FCC Should Take Action Against Comcast Data Caps, Public Knowledge says
The FCC should take action against Comcast’s use of data caps in “test markets” and start monitoring usage-based pricing, Public Knowledge said Thursday in a letter to acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn (http://bit.ly/150H1EE) and in a blog post(http://bit.ly/17NjeLl). Video viewed online as part of Comcast’s Xfinity service on an Xbox 360 or TiVo doesn’t count against Comcast’s data caps, said Public Knowledge Vice President Michael Weinberg in an interview Thursday. That violates conditions of the Comcast/NBCU merger designed to protect competition in online video and undermines “the ability of video providers unaffiliated with ISPs to compete with those video providers that are also ISPs,” said Public Knowledge’s letter. In the letter, Weinberg asked the FCC to take action on a Public Knowledge petition filed on the matter a year ago (CD Aug 12 p2). “The FCC has a responsibility to at least investigate if their merger conditions are being violated,” Weinberg told us.
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There isn’t much momentum at the commission to take action against usage-based pricing, said Baker Hostetler cable attorney Gary Lutzker, who represents some companies that use data caps. “They're a consumer friendly, cost causative way of pricing,” he said. If you use more data, you pay more money.” If the FCC takes action to regulate data caps, it’s unlikely it would focus solely on Comcast, despite the extra leverage the merger conditions provide, said Bruce Beckner, a Garvey Schubert cable attorney. The commission is more likely to make a broader policy ruling that affects Comcast as well as its competition. “If you don’t make it uniform, you start changing around the marketplace,” he said.
Comcast first announced that streaming Xfinity video on the right device would not count against its data cap last year, but announced that the cap was being dropped in May 2012 (CD May 18 p3). However, the company recently announced on its website test markets in Central Kentucky, Savannah, Ga., and Jackson, Miss., that Xfinity customers would have a 300 GB cap starting next month (http://bit.ly/1biluNn). Comcast didn’t comment on whether the Xfinity data cap exception applies in the test markets.
Public Knowledge’s concerns about data caps aren’t limited to Comcast, Weinberg said. “There are a lot of ways they can be abused,” he said. However, Public Knowledge doesn’t oppose data caps across the board, he said. Along with hurting competition, he said the caps have the potential to slow adoption of new technology and services. He said a recent report from the Open Internet Advisory Committee showed the FCC has almost no information about the prevalence or effect of usage-based pricing. “This report suggests that monitoring has been, at a minimum, inadequate,” he said in a blog post. “If the FCC wants to be taken seriously, it must now take the next step,” said Weinberg. “Advance the debate. Gather, and make public, actual information."