T-Mobile ONE Unlimited Plan Crosses the Net Neutrality Line

The whole point of the Net Neutrality rules put in place by the FCC is to prevent carriers from being able to throttle or discriminate against certain types of data, or offer preferential treatment for other data. The new T-Mobile ONE unlimited plans seem to clearly violate those Net Neutrality principles with a plan that appears to both offer degraded service and an option to get better service for a fee.

T-Mobile is violating the Net Neutrality framework put in place by the FTC. It has conveniently redefined common terms to suit its own agenda and skirt the Net Neutrality rules since the introduction of its Binge On streaming loophole, but the latest “unlimited” data plans are a brazen challenge. It’s almost like T-Mobile CEO John Legere is intentionally crossing the line, looking the FCC in the eye, and saying, “What are you going to do about it?”

Verizon and AT&T recently revamped their data plans to include rollover data. In response, the “Un-carrier” expanded on its T-Mobile ONE “unlimited” plan that offers degraded service and spells out that certain services and types of data will require an additional fee. In other words, some data and services will receive preferential treatment on the T-Mobile network as long as the extortion is paid.

T-Mobile ONE Crosses the Net Neutrality Line

In response to some of the initial backlash about the T-Mobile Binge On service and the ways it violates Net Neutrality, Legere simply invented his own personal definition of throttling that conveniently allows for the semantic difference that seems to make his version of throttling OK under Net Neutrality guidelines.

The reality is that Binge On does violate Net Neutrality, but for some reason the FCC decided not to fight that battle. The FCC can’t turn a blind eye to the new T-Mobile ONE and ONE Plus “unlimited” plans, though.

T-Mobile explains in a blog post that with the new ONE plan, “Everyone gets unlimited talk, unlimited text and unlimited high-speed 4G LTE smartphone data on the fastest LTE network in America. No more guessing how much data you need and then using too much or too little. With T-Mobile ONE, even video is unlimited at standard definition so you can stream all you want.”

For the record, video is also data. If I pay you for unlimited high-speed 4G LTE data, then that is what I should receive. T-Mobile doesn’t get to decide if I can use that data for email, or surfing the Web, or playing Candy Crush, or watching YouTube videos. Data is data, and the whole point of Net Neutrality is to treat all of that data equally—without T-Mobile choosing to throttle certain services or provide some sort of preferential fast lane for others.

See the full story on Forbes: It’s Time For The FCC To Defend Net Neutrality Against T-Mobile Erosion.