Concerned about net neutrality, FCC probes Comcast, T-Mobile, & AT&T over data cap exemptions
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has issued letters to Comcast, T-Mobile, and AT&T, asking for more information on perks that exempt some services from counting towards Internet users' data caps.
The agency wants to "have all the facts" on how the perks relate "to the Commission's goal of maintaining a free and open Internet while incentivizing innovation and investment from all sources," the FCC said in each letter, according to The Hill. The FCC is presumably concerned that such perks violate net neutrality, prioritizing some services' traffic in a way that rival services can't hope to compete with.
T-Mobile, for instance, offers Music Freedom and Binge On, which exclude some -- but not all -- third-party music and video services from caps. Comcast's Stream TV offers a proprietary mix of live and on-demand content, while AT&T is simply marketing "sponsored data," allowing any outside party to pay for customers' data consumption.
All three companies have denied any wrongdoing, with Comcast in particular describing its offering as a "cable service" that "only works in the customer's home" and "does not go over the public Internet." The option is available only to Xfinity Internet customers.
During a Thursday press conference announcing the letters, FCC chaiman Tom Wheeler insisted that there was no investigation underway, and that the agency is simply trying to stay informed about industry practices. Republican commissioner Ajit Pai argued that the letters are "not simply a benign information inquiry," with an obvious net neutrality agenda. Commissioners wanting to keep up on the industry should be able to meet with companies without sending out formal letters, he said.
The letters in fact call for all three named corporations to "make available relevant technical and business personnel for discussions" by Jan. 15.
The agency wants to "have all the facts" on how the perks relate "to the Commission's goal of maintaining a free and open Internet while incentivizing innovation and investment from all sources," the FCC said in each letter, according to The Hill. The FCC is presumably concerned that such perks violate net neutrality, prioritizing some services' traffic in a way that rival services can't hope to compete with.
T-Mobile, for instance, offers Music Freedom and Binge On, which exclude some -- but not all -- third-party music and video services from caps. Comcast's Stream TV offers a proprietary mix of live and on-demand content, while AT&T is simply marketing "sponsored data," allowing any outside party to pay for customers' data consumption.
All three companies have denied any wrongdoing, with Comcast in particular describing its offering as a "cable service" that "only works in the customer's home" and "does not go over the public Internet." The option is available only to Xfinity Internet customers.
During a Thursday press conference announcing the letters, FCC chaiman Tom Wheeler insisted that there was no investigation underway, and that the agency is simply trying to stay informed about industry practices. Republican commissioner Ajit Pai argued that the letters are "not simply a benign information inquiry," with an obvious net neutrality agenda. Commissioners wanting to keep up on the industry should be able to meet with companies without sending out formal letters, he said.
The letters in fact call for all three named corporations to "make available relevant technical and business personnel for discussions" by Jan. 15.
Comments
It it seems to me that offering some content for free to a customer does not explicitly violate those notions.
Net Neutrality is GOOD for the consumer. Without it, companies will charge you more for different types of data, even though there is no difference in how that data is delivered. That's exactly what's happening here. If T-Mobile and these other companies are able to "handle the load" for STREAMING MOVIES, then why is there even a "bucket" of data in the first place? Data doesn't run out. It's an artificial scarcity. If we follow net neutrality, then if they can make some data not count, then they can make all data not count. Anything else is pure corporate greed.
Having said that, I don't think an ISP or a content site making a deal with an ISP to offer data that doesn't count towards a data cap is harmful in any way as long as there's no throttling of sites who don't do such a deal. Would the FCC get involved if phone companies/ISPs lowered prices? That's essentially what this is even if does cause consumers to favor one content site over another. IMO, offering some sites that don't count towards a data cap is no different than a cable company offering CSPAN as part of their lowest-priced package.
I don't know if there's any stats on this, but what percentage of consumers exceed their data caps anyway?
The monopoly status at the local level has nothing to do with the issue in the article since it's a wireless focus. The issues with cable at the local level are numerous. Some municipalities installed and maintained their own cable system, some brokered deals with up and coming cable companies or local television dealers to provide it. Remember, we're talking about the 1970's. It was a big deal to get WGN from Chicago and WTBS from Atlanta. CNN came later along with HBO, etc. No one was thinking about internet access. The first internet access was via telephone line at 110 or 300 bps, not cable. The local monopoly existed for anyone who could afford to string the cable. Ma Bell (AT&T) came into existence as what they called a necessary monopoly which the government agreed to. They created a network that allowed local non-competing networks to connect along with At&T's local systems. Ma Bell was a monopoly not created by the government but basically the government looked the other way. Part of the deal was that AT&T agreed to provide telephone service to rural areas. As the United States continued to grow and modernize it was important to service rural areas.
Broderik: I don't understand your statement about data doesn't run out. There is only a defined amount of bandwidth at a point in time. It's up to the ISP's to continue to increase it as the demand increases. The cable, fiber, routers, and switches required to add to the backbone add cost to add and maintain them. For wireless there is only a finite number of frequencies available to the carriers. The FCC has been slow to release more for auction. I have been in the downtown area during rush hour and found that making a call is difficult and I go from LTE to 3G to no data connection often.