John Stankey
Stephen Desaulniers | CNBC
AT&T will no longer exempt viewing of its HBO Max streaming service from data caps after a federal court upheld California’s net neutrality law, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
The company informed customers that from March 25, they would no longer offer ‘Data Free TV’ on their video apps, according to a copy of the customer notice that CNBC received. This means that customers need to be connected to WiFi to prevent their streaming from counting towards their total data pair. The change will extend beyond California, as AT&T said, “the Internet does not recognize state borders.”
The announcement highlights a major source of concern in the industry with government actions affecting the internet sector. As with digital privacy laws, which currently only exist in a few states, the technology industry fears that a patchwork of state laws will make it harder to work, especially for smaller players.
“A state-by-state approach to ‘net neutrality’ is unworkable,” AT&T said in a statement. “A patch of state regulation, many of which are excessively restricted, creates roadblocks for creative and consumer solutions.”
Net neutrality is the idea that internet service providers should be neutral towards the content they offer, and they should refrain from the delivery speed for certain websites or services. Under the law in California, which a federal judge said could be legally enforced last month, AT&T said it was not allowed to “sponsor” data for customers who also use their wireless services.
The California net neutrality law came in the wake of the Trump administration’s decision to repeal a Obama-era neutrality rule at the Federal Communications Commission. The old rule installed the principle of net neutrality by reinterpreting Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 so that internet service providers would be considered general carriers, subject to greater regulation.
AT&T said it had ‘long been committed to the principles of an open Internet’ and called on Congress to enact federal laws to make it easy and affordable for Americans to access the Internet, while maintaining clear, consistent and permanent rules for net neutrality offers for everyone to follow. ‘
-CNBC’s Steve Kopack contributed to this report.
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