The New York Times today published an editorial blasting Verizon’s lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission for requiring the wireless carrier to offer data roaming on commercially reasonable terms:

With text messages, e-mail and other forms of data overtaking voice as the main form of wireless communication, the rule issued in April will preserve competition in a vital communications network.

There are more than 100 wireless providers around the country, mostly tiny carriers with a network limited to a small area. They depend on roaming agreements to stitch together a bigger footprint, which is essential to compete successfully. If Verizon were to prevail — AT&T has, so far, not joined the lawsuit but has criticized the rule — the two dominant players could refuse to deal.

In fact, there is evidence Verizon and AT&T have spent years foot-dragging their way to roaming agreements for data, an increasingly vital service for the handful of independent cellular service providers, almost all operating with limited local service areas.  Although roaming agreements cover voice phone calls, such agreements for data roaming have traditionally been much rarer.  When the FCC threatened to regulate, the pressure was on and both AT&T and Verizon quickly reached agreements with many carriers, some of whom complained about outrageous roaming prices up to $1 per megabyte.

The Times argues that with wireless marketplace concentration accelerating with the impending merger of T-Mobile and AT&T, fair data roaming rules are essential.

 

New Zealand’s forthcoming transformation to fiber-based telecommunications infrastructure has some important lessons to teach those interested in improving broadband in North America.

While Ottawa and Washington depend on the private sector to deliver 21st century broadband, other countries are recognizing private providers alone may not be able to deliver the essential networks of the 21st century, especially in smaller communities and rural areas still bypassed by even 20th century broadband.  For Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and beyond — government and the private sector are working together to deliver advanced fiber-optic-based networks that will likely power broadband for at least the next decade or more.  More importantly, they are doing so on terms that best serve the interests of the public, not just a handful of shareholders and investment bankers.

Priority number one is getting advanced networks built.  Marketplace realities, particularly in North America, constrain private companies from taking risks on fiber networks that will take more than a few years to realize a healthy return on investment.  Without that essentially-guaranteed payback, many providers refuse to think in terms of “revolutionary” broadband, relying on incremental “evolutionary” upgrades instead.  That formula has also allowed many providers to ignore rural America, deemed too costly to wire.

In a country like New Zealand, these rules also apply, but in spades.  Not only do Kiwis face a broadband experience that resembles service offered in the U.S. a decade ago, they are also punished by a lack of international capacity.  With just one international provider delivering nearly all of New Zealand’s connectivity with the United States and beyond, prices are high and data caps are low.

Domestically, many Kiwis have traditionally had just one realistic choice for broadband service — Telecom New Zealand’s DSL technology.  Although competitors have been allowed to resell DSL service over Telecom’s network, the limitations of the technology remain a constant problem for every provider on that network.

New Zealand has decided the best way to handle these challenges is to transform the telecommunications foundation across the country, starting with a new public-private fiber broadband network.  NZ’s National Broadband Plan, dubbed “Ultra Fast Broadband,” establishes as its foundation the principle that broadband is too important to allow the country to languish waiting for private providers to step up.

Rosalie Nelson from IDC – the independent market intelligence advisory service, explores the pro’s and con’s of a nationwide fiber network for New Zealand.  But it’s a lesson not just applicable to broadband in the South Pacific.  Stop the Cap! is sharing this video seminar with our own Viewer’s Guide to help draw parallels to broadband closer to home. As an added bonus, you will come to understand different broadband technologies we regularly discuss.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/IDC Ultra Fast Broadband.flv[/flv]

IDC analyzes New Zealand’s new Ultra Fast Broadband — National Fiber Network in this seminar with Rosalie Nelson.  It’s definitely a long view, but you will gain enormous insight into the challenges of delivering the next generation of broadband, not only in New Zealand, but in other countries around the world.  (39 minutes)

Stop the Cap! Viewer’s Guide

To help draw comparisons with broadband in the South Pacific with that in the United States and Canada, we bring you this viewer’s guide to follow as you watch.

Part One

In part one, Nelson explores the recent history of telecommunications in New Zealand, particularly focused on Telecom New Zealand, created from the former state monopoly for landlines and data circuits.  Although the company began to open its network to competitors several years ago, the biggest transformation came in the last few years.  New Zealand experienced its own version of the Bell System breakup, only this time that transformation came from the New Zealand government, not the courts.

When complete, what was once a single company became three — one for wholesale access, namely by independent competitors reselling service over Telecom lines, retail — the public face of the company that continues to market service under the Telecom brand to consumers and businesses, and Chorus, the entity that maintains Telecom’s infrastructure.

In North America, the equivalent would be the breakup of AT&T or Bell, with competitors allowed to lease access to their respective networks at prices and terms that could not favor either parent company.

