Metro PCS Data Plan Draws Protest From Net Neutrality Advocates
- by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, January 4, 2011
A new pricing plan by Metro PCS has prompted some advocates to complain that the wireless company is violating neutrality principles.
MetroPCS's cheapest new 4G plan, announced this week, allows subscribers unlimited access to voice, texting, Web browsing and YouTube for $40 a month. But the catch is that people who sign up for that plan reportedly will not be able to access certain types of data or applications -- including, apparently, Skype.
While MetroPCS is offering less restrictive plans to people who pay more, the limits on the $40 plan are proving controversial. Advocacy group Free Press said on Tuesday that the plan's restrictions violate the Federal Communications Commission's recent neutrality rules. Those regulations, which the FCC passed last month by a 3-2 vote, prohibit mobile broadband providers from blocking or degrading applications that compete with the providers' voice or video telephony services.
"You can't block competing VoIP services on a broadband connection," says Free Press policy counsel Chris Riley. "Charging more to have access to individual services is the same thing as blocking them, as far as I'm concerned."
Metro PCS's terms of service also provide that some plans come with data usage caps that can be as low as 1 GB per month. But the company's terms say that not all data will count toward the cap. Among the material that might be excluded is data from the company's MetroSTUDIO and @metro store.
That set-up also is potentially problematic, according to Riley. He says that a data cap does not violate neutrality principles as long as it is applied to all data equally. But caps that only apply when consumers attempt to access certain companies' content might violate the FCC's prohibition against blocking.
While Free Press is urging the FCC to investigate, the advocacy group has not yet filed a formal complaint about the new plans.
Metro PCS did not respond to inquiries by Online Media Daily.
Free Press has good intentions but their view on MetroPCS is misguided. The question is not Net Neutrality but rather how much spectrum the carrrier owns. MetroPCS primarily operates in top 30 markets but in most markets owns 10MHz perhaps 20MHz tops and in Las Vegas only 5MHz so they have to be myopic on the network management of data usage- so as long as the offered price states what the offering is they are fine. MetroPCS is providing a great to consumers with a no contract lower priced offering. In contrast Verizon and AT&T typically own over 100MHz of spectrum in top 30 markets- that is 10X more but they have a different set of problems. At the end of the day everyone needs to understand that a wireless connection no matter how much spectrum you throw at it will never match a simple fiber line for broadband speed and capacity.
Leonard Zachary is correct, in that wireless bandwidth and capacity is limited. However, blocking access to specific services because of the plan-type chosen is indeed a violation of net neutrality principles, which needs to cast a blind eye on the type of data being transferred. The fact that MetroPCS CAN offer the service for a higher price indicates they have both the bandwidth and capacity to do so. Imagine your telephone not being able to call the market up the street, or worse, the local fire or police stations. There are other ways to limit service access that do not impinge net neutrality principles. For example, there's nothing to prevent MetroPCS from saying their $40 plan is NOT recommended for certain services such as Skype. But blocking access? No, that they should not do.
(From a marketing viewpoint, MetroPCS should look upon this as a chance to upgrade users to fuller plans. Once they get a taste of what it's like to use these other services on the cheap plan, they'll want to get better service and upgrade to a bigger plan for more reliable connections.)
Robert, the approach you have taken regarding net neutrality excludes the largest elephant in the room- the problem is not MetroPCS offering with limited access. Justify that broadband over landline is completely UNREGULATED since Congress back in 2002 voted broadband is NOT a telecommunications service. Now why are we talking wireless broadband when in fact most smartphones toggle Wi-Fi hotspots to connect to the internet (so it is unregulated) which by default is landline broadband. Which is why AT*T is very shy about the explosive growth in smartphone Wi-Fi data sessions. Another question to consider is what utility do you pay for that is unlimited? I cannot think of any other than wireless broadband which when reconciled with the narrow capacity of sepctrum versus fiber or cable landline, makes no sense. Wireless broadband will need to go to a metered pay model and this has nothing to do with net neutrality but rather network management. Websites that spew data at will need to confirm to a data protocol (as well as apps and apps synching) for any net neutrality arguement to make sense. In the meantime if you spent the money building a network, you must safegauard that network to work efficiently for the majority of that customer base. Else go buy a 2 year pland at Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile.....