The US public interest group Free Press filed a letter to the FCC on Monday, calling on the US regulator to look into claims that Dallas-based mobile provider MetroPCS Communications is planning to discriminate against certain internet content.
The case…
The US public interest group Free Press filed a letter to the FCC on Monday, calling on the US regulator to look into claims that Dallas-based mobile provider MetroPCS Communications is planning to discriminate against certain internet content.
The case has emerged as the first serious test of the FCC’s new net neutrality rules.
Free Press’ concern centres on an announcement by MetroPCS last week on new service plans for its new 4G LTE service for mobiles.
These plans included three tiers of plans, with monthly prices of US$40, US$50 and US$60. The US$40-a-month plan claims to offer “unlimited talk, text, 4G Web browsing with unlimited YouTube access”.
But Free Press claims that this plan would exclude certain internet services, including VoIP Skype and the TV/Film-streaming site Netflix, putting these services at competitive disadvantage and lessening consumer choice.
The Free Press policy counsel, Chris Riley, said that this was particularly problematic with MetroPCS because the company disproportionately served customers on lower incomes, a group which tends to rely increasingly on mobile broadband.
He said: “A walled garden in mobile broadband leaves a large number of Internet users on the wrong side of the digital divide.”
The dispute comes after the FCC was criticised last month for allegedly failing to provide the same net neutrality safeguards to mobile broadband as to fixed-line broadband.
In its decision on 21 December, it approved three key rules for all broadband suppliers: transparency on network management practices; no blocking of lawful content; no unreasonable discrimination against lawful network traffic.
Yet it also said it would take more “measured” steps with mobile broadband than with fixed-line. This was because mobile broadband was a fast-evolving service and because it was arguably more prone to bandwidth constraints.
This decision did not please everyone.
One of the Democratic commissioners on the FCC who voted for the rules approved on 21 December, Mignon Clyburn, said after the decision that she would have “extended all the fixed rules to mobile, so that those consumers who heavily or exclusively rely upon mobile broadband would be fully protected”.
The FCC declined to comment on the Free Press statement.
However, an FCC spokesperson did say that “we will be monitoring developments in this fast-moving industry closely”.
MetroPCS did not respond to questions before the press deadline.
