Verizon and the Federal Communications Commission are at loggerheads over Verizon's practice of restricting (also known as throttling) broadband connection speeds for consumers who, in Verizon's view, overuse or use more than their fair share of bandwidth at peak hours of the day.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler sent a letter to Daniel Mead, president and CEO of Verizon Wireless, on July 30 to express his disappointment with Verizon's practices and policies in this area.
Wheeler's letter specifically referred to Verizon's announcement about its new "Network Optimization" policy, which states the company intends to slow some customers' data speeds on its 4G LTE network beginning in October 2014.
The new policy applies only to residential customers with unlimited data plans, which are now legacy plans that are no longer available. Verizon described the types of customers who would be affected by the new policy as "the top 5 percent of data users on unlimited data plans" in places and at times when the network is experiencing high demand. Verizon considers heavy-usage customers those who use over 4.7 GB of data per month. They also advise customers to use Wi-Fi networks whenever possible.
Wheeler did not take kindly to Verizon's phraseology, saying, "'Reasonable network management' concerns the technical management of your network; it is not a loophole designed to enhance your revenue streams."
The distillation of Wheeler's argument is found in his later assessment that "I know of no past commission statement that would treat as 'reasonable network management' a decision to slow traffic to a user who has paid, after all, for 'unlimited' service."
In the letter, Wheeler poses questions to Mead; first, why does Verizon treat customers on unlimited plans differently than those on usage-based plans? Wheeler also wants to know why Verizon advises these customers that, "If you're on an unlimited data plan and are concerned that you are in the top 5 percent of users, you can switch to a usage-based data plan as customers on usage-based plans are not impacted."
Secondly, why is Verizon Wireless extending speed reductions from its 3G network to its much more efficient 4G LTE network?
In response, Mead noted Verizon would apply the data restrictions on a tower-by-tower basis; if a heavy user was connected to a cell tower that was experiencing particularly high demand, the connection to that user would be throttled back, but only for brief period of time. Should that user re-connect to a tower that was not overwhelmed by traffic, full connection speed would be restored.
Mead also insisted the FCC had no problem with Verizon's policy in 2011, under a different chairman; and he played the usual "everyone else does it" card. In this case, though, he is probably right.