While the debate rages over whether broadband expansion came as a result of Telecom’s breakup, or in spite of it, one thing everyone agrees on: New Zealand is one of the fastest growing broadband markets in the OECD, with a growth rate of nearly 35 percent every two years.

New Zealand’s telecom market is perhaps five or more years behind the United States and Canada.  The rapid erosion of landlines for mobile or Voice Over IP service is only just starting in New Zealand.  Telecom, like many phone companies in North America, still depends on the enormous pool of revenue landline service provides.  Even as landlines decline domestically, phone companies like AT&T, Bell, Telus, Verizon, Frontier, and CenturyLink still treat this revenue as the critical foundation on which other products and services can be offered.  It will be years before this base revenue erodes to the point of irrelevance.

Telecom is also highly involved in the mobile market.  Just as in North America, when we talk about industry investment in  networks, wireless is usually the largest recipient, sometimes at the expense of the landline network.

IDC, which is independently analyzing New Zealand’s forthcoming transformation to a fiber-based network, is excited about the transformational aspects of such a network, and recognizes public investment may be the only way to execute its rollout in a world where short term results and recouped investment can make all the difference between a green light and a red one among private providers.

Part Two (begins at 7:30)

In the second part of the video, Nelson succinctly explains some of the different technologies we talk about regularly on Stop the Cap!

For instance, most telephone and cable companies both use fiber cables for at least part of their network.  Telephone companies like Frontier use fiber between their headquarters, local exchanges (a/k/a central offices), and occasionally even to remote exchanges, used to reduce the amount of copper wire between your home or office and their exchange.  Many phone companies, including AT&T, use what Nelson calls “cabinets” to contain the interface between fiber and copper networks.

These are often dubbed lawn refrigerators — big four foot metal boxes installed on top of a concrete slab or attached to the side of a telephone pole.  On one end, fiber optic cable from the central office arrives.  On the other, individual copper wire lines exit, connecting to every customer up and down the street throughout the neighborhood.  With additional fiber, phone companies selling DSL Internet access can increase speeds and offer service where it was not available before.  AT&T can use a more advanced form of DSL as a platform for its U-verse service.  Bell’s Fibe service in Canada is another example of this technology in use.  CenturyLink is also deploying it for some of their service areas.

Cable companies use fiber to deliver their signals out to individual towns and parts of cities.  From there, coaxial cable travels to homes and offices, on which we receive television, telephone, and broadband service.  In large parts of Asia and Europe, cable television is much less common than it is in North America, so it’s a technology more unique to North America than to Europe or the Pacific.

Nelson also reminds us fiber is increasingly important for cell phone companies too, which use the technology to support the increasing amount of traffic that passes through cell towers.  Fiber can help keep mobile broadband speeds at a reasonable level during peak usage periods.  Where fiber isn’t available, the maximum amount of data that can travel between the cell tower back to the cell phone company’s data center can be significantly lower.

Nelson’s larger point is that there is a very real cost-benefit analysis to explore when considering whether the next generation broadband network should be 100% fiber-based, such as Verizon’s FiOS network, or a combination of fiber and more economical, already installed copper wire, such as AT&T’s U-verse.  The initial expense of providing 100% fiber, direct to the home, is greater than repurposing part of our existing landline network.  But with current technology, fiber can deliver a faster and more reliable level of service, and is future-proof.  It also requires less maintenance once installed.

Part Three (begins at 16:20)

In the third part of the video, Nelson explores the political landscape in New Zealand, and with some minor differences here and there, the gap between the telecommunications market in Canada and New Zealand is not too different.

While the United States broke up the Bell System in the mid-1980s, Canada still relies heavily on behemoth Bell/BCE to deliver broadband access throughout the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, and Ontario.  SaskTel and Telus deliver service to central and western Canada.  Cable companies, primarily owned by Rogers, Shaw, and Videotron deliver service in major Canadian cities and nearby suburbs.

In New Zealand, Telecom was the former state-controlled monopoly telephone company.  In recent years, that monopoly has been broken up, but broadband still relies heavily on Telecom’s landline network to deliver Internet access, primarily by DSL.  In the past, Telecom was -the- Internet Service Provider.  But now the company must sell access to their last mile network to all-comers at a regulated wholesale access rate.  Canadians will recognize this kind of wholesale access policy — Bell has one for independent service providers to this day.

In the United States, things are a bit different.  While there are instances of competitors providing DSL through landlines owned by familiar phone companies like AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Frontier, and Windstream, very few customers know about them.  Instead, cable television is the more familiar competitor, and the two players regularly beat each other up in marketing campaigns.  If you ask an ordinary American consumer what companies sell broadband service, they will typically answer with the name of the telephone company and the cable company, if one serves their area.  They are unlikely to answer Earthlink, which sells service over some telephone company and cable lines.

