Telekom has considered something new to win customers over. The mobile service provider now offers a free flatrate for streaming services.
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That has never been: The German Telekom offers in the future a service that has not been covered by any tariff yet. Telekom customers should be allowed to use a flat rate streaming service for music and video in the future, without that data volume is consumed. This offer is valid for all customers who have a magenta mobile rate starting at size "L". In the smaller "M" tariff music can be streamed for free; Streaming video continues to consume data volumes n.
Deutsche Telekom CEO Niek Jan van Damme proudly told the WELT: "We are revolutionizing the German mobile communications market." He could actually be right, because many mobile users stream music and videos on the go, consuming tons of data . The result: a throttled data volume or the customer has to pay. This is not Telekom's first attempt to offer its customers free music and videos. The mobile service provider had already announced in 2012 a cooperation with music streaming service Spotify . Even then, listening to music should not count towards data usage .
Telekom has numerous partners for streaming offerings
However, this cooperation had to be discontinued in March last year because it violated the new EU regulation on net neutrality . This states that individual services may not be treated preferentially. In order not to get back problems with said EU regulation, the Telekom negotiated this time in advance with the Federal Network Agency, which considers the offer as legal.
The flatrate for streaming services no longer involves just one co-operation partner, but starts with more than 20 partners, including Apple Music, Juke, Amazon, Napster, Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube and radioplayer.de. Spotify and Deezer are still under negotiation. The streaming offer will apply to existing and new customers from 19 April .
