Jon Brodkin

Just a few weeks after escaping a network neutrality investigation into data cap exemptions, Verizon has decided to let its FiOS mobile video stream on its wireless network without counting against data caps. Customers who have Verizon FiOS TV at home and a Verizon Wireless smartphone plan can watch TV outside their homes without using up the data allotments on limited mobile plans.

Just two months ago, the Federal Communications Commission accused Verizon Wireless of violating net neutrality rules by letting its Go90 video service stream without counting against customers' data caps as the company charged other video providers for the same data cap exemptions (also known as "zero-rating"). But the FCC's new Republican leadership rescinded that claim and ended the investigation last month, giving carriers the green light to expand data cap exemptions. Verizon's Go90 mobile video service hasn't been a smashing success, and 155 employees were reportedly laid off as a result in January. But Verizon has 4.7 million FiOS TV subscribers, and the data cap exemptions might make them more likely to pay for Verizon's mobile service as well.

The Federal Communications Commission recently gave mobile carriers the green light to expand zero-rating, a method of favoring online content by exempting it from data caps. At the same time, carriers have been competing to offer the best unlimited data plans—and without data caps, there’s no need for zero-rating. But that doesn’t mean zero-rating and similar free data offers are over and done with, because many customers are still going to buy cheaper, limited data plans.

AT&T and Verizon seemed reluctant to make unlimited data plans widely available until they faced competitive pressure to do so. Those two carriers have created new sources of revenue by seeking payments from companies that want to bypass data caps in order to reach more customers. AT&T and Verizon have also made their own video services more attractive by exempting them from caps. You can expect that to continue despite the rise of unlimited data and possibly accelerate because the FCC’s new Republican leadership intends to allow both paid and unpaid data cap exemptions.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said his "light-touch" approach to regulation is already helping consumers in the form of unlimited smartphone data plans from major US carriers. And he predicted that getting rid of "utility-style regulation" over broadband providers will boost Internet access across the US.

There are, however, reasons to think that the FCC's zero-rating decision was not responsible for the new unlimited data offerings. For one thing, selling unlimited data harms the business case for paid data cap exemptions. If carriers don't limit the amount of data mobile customers can use each month, there's no reason for online content providers to pay the carriers for zero-rating. While data caps are hated by customers, they create a scarcity that can be monetized by carriers as long as the FCC allows paid zero-rating. Secondly, there were already unlimited data plans before Pai became chairman. T-Mobile USA introduced its "T-Mobile One" unlimited plan in August 2016, while Democrat Tom Wheeler was still FCC chairman and the FCC was pursuing its net neutrality investigation into zero-rating. Sprint was already selling unlimited data and so was AT&T (although AT&T's unlimited data was only available to DirecTV and U-verse TV customers).

Google Fiber's new wireless Internet division is apparently ready to expand. The company's Webpass subsidiary says in a job listing that it is "searching for a General Manager to launch our Seattle market." The new GM will be "directly responsible for the growth of our local telecom network and revenue" and will oversee construction and installation schedules. Webpass, which offers up to 1Gbps upload and download speeds for $60 a month and without data caps, was purchased by Google Fiber in October 2016 and already sells wireless home Internet service in Boston, Chicago, Miami, San Diego, Oakland, and San Francisco. (Advertised speeds are anywhere from 100Mbps to 1Gbps, depending on location.) The plan would bring Google’s wireless option to Seattle’s dense urban center where creating a new physical fiber network can be expensive and impractical.

Republican Sens are reportedly preparing a legislative move to overturn privacy rules that require Internet service providers to protect their customers' online data. Sen Jeff Flake (R-AZ) confirmed that he plans to introduce a resolution that would roll back the Federal Communications Commission’s broadband privacy rules via the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows Congress to eliminate agency rules with a simple majority vote. Sen Flake had a dozen co-sponsors on board as of last week, but he hasn't said when exactly he'll submit the resolution.

In the House, Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said last week she was speaking with colleagues in the Senate "daily" about how to best utilize the CRA to undo broadband privacy. The flurry of action comes shortly after industry lobby groups asked Congress to use the CRA to undo the privacy rules. The rules passed in October require home and mobile ISPs to get opt-in consent from consumers before sharing Web browsing data and other private information with advertisers and other third parties.

