizon rep told us. 

Will all streaming service providers have to pay for access to Open Caching? And if so, will all of them be able to afford it?

"It's a little too early in the process to answer that," the rep added. "The trial phase is really all about figuring out the technology and how to optimize it. Once we move towards commercialization the teams will work to address those other aspects."

Verizon already serves as a key distribution partner for Disney Plus, delivering to customers of 5G unlimited wireless plans the bundle of Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus at no additional charge. Subscribers of Verizon unlimited 4G LTE plans get Disney Plus free for six months. 

Washington — Paid prioritization has gotten a bad rap, but the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation is trying to change that, including by looping the Federal Communications Commission back into the network-neutrality regulatory regime.

Paid prioritization has been branded as pay for play, and as fast and slow lanes, by net neutrality activists who oppose that practice. But in a new report, ITIF, whose honorary chairs include both Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), is trying to burnish the brand and head off a push in Congress to include paid prioritization in new net-neutrality prohibitions.

Some ISPs have even suggested they would accept a no paid prioritization provision, though most throw in the caveat “anti-competitive.”

Even activists concede there is a need to prioritize, say, 911 VoIP calls over cat videos. But there would almost certainly be a carveout for that, or explicit language that emergency calls or telehealth video — remote accident-scene triage, for example — would be reasonable network management.

ITIF wants to make sure that is clear, but it also is suggesting getting the FCC back in the broadband oversight business, though not via Title II.

The FCC deeded net neutrality oversight to the Federal Trade Commission when it took ISPs out from under Title II.

ITIF is telling Congress that the FCC should oversee prioritization agreements and that, in legislation, Congress could prohibit exclusive differentiation deals and require that prioritization be offered on similar terms and conditions.

A non-neutral network “can unlock new, real-time services without harming general best-effort traffic and preventing any potential anticompetitive consequences,” ITIF argues.

The FCC's now-eliminated presumptive ban on paid prioritization was the "most troubling" part of the FCC's 2015 Open Internet order because it was based in a false premise.

That is according to Richard Bennett, founder of High Tech Forum for Tuesday's (April 17) house Communications Subcommittee informational hearing on the practice.

Paid prioritization is the major sticking point in potential legislation to establish new net neutrality rules both sides of the political aisle and the debate--activists vs. industry--might be able to live with.

Bennett says it is a popular misconception--and certainly a conception popular with net neutrality groups--that paid prioritization (or "optimization," as Bennett calls it) "Perceptibly degrade traditional applications such as video

streaming, the web, or email." He said that is because "traditional applications" have a high tolerance for variations in the speed of delivery because of buffering, meaning one applications fast lane does not necessarily another's slow one.

He says ISPs are in the best position to identify the requirements of the packets they deliver--and activists concede network management is needed. But Bennett says the best way to identify the needs of those packets, and preserve privacy, is to "allow application developers to register applications requiring special treatment, and even to pay for such treatment in some circumstances."

Bennett also argues that the speed at which a Web page now loads is mostly in the control of the Web page owners--the Google's and Amazons and Facebooks, pointing out that while the average speed of broadband networks has increased 35% per year for a decade, Web performance has remained stagnant and even went down in 2016.

INCOMPAS to Hill: Paid Prioritization Must Be Off Limits

But activist arguments go beyond what they can do to what they would do, saying that without rules ISPs could perceptibly degrade traffic even if they did not have to for network management purposes and the government would have to catch them and take action for anticompetitive conduct if that could be proved.

Bennett concludes that the best approach to promoting innovative services is "when they are able to purchase the network services they need without undertaking the breathtaking expense of building the networks of data centers owned by the five largest US firms."

He says a "generally permissive approach to the design and sale of innovative network services–with proper oversight by well-informed regulators–is the best way forward for the Internet."

That is basically the ISP's and Ajit Pai FCC's argument that it is anticompetitive paid prioritization that should be discouraged, either through FTC or Justice Department enforcement against anticompetitive practices, or perhaps via legislation.

Ranking Committee member Mike Doyle (R-Pa.), registered a complaint with Bennett's testimony, saying Bennett had made last-minute changes to his written testimony that lead Doyle to question whether that testimony was credible.

INCOMPAS, whose members include computer companies, wants the House Communications Subcommittee to know just where it stands on paid prioritization: firmly against it.

That came in a letter from the group on the eve of an informational hearing Tuesday (April 17) on the practice.

INCOMPAS said paid prioritization, an umbrella term that covers a variety of business plans involving charging for prioritizing web traffic, gives internet service providers the incentive to "monetize network congestions," leading to a world of fast and slow lanes where ISPs pick the winners and losers.

