NFL fans, it is time to choose - playoffs or email?  Verizon and the NFL announced last month that fans could stream NBC’s wildcard games (Cincinnati/Houston and Detroit/New Orleans), the Pro Bowl, and the Super Bowl on their mobile phones.  What they failed to mention was that taking them up on their offer would probably blow through your entire monthly data limit.  What they really failed to mention was that once you hit your cap, your next email will cost you $10 in overage fees.

The following is attributed to Art Brodsky, communications director for Public Knowledge:

"Verizon should be commended for recognizing so quickly the mistake it made in proposing a $2 'convenience fee' for its customers who wanted to pay their bills in the same way in which they make online purchases all the time. Verizon dropped the fee a day after proposing it.

"Now attention can continue to focus on Verizon's campaign to eliminate competition for high-speed Internet access through its joint marketing deal with major cable companies. The Justice Department is right to investigate that arrangement."

Hey everyone, remember back at the end of last year when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted the better-than-nothing-but-still-painfully-disappointing Network Neutrality rules? Well, after a long and winding road, which included bouncing back and forth between the FCC and the Office of Management and Budget a few times and a premature challenge by Verizon, the rules were finally published in the Federal Register today. So without getting into the merits, here is what to expect procedurally.

Congressional Review Act

Verizon's announcement that it is going to throttle the top 5% of its 3G wireless customers serves as a fantastic illustration of the difference between reasonable network management and using network congestion as a pretext to gouge your customers.

The basic details of Verizon's new policy appear to be well within the scope of reasonable network management.  When a specific cell site is congested at a specific time, Verizon plans to throttle the connection of its heaviest users until the congestion clears or the customer moves to a less congested site.  Verizon plans to classify its top 5% of data users as its heaviest users. 

We have been talking more and more about the arbitrary limits that ISPs (both wired and wireless) have been imposing on consumers’ internet connections.  These limits are arbitrary because they do not seem to be based on any sort of technical evaluation.  AT&T wireless and Verizon wireless impose a 2 GB limit on their standard data packages – why 2GB as opposed to, say 1 GB or 3 GB?  Similarly, AT&T (wired) imposes a 150 GB limit on customers [update: AT&T imposes a 150 GB cap on DSL customers and a 250 GB cap on U-verse customers].  Comcast’s limit is 250 GB.  Where did these limits come from?  No one (outside of the company) has any idea.  For all we know, the companies just spun a big wheel to choose the cap.  In this murky world the only thing that is clear is that, while AT&T and Comcast’s network supports hundreds of TV channels, their internet limits prevent you from getting rid of their pay-TV offering and replacing it with a competing internet video service.

Wireless carriers have started to push their new 4G networks.  The carriers say that these new networks are amazing, and will allow you to do more, faster, than ever before.  What they do not tell you is that you will not be able to use the new 4G networks for very much.  That is because the wireless carriers (with the exception of Sprint, which offers truly unlimited 4G connections) have imposed arbitrary limits on their 4G networks.  For the average user, this limit is set at 2 GB per month.  As a result, just about everything that you would use the 4G network for will put you over your limit.

I occassionally suspect my colleagues in the Public Interest community lack a sense of humor -- although perhaps it is simply that I am in a more relaxed frame of mind after my annual vacation from the 21st Century. I am neither surprised nor outraged at the recent news that members of the Information Technology Industry Council (ITIC) are picking up where the FCC "secret meetings" left off and trying to come up with a net neutrality consensus framework. To me, it seems rather sad and funny. My only surprise is that even in Washington, the notion of an industry trade association working with its members is anything unusual or significant. I mean, that's what industry trade associations do after all.

On this weeks PK In the Know podcast, we discuss the ramifications of the Google/Verizon announcement, the reemergence (again) of a fashion copyright bill, and what the FCC's AllVid proposal means for the future of video devices.

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