AT&T is bringing fiber-to-the-home Internet to five new metro areas this month, boosting its fiber total to 51 metro areas in the US. Milwaukee (WI) has AT&T Fiber now, and later in Feb the service will arrive in Columbia (SC), Jackson (MI), Knoxville (TN), and Shreveport (LA). AT&T Fiber is available to nearly four million homes and businesses (up from three million in November 2016), but there's still a lot of work left to put fiber in additional cities and expand deployment in those where it's already available. "By mid-2019 we plan to reach at least 12.5 million locations across 67 metro areas with our 100 percent fiber network," AT&T said. The company agreed to hit those numbers in exchange for getting its purchase of DirecTV approved in 2015.

The "Virginia Broadband Deployment Act" that would have made it far more difficult for municipalities to offer Internet service has been dramatically watered down after running into heavy opposition. Instead of preventing cities and towns from offering broadband, a new version of the bill passed by the Virginia House this week merely imposes new record-keeping requirements.

The original bill favored by cable lobbyists (and called the "Broadband death star bill" by one opponent) would have prohibited municipal broadband deployments except in very limited circumstances. If it had passed, localities wouldn't have been allowed to offer Internet service if an existing network already provided 10Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds to 90 percent of potential customers. The bill also would have made it difficult for localities to offer lower rates than private ISPs. Gov Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) in Jan promised to veto the bill if it was passed by the state legislature. The proposal also drew opposition from local governments, broadband advocacy groups, and companies such as Google and Netflix. The opposition was successful, as House Republicans replaced the bill with another called the "Virginia Wireless Services Act" and approved it Tuesday by a 72-24 vote. It has now gone to the Senate for consideration.

Comcast should stop saying in advertisements that it “delivers the fastest Internet in America” and the “fastest in-home Wi-Fi," according to the advertising industry's self-regulation body. The evidence Comcast uses to substantiate those claims is not sufficient, ruled the National Advertising Review Board (NARB).

Verizon had challenged Comcast's advertising claims, leading to the ruling. Comcast said today that it disagreed with the findings but will comply with the decision. Comcast used crowdsourced speed test data from Ookla to make its claim about Xfinity Internet speeds. "Ookla’s data showed only that Xfinity consumers who took advantage of the free tests offered on the Speedtest.net website subscribed to tiers of service with higher download speeds than Verizon FiOS consumers who took advantage of the tests," today's NARB announcement said. The Ookla data's accuracy wasn't questioned, but it was judged to be "not a good fit for an overall claim that an ISP delivers 'America’s fastest Internet.'"

The Federal Communications Commission's new Republican leadership has decided not to defend FCC inmate calling rules that place a cap on intrastate calling rates. Chairman Ajit Pai and fellow Commissioner Michael O'Rielly repeatedly opposed attempts to cap the phone rates charged to prisoners while Democrats held the FCC's majority.

Republicans argued that the FCC exceeded its authority, and commission attempts to enforce rate caps have been stymied by a series of court decisions. Since the FCC prison rate order was adopted by a 3-2 vote in October 2015, Democrats Jessica Rosenworcel and Chairman Tom Wheeler have left the commission, FCC Deputy General Counsel David Gossett noted. "As a result of these changes in membership, the two Commissioners who dissented from the Order under review—on the grounds that, in specific respects, it exceeds the agency’s lawful authority—now comprise a majority of the Commission," Gossett wrote. Gossett is thus no longer authorized to defend the FCC's previous contention that it "has the authority to cap intrastate rates for inmate calling services" and cannot defend the FCC's assertion that it "lawfully considered industry-wide averages in setting the rate caps contained in the Order," he wrote. Gossett said he will continue to defend other parts of the commission's October 2015 order, which also lowered the price of interstate calls, those that cross state lines. The FCC's decision to stop defending the full order hurts the case for maintaining rate caps on intrastate calls in which both parties are in the same state, but it doesn't completely kill the case. The FCC is ceding 10 minutes of its allotted argument time to attorney Andrew Schwartzman, who is defending the rate caps on behalf of prisoners' rights groups.

In a press conference after the Federal Communications Commission meeting, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was asked several times about network neutrality. While Chairman Pai has repeatedly made it clear that he opposes the current rules and wants to overturn them, he has not said whether the commission will continue to enforce all of the rules while they are still in place. When asked by a reporter if the agency will continue to enforce the rules, Chairman Pai pointed out that he and fellow Republican Commissioner Michael O'Rielly already said they wouldn't punish small Internet service providers for violations of the net neutrality order's "enhanced transparency" rules.

The FCC is finalizing an order that will exempt ISPs with 250,000 or fewer subscribers from those truth-in-billing rules and will not enforce them against the small ISPs while they're still in place. But for now, Pai is not saying whether the commission will continue to enforce the core net neutrality rules that prohibit Internet providers from blocking or throttling traffic or giving priority to Web services in exchange for payment.