Providers Want FCC Data Cap Inquiry Dropped
The proceeding is unlikely to move forward under a Republican FCC.
Jake Neenan
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2024 – Mobile carriers and other industry groups urged the Federal Communications Commission to drop its inquiry into broadband data caps in comments to the agency last week.
Data caps are monthly usage limits on some broadband plans. When users exceed them, they can either be charged extra fees or have their speeds reduced. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel opened an inquiry into the practice last month, saying the agency had received thousands of consumer complaints.
To hear providers tell it, those capped plans allow low-income subscribers and those who use less data to pay less for broadband access.
“Requiring flat pricing plans with unlimited data would effectively require those who use less data to subsidize those that use more,” wrote USTelecom, the major broadband trade group. “Instead, the availability of usage-based options enables consumers to pay the lowest price point possible for their level of use.”
Industry groups representing the major mobile providers and the cable industry agreed on that front.
Broadband trade groups also uniformly argued the agency lacked legal authority to take action against data caps. The FCC’s net neutrality order would put the agency on more solid footing – although the cable industry signaled it would still fight such a move if the order stands – but a court put it on hold in August and its future looks bleak under a Republican FCC.
“None of the other statutory provisions cited in the NOI remotely offers a basis for the Commission to regulate data caps that may be part of BIAS providers’ service plans,” wrote WISPA, which represents small and wireless ISPs.
The inquiry is almost certainly dead under a Republican-controlled FCC. Commissioner Brendan Carr, tapped to head the agency after President-elect Trump takes office, and his junior GOP colleague Nathan Simington both dissented when the agency took up the item.
“At bottom, then, I dissent from today’s NOI because I cannot support the Biden-Harris Administration’s inexorable march towards rate regulation and because the FCC plainly does not have the legal authority to do so,” Carr wrote in a dissent.
In support of the inquiry
Still, consumer groups made their case against dropping the proceeding.
“Amongst the jumble of punditry and analysis coming out of last week’s election, U.S. voters sent at least one clear message to the government: the prices are too damn high,” wrote Free Press.
“The clear message sent by voters concerning inflation indicates a strong expectation that the FCC should be laser-focused on lowering prices. Bringing prices down should be the top goal of this agency and the entire incoming federal government, as anything less would be a betrayal.”
Free Press argued data caps are more a means of increasing profits in a low-competition marketplace than a necessary network management tool, pointing to FCC reports showing cable and fiber subscribers experience minimal network congestion. The group noted cable provider WOW! nixed its data caps earlier this year as 5G fixed wireless continued to compete heavily with cable.
A separate coalition of consumer advocacy groups including Public Knowledge, New America’s Open Technology Institute, and the Benton Institute agreed.
“Unlike speed tiers, data caps do not effectively manage network congestion or peak usage times, because they do not influence real-time network load,” the groups wrote. “Instead, they enable further price discrimination by pushing consumers toward more expensive plans with higher or unlimited data allowances. They are price discrimination dressed up as network management.”
