Add Verizon Wireleess to the list of companies who've decided to start experimenting with "zero rating," or letting some content not count against your wireless broadband usage cap. Verizon Executive Vice President Marni Walden told Recode this week that the company's "sponsored data" program should start in as soon as a few days, though further specifics weren't provided.
“The capabilities we’ve built allow us to break down any byte that is carried across our network and have all or a portion of that sponsored,” Walden said.
Initially Verizon says it will be testing the service with just a few companies, but ultimately plans to let content companies pay for cap-exempt status at an "affordable rate."
“We’ll be out in a larger commercial way in the first quarter of 2016,” she said.
Such zero rating efforts have generally been criticized by net neutrality advocates. By letting some content (usually the bigger players) not count against the usage cap, you're immediately putting smaller companies, startups, or nonprofits at a disadvantage when it comes to getting user attention (whether the system's pay to play or not). That distorts the traditionally open, level playing field of Internet commerce.
The problem is, while the FCC passed net neutrality rules last February, they don't specifically ban zero rating. Instead, the FCC has said it will enforce zero rating on a "case by case basis," and so far, the FCC hasn't batted an eyelash at the wide variety of zero rated services now emerging.
AT&T's been testing its "Sponsored Data" service for several years, in which companies pay to be cap exempt (so far there's been few takers). T-Mobile now allows the largest music and streaming services to bypass the cap, though companies pay nothing and consumers can disable the feature. Comcast meanwhile has started exempting its own streaming service from the company's fixed-line usage caps.
While some zero rating approaches are worse than others, the FCC's response to all of these has ranged from total silence to
praise, despite the potentially dangerous precedent at play. We'll have to wait and see exactly what kind of wrinkle Verizon's own zero rating wireless broadband plans add to the mix.