“The ink isn’t even dry on the FCC’s proposal to end net neutrality, and ISP lobbyists are already urging Congress to allow for paid prioritization. You can have an open internet, or you can have paid prioritization, but you cannot have both," said INCOMPAS general counsel Angie Kronenberg.

ISPs have long argued, even before the FCC voted last December to eliminate the rule against paid prioritization, that there should be some flexibility for what they say is a pro-consumer way of differentiating among services, like, say paying more for express shipping over standard delivery. They also argue it would not slow or degrade other traffic.

ISPs have said, generally, that they can support prohibiting anti-competitive pair prioritization, but want the opportunity to explore what they see as potentially pro-consumer prioritization.

Most net neutrality activists view "pro-consumer prioritization" as an oxymoron, beyond the kind of network management that prioritizes internet phone service, for instance, or emergency communications.

INCOMPAS pointed to a survey it conducted that found 72% of voters oppose paid prioritization.

In a sweeping decision, FCC chair Ajit Pai is proposing to essentially wipe the slate clean of most net-neutrality regulations adopted under the Title II-based 2015 Open Internet order by the then Tom Wheeler-led FCC.

The Restoring Internet Freedom Draft Order  circulated earlier today (Nov. 21) repeals the bright-line rules against blocking, degrading and paid prioritization and pre-empts any attempts by states and localities to impose their own versions, according to senior FCC officials speaking on background.

The order will be publicly released Wednesday (Nov. 22), and is certain to get major pushback from Democrats on the Hill and activists elsewhere. 

The FCC concluded that the costs of the rules, which were substantial, outweigh the benefits. Eliminating virtually all the rules could leave the field open for Congress to adopt its own targeted, bright-line rules, as some Republicans were indicating following circulation of the item.

But it retains and even adds a transparency requirement that ISPs will have to publicly disclose if they engage in blocking, throttling, affiliate prioritization, or paid prioritization, and just what they are blocking or prioritizing.

The FCC will use transparency as the means of getting at potential anticompetitive conduct.

The Department of Justice could then decide whether those were threats to competition, and the Federal Trade Commission can police the internet practices of ISPs as it does with Google or Facebook, using its authority against unfair or deceptive activity.

ISPs have pledged not to block of throttle, and the officials said the FCC expects them to hold to those promises.

The Restoring Internet Freedom Draft Order will change ISPs from a telecommunications service under "heavy handed" Title II to an information service under "light touch" Title I, they said.

Mobile broadband would return to a private mobile radio service designation, so both wired and wireless would no longer be under Title II mandatory access conditions.

The FCC order re-evaluates the agency's authority under Sec. 706 and concludes it is not an independent grant of authority. Sec. 706 is the congressional directive to ensure that advanced telecommunications is made available to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.

It modifies the transparency rule with the targeted disclosure additions. The item would eliminate additional reporting obligations under the Title II order because the costs outweigh consumer benefits.

The item eliminates the general-conduct standard as too vague.

Officials said they had vetted the millions of comments on the item, but pointed out that there were millions of form letters on both sides. They said to the extent the comments just stated opinions and did not offer new facts did not have much bearing on the order.

They said 7.5 million of those comments were the same comment submitted repeatedly.

"The time has come to overturn the market disrupting net neutrality and common carrier regulations that sacrificed decades of precedent and the independence of the agency for political ends while doing nothing to protect actual consumers,"said Commisioner Michael O'Rielly. "The Internet was a vibrant place of commerce and public discourse before the rules ever took effect and will continue to flourish after we discard this unnecessary and harmful regulatory overhang. I look forward to reviewing the Chairman’s proposal and working together to ensure that the order contains the necessary legal and analytical foundations, including preemption, to implement sound policy and withstand the challenges that are certain to ensue."

Democratic FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who voted for the 2015 Open Internet order, labeled the new order offensive and called for public hearings on it before the Dec. 14 vote, saying: “Today the FCC circulated its sweeping rollback of our net-neutrality rules. Following actions earlier this year to erase consumer privacy protections, the Commission now wants to wipe out court-tested rules and a decade’s work in order to favor cable and telephone companies. This is ridiculous and offensive to the millions of Americans who use the Internet every day.

"Our Internet economy is the envy of the world because it is open to all," she continued. "This proposal tears at the foundation of that openness. It hands broadband providers the power to decide what voices to amplify, which sites we can visit, what connections we can make, and what communities we create. It throttles access, stalls opportunity, and censors content. It would be a big blunder for a slim majority of the FCC to approve these rules and saddle every Internet user with the cruel consequences.

"I’ve called for public hearings before any change is made to these rules, just as Republican and Democratic Commissions have done in the past," Rosenworcel added. "We should go directly to the American public to find out what they think about this proposal before any vote is taken to harm net neutrality.”