MetroPCS Follows Verizon in Filing Appeal Against FCC
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MetroPCS is the second U.S. carrier to file an appeal against the FCC's net neutrality rulings. Like Verizon, it filed with a court that previously ruled in favor of Comcast.
MetroPCS has filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, challenging the Federal Communications Commission's most recent rulings on net neutrality.
The nation's fifth largest carrier - behind Verizon
Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, respectively - is the second
carrier to do so this month. On Jan. 20, Verizon
similarly filed an appeal against the FCC with the same court, calling into
question both the FCC's newest rules and its authority to impose them.
"MetroPCS is committed to promoting competition and an open Internet by giving consumers choices for wireless Internet access services at prices they can afford," Roger D. Linquist, MetroPCS president and CEO, said in a Jan. 25 statement.
"MetroPCS' concerns regarding the jurisdictional basis for
the Net Neutrality rules, the recent appeal filed by Verizon, and challenges
raised by some proponents of Net Neutrality to MetroPCS' recent 4G rate plans,"
Linquist continued, "have caused MetroPCS to appeal the FCC's Net Neutrality
Order to ensure that the concerns of competitive wireless carriers, like
MetroPCS, are addressed."
The FCC ruling, in part, discourages cable and phone
companies from offering faster Internet service to customers that are willing
to pay for it. It also insists that broadband providers publicly disclose their
network management practices, and bars them from "engaging in unreasonable
discrimination in transmitting lawful network traffic," according to a
Dec. 21 statement from the FCC.
More than a high-minded objection to the FCC ruling,
MetroPCS has a financial incentive to see it overturned. In early January, the carrier
announced the rollout of a 4G LTE (long-term evolution) network to nine major
metropolitan areas.
"Our 4G LTE network can deliver unlimited voice and
mobile broadband data services and, with these new service plans, consumers are
in the driver's seat on how much additional data access and real-time
entertainment content they want to pay for on a monthly basis," Lindquist
said in a Jan. 3
statement.
Details in its three service plans, however, as Ars
Technica has pointed out, appear to be in conflict with the FCC ruling, as,
while offering the MetroPCS-branded MetroStudio video service, they exclude
competing services such as Skype and Netflix.
According to Reuters, the Appeals
Court that Verizon and MetroPCS chose to
file with is viewed as a "favorable venue for such challenges." It was the same
court that in 2010 ruled in favor of cable provider Comcast, finding that the
FCC lacked the authority to prevent Comcast from blocking applications that it
deemed as using up too much bandwidth. It was the Comcast ruling that spurred
the FCC's net neutrality order.
The FCC, in a Dec. 21, 2010,
statement, described broadband providers as endangering the Internet's openness
by "blocking or degrading disfavored content and applications without
disclosing their practices to consumers." Its rulings, it added, are a way of
acting to "preserve the Internet as an open network enabling consumer choice,
freedom of expression, user control, competition and the freedom to innovate."
"MetroPCS is committed to promoting competition and an open Internet by giving consumers choices for wireless Internet access services at prices they can afford," Roger D. Linquist, MetroPCS president and CEO, said in a Jan. 25 statement.
