Public Knowledge has come out against Comcast’s decision to exempt its new IP-delivered Stream TV offering from usage-based data policies it’s testing for high-speed Internet service in several markets, claiming that it “threatens video choice.”
“Comcast's exemption of Stream TV from data caps presents a straightforward example of the anticompetitive problems zero-rating can raise, and provides little consumer benefit,” John Bergmayer, senior staff attorney at Public Knowledge, wrote in this blog item posted Friday (Nov. 20). “Comcast is attempting to frame its self-serving, discriminatory actions in a way designed to slip through real or imagined loopholes or exceptions to both the Open Internet rules or its merger commitments, but none of these attempts work.”
Comcast defended its data policy for the service last week, noting that Stream TV, a skinny TV bundle being offered on mobile devices initially in Boston and Chicago, “is an in-home IP-cable service delivered over Comcast’s cable network, not over the public Internet.”
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