The FCC’s recent ruling against Comcast may have struck a powerful blow against carriers prohibiting Phone As Modem usage, or require more expensive plans to have such utility.
Since carriers started cracking down on users who chose to use their phone as a modem, hackers have fought back. For years, we’ve chronicled ways to bypass Phone As Modem restrictions on Sprint and Verizon. These carriers have required customers to purchase more expensive plans, to have the same functionality that they previously had. Initially, both Sprint and Verizon had no restrictions on using their 3G networks with Phone as Modem utility.
Of course, the legality of said hacks has been questionable, ever since the carriers revised their Terms of Service to ban using phones as modems without lucrative, specialized plans. Enter the FCC…
The FCC last week ruled that Comcast was in violation of its licenses by interfering with BitTorrent traffic. While the FCC’s ruling was nebulous at best, it was the first major win for the Net Neutrality supporters. Essentially, the FCC is taking the position that, so long as network activity is not abusive, that a carrier cannot interfere with such traffic.
And, that appears to apply to wireless as well. Taking the BitTorrent example to wireless, how is a web page different when it is viewed in Safari on a Mac, versus viewed on an Instinct or iPhone? The same pages are loaded, the same data is used.
As such, it appears that you can now feel validated in the eyes of the federal government, for bypassing any restrictions on using your phone as a modem. Of course, several questions still remain, namely, if the FCC has the authority to enforce Net Neutrality, or if that authority falls under the purview of congressional legislation.
But, for now, we will be stepping up our coverage of phone-as-modem bypassing.
Great article Chris, I know I have hassled you in the past about articles you have written but this one is great, now that doesnt mean I won’t harass you in the future. But I just wanted to say thanks for a very informative article!
I would suggest reading the FCC documents again. IANAL, but it appears that the decision was based on the fact that Comcast was selectively interfering with peer-to-peer traffic only, and claiming that is was doing so for “Network Management.” I don’t see anything in releases that would restrict wireless carriers from having different access “tiers” as they currently do. In particular, read Chairman Martin’s statement, especially the last two pages.
We don’t see how PAM could be described as anything other than network management, simply that the carriers have come up with a way to monetize PAM. The most striking difference, is that Comcast hasn’t found a way to monetize P2P, and thus is blocking it. One would conclude that Comcast could have come up with a higher-tier plan supporting P2P, but that the FCC would have also found that to still be a violation.
PAM is actually worse than filtering P2P traffic, because there is not a legitimate point that the carrier can say that a modern phone, could not use as much data as, say an iPhone or Symbian/Windows/Palm phone.
As we said in the article, the FCC’s statement is nebulous as to how applicable this is to the wireless industry, but it is a win for Net Neutrality… which strikes at the heart of the PAM debate.
That is very true. I don’t know what the difference would be of me
Well this is not over yet… Comcast is already challenging the FCC’s ruling in court.
Hopefully Net Nuetrality will win out, but it’s a long ways from being over, and Comcast has deep pockets.
BTW- a huge concern with Comcast blocking P2P traffic was they were blocking Directv’s Video On Demand service (which uses a P2P similar to bit torrents). The thinking was they were only blocking bit torrents because they wanted to hinder Directv’s service, thus forcing people to choose their own cable service.
I don’t know if the FCC addressed that in their ruling or not (haven’t read their ruling) but I do know that was one of the major complaints that forced the FCC to even take action. Comcast has deep pockets, but so does Directv…
I just got a Sprint PAM plan and it is indeed $15… BUT…they forced me to go to a Vision Pack PRO which is $40/month (as opposed to the SprintTV pack which was I think $20). So ultimately the PAM is costing me $35 more per month, and to make things even crappier for me I lost most of the TV channels I watch on Sprint TV. The thing that kills me is that they told me I needed Sprint Vision Pro Pack because it had unlimited data, but my TV pack also said unlimited data. They gave me unlimited Sprint Navigation but I really don’t care about that, I have my own GPS and it’s far better.
So, all in all, they’re still screwing you every chance they get.
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