TATT, why not just ban the internet?

THE EDITOR: The Newsday article on Wednesday by Carla Bridglal, titled “TATT to go after Android boxes,” needs a response.

Here are a few reasons why the TATT claims are severely flawed: The first is the claim that Android boxes are the only devices people use to watch streaming media from the internet. Any teenager with an Android smartphone, iPhone or PC/laptop running Windows/MacOS/Linux with a web browser would beg to differ.

The primary app on these boxes is called Kodi and it’s available freely on the Web. There are versions for every operating system, not just Android, in popular use. Apart from that there’s also Terrarium TV, Movies HD, Mobdro and TapTV, to name a few free apps freely available on the Web.

Alternately, non-streaming apps like BitTorrent have been free, around for many years, extremely reliable and growing in popularity. Many legitimate software and entertainment providers use this platform to distribute their digital content.

Even without a dedicated streaming app there are websites like Putlocker, Xmovies8 and Movies123 that are accessible with web browsers like FireFox and Chrome.

There are alternate but entirely legal sources of online entertainment: Netflix, Hulu and YouTube, to name three.

These services are accessible from the devices mentioned before like smartphones and PCs but also smart TVs with the legal streaming apps built in. None of which is being taxed at this time.

The article states, “The Telecommunications Authority will begin consultations for the regulation of Android boxes next week, after lobbying by subscription television providers.”

Hopefully the consultations would take the points mentioned above into consideration and just ban the internet.

HAKEEB A NANDALAL

android programmer