AT&T has just criticized the net neutrality laws recently enacted by California, blaming the state for being the reason it can no longer offer certain data features for free to consumers.
“We apologize for the inconvenience to customers caused by California’s new ‘net neutrality’ law,” AT&T said in a statement. Wednesday blog entry.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez ruled that state net neutrality laws officially could be applied, which means that wireless operators like AT&T must treat all Internet traffic in the same way. California law has been at its limit since 2018, because the Trump-era DOJ filed a lawsuit against the state alleging it had no authority to enact its own net neutrality laws. California suspended law enforcement and the lawsuit never went anywhere. He DOJ officially withdrew its lawsuit against California when the Biden administration took over.
Under the new law, wireless service providers and wireless carriers cannot intentionally block websites, extend bandwidth, or charge money for specific online content. Internet providers are no longer able to dictate which sites, content, or applications receive preferential treatment.
This means that AT&T no longer has the capacity to offer calls zero rating systems, or data limit exemptions to its subscribers. The mobile operator had done so by giving its internal streaming service, HBO Max, an exemption so that customers who broadcast the service would not see data usage accounted for up to the monthly limit. That is about to change.
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After AT&T acquired WarnerMedia in 2018, which owns HBO, the company launched its HBO Max streaming service in May 2020. Since AT&T owned the streaming service, it decided it would not count the use of the data. with the monthly data limits of its customers. AT&T said its “sponsored data” system allowed any company to pay the carrier to exempt it from the data limit.
“AT&T Mobility has for years openly invited any entity to become a sponsor of wireless data on the same terms and conditions,” the company said in a statement.
It’s easy to say that when you own a streaming service, you don’t count on your customers ’data limits. But AT&T did not disclose what (or if) there is any other transmission service that is incorporating them into this offering. In the past, it has been reported that large transmission companies like it Netflix has paid AT&T to reduce downtime, but currently Netflix streaming counts for the data limit.
Ultimately, Judge Méndez denied that AT&T and other ISP pressure groups filed a restraining order, and now the pressure groups are appealing this decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. It seems that Internet service providers have not yet finished fighting net neutrality.
The bad news is that if you’re an AT&T subscriber who’s been betting on HBO Max — which, eh, sure — now all that streaming will consume your monthly share of data. But for the sake of the internet, it’s an advantage you had to go for.