New FCC Report Says AT&T and Verizon Zero-Rating Violates Net Neutrality (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Just a week and a half before he is set to leave office, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has issued a new report stating that the zero-rated video services offered by ATT and Verizon may violate the FCC's Open Internet Order. Assembled by the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, the report focuses on sponsored data programs, which allow companies to pay carriers to exempt exempt their data from customers' data caps. According to the report, many of those packages simply aren't playing fair. "While observing that ATT provided incomplete responses to staff inquires," Wheeler wrote to Senators, "the report states that the limited information available supports a conclusion that ATT offers Sponsored Data to third-party content providers at terms and conditions that are effectively less favorable than those it offers to its affiliate, DirecTV." In theory, sponsored data should be an even playing field, with providers bearing the costs and making the same charges regardless of who's footing the bill. But according to the report, ATT treats the DirectTV partnership very differently from an unaffiliated sponsored data system, giving the service a strong advantage over competitors. "ATT appears to view the network cost of Sponsored Data for DIRECTV Now as effectively de minimis," the report concludes. While ATT still bears some cost for all that free traffic, it's small enough that the carrier doesn't seem to care. The report raises similar concerns regarding Verizon's Go90 program, although it concludes Verizon's program may be less damaging. Notably, the letter does not raise the same concerns about T-Mobile's BingeOn video deal, since it "charges all edge providers the same zero rate for participating."

Comments

Bureaucracy

[JBMcB]

I'm surprised they acted as fast as they did. Government bureaucracy isn't known for speed or efficiency.

Re:ATT & DirecTV wouldn't be a violation.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is monopolistic and anti-competitive, much like the rest of the broadcast industry. For some reason these jackoffs just keep coming back to building their monopoly towers, and the government lets them. They all need to be broken up into 8-10 companies apiece.

Re:Abuse the unlimited data caps

[sabri]

Nope 100% wrong

The cost of data over cable( copper or fiber) is effectively zero, the only costs are in supplying the cable in the first place ( and replacing it once every 100yrs or so, it doesn't exactly wear out). power costs are negligible

Nope 100% wrong.

Not only are you wrong, you are an idiot for posting this. Putting fiber in the ground is very expensive. Fixing fiber that has been broken is very expensive. Putting fiber in the ocean for transcontinental links is not just very expensive, it costs massive amounts of money.

And now you have only the cabling. You don't have any DWDM gear, routers, switches and the associated network engineers to operate them.

Data over cable is not zero. The only difference between wireless and wired internet access is the last mile, and the mobility aspect of it. As cellular technology evolves, it enables more and more bandwidth per user.