This blog post is part of a series on communications policies Public Knowledge recommends in response to the pandemic. You can read more of our proposals here and view the full series here. On March 13, as concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic caused most of the nation to take drastic measures to socially distance and […]

PK In The Know Podcast: Net Neutrality in the Appropriations Bill

PK In The Know Podcast: Patent Reform, T-Mobile, Net Neutrality, and 3D Printing

PK In The Know Podcast: DISH, Data Caps, and Net Neutrality

Beginning yesterday, T-Mobile is offering a limited-time promotion tied to the wildly popular augmented reality game Pokémon GO, in which the mobile data used by the game will not count toward a customer’s data cap. This is yet another form of zero-rating, a practice that can raise serious concerns about competition policy, net neutrality, and consumer choice. Amidst a global Poké-craze, we shouldn’t lose sight of what this may portend for the future of the open internet. So we want to take the opportunity to raise a number of questions about this promotion which would also be important to answer for any other zero-rating service proposal. Before concluding anything about this promotion or any similar plans that may be proposed, it is important to better understand their potential dangers and benefits.

Many people have been “cutting the cord”–cancelling their cable TV subscriptions–and watching more video online. Usually, however, their broadband provider is the same company that used to be their TV provider. Cord-cutters tend to use broadband more than non-cord-cutters, so large cable companies that want cord-cutters to start paying them more again have hit on a solution: just charge more for broadband.

Yesterday, the website TmoNews broke the story that T-Mobile is planning on throttling customers who use bittorrent on their wireless connections. The internal T-Mobile memo explains that these users will be throttled because their heavy use is “abusing” the network.

Today Public Knowledge sent letters to AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon as the first step in the process of filing open internet complaints against each of them at the FCC. The letters address violations of the FCC’s transparency requirements, which are the only part of the open internet rules that survived court challenge.

On the heels of T-Mobile’s controversial announcement that it will be exempting many popular music streaming services from its data caps, the “Uncarrier” has also confirmed that it will be exempting the Ookla speed test and other online speed testing applications as well.

Permits for online video production are up, which means the industry is coming into its own.

Last week, Los Angeles announced that “Web-Based TV” on-location film permits were up 63% compared to last year.  While that is an impressive percentage increase, the absolute number was even more striking.  In the second quarter there were 499 permit requests – compared to 381 for TV Sitcoms and 384 for TV pilots.

For an industry that is often thought of as people making videos and posting them from their bedroom, this is a number worth considering for a moment.  It means that online video production is moving into the streets – and getting bigger in the process.