T-Mobile And MetroPCS Go All In On The Horrible Precedent Of Zero Rating

from the setting-the-stage-for-disaster dept

Last year we noted that for being such a supposedly cool CEO, T-Mobile's John Legere seemed utterly clueless on the subject of net neutrality. Not only did the CEO claim that Title II and new net neutrality rules would "kill innovation" (tip: that didn't happen), he seemed totally oblivious to the bad precedent set by the company's zero rating efforts. Those efforts began with T-Mobile's decision to let some music services bypass user usage caps, which as we've discussed at great length puts smaller companies and non-profits at a distinct disadvantage.

But since our regulators (and much of the press and public) seem clueless to the harm of zero rating so far, T-Mobile has decided to expand these efforts. Last week the company started cap-exempting video services, and now the company has announced it's bringing zero rating to the company's prepaid wireless brand (MetroPCS) as well. Now the company's prepaid and postpaid (monthly billed) customers both will find that thirty-three of the biggest music stream services no longer count against their usage caps (yeah, sorry, small independent radio streaming stations too little to get on T-Mobile's whitelisted radar).

As usual, the move was framed as a huge boon to consumers:

“Once again we are setting MetroPCS apart from the rest of the pack in ways that no one else will,” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile US. “MetroPCS is the #1 brand in prepaid because we keep giving customers more of what they want, and today that means adding Music Unlimited and Data Maximizer to the list! Their data will last longer than ever before without ridiculous penalty fees or trickery!"

And like regulators, most of the telecom beat covering T-Mobile has been oblivious to the bad precedent set. They don't quite yet understand that letting a wireless carrier suddenly decide what traffic gets whitelisted from already-arbitrary usage restrictions sets the stage for a total upheaval of how the Internet works now. They also don't understand that if it's ok for T-Mobile to do this, it's ok for a company like AT&T to do something similar -- and AT&T's version is going to be notably worse. The Los Angeles Times, for example, struggles to see where the problem lies:

"Besides, there's nothing in the FCC's neutrality rules that bars data caps, which enable carriers to segment the market and charge higher prices to those who put a higher value on bandwidth. Binge On represents another reduction in the pain caused by data caps, which seems like an unalloyed good thing for consumers."

But you're not reducing a "pain point" by creating an arbitrary data cap, then letting some content bypass that cap -- you're just getting in the way of a healthy Internet ecosystem. And just because the FCC lacked the foresight to prohibit zero rating in our net neutrality rules (unlike Chile, Norway, Netherlands, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Japan, which all bar zero rating), that doesn't mean this isn't a potentially horrible idea that's going to change the face of the Internet. It's very clear that the perils of zero rating are something we're eager to experience first hand here in the States, applauding our own "great fortune" all the way.

Filed Under: john legere, music unlimited, net neutrality, wireless, zero rating
Companies: metropcs, t-mobile