The important thing here is this is part of a cable TV offering from Comcast, and HBO Go is only available to subscribers who pay their cable TV provider for the HBO channel. Hence the need for authentication.
This is on the cable TV side of the house, not the Internet side. People may be unhappy because they want it and Comcast is the only cable TV game in town, but that’s a lack of competition issue, not a Net Neutrality issue. Nothing to see here, move along. If Comcast blocked HBO Now (the upcoming OTT service), that would be different. From: Mike Hammett Sent: Friday, March 06, 2015 10:59 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Comcast vs. HBO Go on PS4? It's a Comcast thing. For whatever reason, they haven't provided Sony with access to their authentication servers that they've provided to others. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Mathew Howard" <mhoward...@gmail.com> To: "af" <af@afmug.com> Sent: Friday, March 6, 2015 9:43:58 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Comcast vs. HBO Go on PS4? I may be wrong, but it seems to me this is actually a case of Sony's app not supporting Comcast (yes, it may be because of some crazy restrictions Comcast has), not the other way around. That's kind of like saying that the fact I can't connect to xbox live with a playstation is a net neutrality violation. On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 8:44 AM, Darren Shea <darr...@ecpi.com> wrote: The only thing in the article which undermines that reading of the facts is this line: “Roku eventually got approval last December, but Sony devices are still locked out.” That implies that Comcast customers are allowed to use the HBOGo service, but only with certain, pre-approved by Comcast, clients. That might run afoul of the new Net Neutrality rules, especially if the protocols, ports and bitrates are identical, regardless of of the client used. It’s one thing for a cable provider (like Time Warner) to refuse to participate in an unrelated network’s non-broadcast offerings (like the Disney Channel app), it may be another for the provider to say people running the app on an iPhone can use it, but people using the Windows Phone version cannot. We’re in uncharted territory here! n Darren From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2015 7:22 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Comcast vs. HBO Go on PS4? Based just on a quick Google search (so I could be mistaken), this appears to be total bullshit. This is how HBO Go describes itself on their website: “Get unlimited access to all your favorite HBO® shows, hit movies, sports, comedy and more, plus bonus features and behind-the-scenes extras. It’s all free with your HBO subscription through participating television providers and available on your favorite devices.” In other words, it’s exactly the same as complaining that a WISP doesn’t “give” its customers ESPN3. HBO Go appears not to be an OTT service with individual subscriptions. It appears to be an extra, Internet based service that comes only with HBO from a cable provider. So the complaint appears to be that Comcast has not offered HBO Go to its cable customers who have HBO. It seems to me that is different from “blocking” HBO Go to your Internet customers, as the article claims. From: Mike Hammett Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2015 7:08 PM To: Animal Farm Subject: [AFMUG] Comcast vs. HBO Go on PS4? http://www.extremetech.com/computing/200479-this-is-why-we-need-internet-regulation-comcast-blocks-hbo-go-app-from-working-on-ps4 Do we know anything about this? The article above runs over Comcast with a bus, but does little to technically explain why\how Comcast is blocking them.
