FCC Wants Answers From All Major Carriers Regarding Data Throttling Practices

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Posted August 9, 2014 at 8:43pm by iClarified

After probing Verizon for its data throttling practices, the FCC is now asking all major mobile carriers to justify data throttling. Verizon first announced that it would be slow down speeds for the top 5% of unlimited 4G LTE data customers starting in October, which had the FCC voicing its concern for the new policy.

In its initial response, Verizon noted that it is doing no wrong in throttling customers. Verizon claimed other carriers like AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile have been doing it for years and "This practice has been widely accepted with little or no controversy."

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler was not buying Verizon's response (and neither are we!)

"'All the kids do it' was never something that worked for me when I was growing up," he told reporters Friday.

"My concern in this instance - and it's not just with Verizon, by the way, we've written to all the carriers - is that it (network management) is moving from a technology and engineering issue to the business issues ... such as choosing between different subscribers based on your economic relationship with them."

Wheeler reportedly wrote the other carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint) after receiving Verizon's first response to the matter. AT&T has not immediately comment on the matter, while a Sprint spokeswoman said the company will respond to Wheeler's letter.

T-Mobile said its "network practices are consistent with the Commission’s rules on the open Internet, are innovative and are good for consumers and competition."

Data throttling is a practice all carriers use today to help fight what they claim is a crunch on network spectrum and capacity. However, studies have found that data throttling is actually pointless -- people will still use their data regardless of the speed. In other words, carriers are fine if you pay $400 for 40GB a month, but not if you pay $30 a month with an unlimited plan.

We're not sure why the FCC Chairman has suddenly decided to ask questions now, but don't expect much to come out of these discussions.

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FCC Wants Answers From All Major Carriers Regarding Data Throttling Practices

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Extrabatterylover - August 11, 2014 at 8:29am

Let us all remember how shitty CDMA is . Here's the shitty deal : hey I'm on the phone with Bob and want to look up something oh wait I can't because I have shitty CDMA .

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sillydrew - August 9, 2014 at 11:43pm

Can anyone tell me the difference between this and what AT&T is doing to the people that had/have the unlimited plan?

JoshvanHulst - August 10, 2014 at 2:27am

I can definitely tell you from my experience with AT&T over the years being an original AT&T Wireless customer losing my my old grandfather plans and then having to start over with Cingular on new plans it was awful. Fast forward to when the iPhone 4 came out, AT&T announced they would do away with the unlimited plans because they supposedly weren't making any money from it. So what they do no to make it very hard for customers to want to stick with their unlimited data plans is grandfather it out. So whenever you want to change you plan to the new Mobile Share or remove the data feature for one month, they will not allow you to keep it. Also if you tether you phone to use the unlimited data, they place a "beacon" on your line that monitors the data that is streamed from your phone if it truly coming from the phone. It appears to me that they do it looking at external MAC ID's from devices that use tethering. To really kill off users from using the unlimited data plan they throttle your speed to 3G speed for the billing cycle that you are in, till the bill cycles for a new month. I have 6 lines that I own that have the unlimited data. I willing to give a line to someone if they want to pay to use it monthly.

zbr - August 9, 2014 at 11:06pm

Why now?? Simple, because Verizon made the simple mistake of just publicly announcing their plan to throttle Unlimited Customers and Making a Clear Distinction between Tiered Data & Unlimited Data Plans by treating them Differently When Using the 700MHz LTE Spectrum. By treating Customers Differently when using LTE Verizon is in Violation of the Agreement made with the FCC when they Purchased/Leased the 700MHz Frequency Block assigned to them. The Agreement Prohibits Any Interference by Verizon Which Would Inhibit a Customers Ability to Use the 700MHz Network. Obviously Verizon's Lame Excuse of "Everyone Else Is Doing It" Should be irrelevant and the FCC needs to look at ALL CELL PROVIDERS NETWORK THROTTLING PRACTICES!!! That means AT&T, Sprint, Tmobile, & All The Regional Carriers Too!!!

iGlassGuy - August 9, 2014 at 10:58pm

Either way you look at it, this is just another failed government organization. The other carriers have been doing this for a while and they didn't say anything, now suddenly they have an opinion.

gamerscul9870 - August 9, 2014 at 10:19pm

Because verizon is too fed up with focusing on "best results" and lying to trick people into buying their plans instead of coming up with something better than so much more T-Mobile offers, when was the last time they offered no limits to music, and plans cheaper than the competition, faster speeds, anything? They have played catch up for so long they didn't have a chance after tmobile changed the game since uncarrier one. There will be an upcoming uncarrier 7, but I can't ever get enough of what they created, verizon is just mocking the others and using the same shit in their ads. Every year, "that's powerful".