AT&T Defends Zero-Rating Offering Facing Wireless Bureau Critiques

letter from the Wireless Bureau raising concerns about the zero-rating service. "Cable companies, not AT&T or DirecTV, dominate the video marketplace," AT&T said, saying its Data Free TV service, which lets AT&T Mobility customers stream DirecTV over the AT&T wireless network without cutting into their monthly data allotments, is increasing video competition "by helping to challenge cable dominance." The company said the service is nondiscriminatory and thus not a violation of net neutrality since the open internet order didn't overrule the core Computer Inquiries principle that telcos can provide enhanced services via their transmission facilities as long as they offer that transmission component on a common-carrier basis. AT&T also said the order specificity declined to prohibit sponsored data arrangements as a general matter, and the FCC still hasn't issued guidance on sponsored-data activities. The claim that Data Free TV discriminates against unaffiliated providers "is economically incoherent," the ISP said, "given that telco monopolists have been free to do that very thing for more than three decades, whereas AT&T Mobility is neither a monopolist nor even the leading U.S. mobile provider." AT&T also disputed FCC arguments the company could take part in a predatory price squeeze, targeting unaffiliated providers with sponsored data charges. The notion that third-party competitors might have difficulty competing with the prices of DirecTV Now streaming service retail prices "reads like a request [that] DirecTV raise those rates, at its customer's expense, to give less efficient competitors a retail price umbrella," the company said. "That position is indefensible." AT&T also said the bureau "lacks any unilateral authority to attack this program" since delegated authority doesn't extend to new or novel issues. A bureau order aimed at Data Free TV "would chart a radical new legal and policy path," the company said. The white paper said the DirecTV Now over-the-top service won't carry data charges for AT&T mobile customers. In an accompanying letter, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President-External and Legislative Affairs Robert Quinn said the company more than meets the nondiscrimination requirement set by law by letting content providers specify how much data they want to sponsor and charging them the same regardless of the amount of data they buy. The FCC said it was reviewing the AT&T submission.