The Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday it was exploring whether new services from Comcast, T-Mobile USA and and AT&T violate net neutrality rules.
In letters sent on Wednesday, senior F.C.C. officials asked the companies to provide information about promotions that allow unlimited streaming of video from specific content providers. Some legal experts have argued that the promotion unfairly prioritizes websites in a way that could hurt competition.
Unlimited streaming, known as zero-rating, has been a gray area of the agency’s so-called net neutrality rules, which prohibit high-speed Internet service providers from favoritism and from the blocking of content online. The new services present the F.C.C. with one of the agency’s first major tests over how it will enforce the rules, which were approved this year.
In the letters to AT&T and T-Mobile, the F.C.C. wrote: “We want to ensure that we have all the facts to understand how these services relate to the commission’s goal of maintaining a free and open Internet while incentivizing innovation and investment from all sources.” A similar letter was sent to Comcast.
In a news conference on Thursday after the agency’s monthly meeting, Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the F.C.C., said the letters did not signal a formal investigation of the companies, nor were the letters sent as part of an enforcement action.
“This is to help us stay informed as to what the practices are,” he said.
But the letters did ask the companies to provide details on technical and business aspects of their various plans.
StreamTV from Comcast allows cable customers to watch online videos for free through its own new streaming service, but would count streaming on Netflix, for instance, toward monthly data limits. The Binge On video service from T-Mobile is also unlimited for only certain streaming partner sites. The Sponsored Data plan from AT&T allows users to browse and stream content from its web partners and not have that activity count toward their monthly data limits.