Comment by negrit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by negrit | Hacker News Reader

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Hey guys, french guy here. There is few things you actually need to know. First the ISP Free has always been a game changer in France. First they introduced the "triple-play/low cost internet" wich is TV + unlimited phone call over 150 countries + high speed internet for under 30 euros Then they started to be a mobile carrier and they broke de price with unlimited call over 150 countries, unlimited text/media messages and unlimited internet for 15 euros.

And now they just setup a built-in adblock in their modem and enabled by default.

But you also need to know that since several year Free is fighting against Youtube(own by Google) because they basically wants Youtube to pay a fee for all the bandwidth the users are "wasting" on youtube".

EDIT: I forget to tell you that he is also behind online.net wich is a very big internet hosting company and back then he was the first to introduce low cost dedicated server(http://www.online.net/fr/serveur-dedie/dedibox-sc).

He is also behind Kima Venture, a pretty good VC I guess.

And he recently launch an internet shcool: http://www.eemi.com/ and is planning to launch a computer science school.

I never understood why ISPs think that bandwidth heavy sites ought to pay them. Surely if a user is wasting bandwidth on sites like YouTube then the ISP should ask the user to pay for that bandwidth. Why don't they do that?

Actually, to my mind there's a good case for sites like Youtube to ask for money from the ISPs.

The ISPs users want connection to the Internet because they want great content (cat videos on youtube and the like). If Google blocked free.fr users from accessing Youtube, it's likely that many free.fr customers would go elsewhere, to another ISP that can provide them with the cat videos they crave. And Google need to pay for all the bandwidth these users eat up repeatedly watching cat videos somehow.

If you read french, that's the thinking behind it: http://www.bfmtv.com/economie/adfreegate-revolution-is-not-a...

So by cutting the already-meager flow of money available for free content, they hope to force Google to bend to that? When Google is already swimming in money?

I think they're dreaming.

Moreover, the guy behind Free Mobile is also behind an Israeli mobile network operator called Golan Telecom. They have been game changers in Israel as well, providing unlimited call/text/data package for 99 NIS/month (about 26 USD). This package also features unlimited calls to more than 50 countries. Recently they even cut their prices in half (49 NIS/month), for 6 months for new subscribers.

I didn't new that. But he is also behind a very big hosting company who changed the game (dedibox). He was the first to introduce cheap dedicated hosting serveur with high speed connection and unlimited data.

He is behind kima venture.

He is also the founder of a Computer Science school, soon two.

He also co-owns one of the most famous french newspaper. And was well known for bringing defamation lawsuits to journalists and newpapers. He also got most of his early wealth from running adult services.

In short he is not without controversies.

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