AT&T, Verizon fight to exclude mobile from Obama’s Web rules

NEW YORK – Wireless carriers led by AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are fighting to keep mobile broadband service excluded from strong open-Internet regulations backed by President Barack Obama.

That struggle, however, may be in vain.

As the Federal Communications Commission readies for a vote next month, Chairman Tom Wheeler has signaled wireless companies will be included under his proposed requirements that Internet service providers treat all Web traffic equally – known as “net neutrality.”

Mobile carriers are already under a form of regulation, Wheeler has said, showing new requirements that they not block or throttle any Web traffic to smartphones and other devices needn’t harm growth.

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“Hundreds of millions – billions of dollars” have been invested in the U.S. mobile system that feeds smartphones and other wireless devices, Wheeler said during a session at the CES International trade show in Las Vegas. “A model has been set.”

The remarks show that “despite vociferous lobbying,” Wheeler will include wireless Internet service in regulations headed for a Feb. 26 vote, Paul Gallant, an analyst with Guggenheim Securities, said in a research note.

Including wireless under Obama’s strong rules would be a mistake, said Meredith Attwell Baker, president of CTIA-The Wireless Association, a Washington-based trade group with members including top U.S. wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon.

‘Heavy handed’

“Wireless broadband has never been subject to Title II,” as the stronger regulation favored by Obama is known, Baker said in an e-mailed response to questions. “Americans are better served by competition and innovation, not heavy handed government regulation.”

The last time the FCC set rules, in 2010, it left wireless with lighter restrictions than broadband delivered over wires, saying mobile service was nascent.

Now more people are using smartphones and tablets – to the point that most U.S. Internet traffic traverses portable devices, said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Project at the New America Foundation.

In 2010, “the iPhone was relatively new and the vast majority of Internet usage was still on wireline networks,” Calabrese said in an interview. “Now you particularly have a very disproportionate numbers of young, low-income and minority people who depend primarily on mobile devices for their primary Internet access.”

Mobile providers have told the FCC that mobile networks offering broadband, or high-speed Internet service, are unsuited to detailed regulation.

Mobile users

Wheeler in his Jan. 7 remarks at the CES International electronics show said he’ll send proposed rules to the FCC’s other four commissioners on Feb. 5.

Rules need to protect the Internet experience of people using mobile gear, who disproportionately include the poor and minorities, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, said in an interview. “They don’t expect to be second-class citizens in the communications space,” Clyburn said.

To pass the rules need a majority at the five-member agency where Wheeler is part of the Democratic majority.

Obama in November called for rules on wireless as part of strong regulation to prevent Internet service providers from slowing or blocking data bound for subscribers.

Wheeler hasn’t released details of his plan. In a September speech, he asked whether “old assumptions” underlying the 201 rules match today’s market. Fast wireless service has expanded to reach 120 million subscribers from 200,000, and more smart devices rely on mobile networks, Wheeler said.

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