Some of Nelson’s anaysis about the changes in policy relating to the Ultra Fast Broadband network are no longer in effect with last week’s decision to abandon the “regulatory holiday” concept.  The government’s original fiber network proposal has been modified repeatedly to fit into the business realities of the New Zealand ISP market.  Some examples include recognizing the value and importance of the existing copper wire network, which will remain relevant in some rural areas not scheduled for wireless or fiber access — and will of course also be in operation as the fiber network is built.  The government is also trying to promote private investment, and under pressure from large telecom companies, the government in power is looking for ways to assure investors of a return on their investment.  Critics have charged the government leaned too far towards providers in effectively handing them at least eight years of monopoly service under a “regulatory holiday,” without oversight by the all-important Commerce Commission.  A revised proposal seeks to guarantee investors a certain level of return, even if prices drop in the future, but retains regulatory oversight.

This policy is unique to New Zealand, and has not been tried in North America.  Canada’s national broadband plan is long overdue and the one in the United States relies on some government stimulus money to incrementally expand broadband in unprofitable rural areas, but relies mostly on private providers for the bulk of the expansion.  The Federal Communications Commission is exploring revamping its rural subsidy currently charged to every telephone line in the United States with the hope of diverting money to broadband development in rural areas.  Private providers are expected to upgrade their networks through private investment for most of the rest.

New Zealand is proposing a totally new way of delivering broadband service with the establishment of an independent company responsible for the fiber network — a company not affiliated with any Internet Service Provider.  That would make Telecom New Zealand no more or less important than any independent provider.  Each ISP will succeed or fail based on price and value-added services, because the basic network experience is likely to be the same regardless of the provider selected.  Some may deliver speed boosting features or sell content to customers.  Others may deliver cheaper, slower speed plans for budget-minded customers.  Some might even bundle free tablets or computers in return for fixed-length contracts.

But Nelson explains there is a risk.  Once a fiber network is in place, it effectively becomes a utility, and it may or may not be able to earn sufficient revenue to embark on innovative new technologies that venture capital might otherwise afford.  Because of market dynamics, for the same reason very few North Americans cities have more than one cable and one phone company, investors are unlikely to pour money into a competing technology if a fiber network is dominant.

For a legacy phone company like Telecom, past regulatory requirements are also under review at the request of the telephone company.  Telecom argues if a national fiber network is to be established, Telecom should be freed of its regulated responsibility to continue investing in its copper network, and the facilities used to support it.

This is similar to arguments AT&T and other phone companies have been making in their efforts to secure deregulation at the state level, for but different reasons.  AT&T, as an example, argues that their aging copper wire network and its upkeep is a responsibility it agreed to in a different era, when landline service was ubiquitous and virtually everyone had a traditional phone line.  Phone companies argue that as landline disconnections accelerate, the regulatory responsibilities assigned to it are no longer fair, and requires the company to continue investing capital in a network fewer and fewer customers are using.  They argue investments would be more appropriately spent building next generation broadband and wireless networks.

AT&T might have a point, except for the collateral damage impacting rural customers, which AT&T may decide to abandon for the same reasons the company uses when it won’t provide broadband in rural areas — return on investment considerations.  Those investments AT&T seeks to make would disproportionately benefit urban customers, at the expense of rural ones.

Part Four (begins at 29:15)

In the fourth part, Nelson explores the impact of the fiber project on Telecom, which is considering restructuring itself to compete under the new broadband model.

Nelson argues the company’s revenues are expected to be flat in the near future and predicts Telecom will be forced to begin a cost-cutting program, simplify its business, and target growth areas.  Nelson ignores the most common strategies providers have used in this arena, however.  In addition to job cuts, the other common way to increase revenue is to raise prices. Chorus, which administers Telecom’s broadband network, is the only real money maker inside Telecom these days, and that comes from broadband demand.

Nelson, like investors, opposes anything resembling a price war in New Zealand, one that could come as copper-based DSL providers slash prices to remain competitive with service on the much faster (but likely more expensive) fiber network.  She sees such competition as a “war of attrition” where shareholder value is lost, along with incentives for further private investment.

Nelson’s final question ponders whether Telecom, still a dominant player in the New Zealand market, has the ability to change and adapt fast enough to the country’s fiber network.

Conversely, we wonder if Telecom will attempt to throw up roadblocks in an effort to curtail the new network as a defense strategy against those required changes to its business model.

We also wonder how much return on investment will be sufficient for investors.  For some, anything short of “the sky is the limit” may fuel investment of a different kind — into special interest campaigns and lobbying to ensure there is no limit on the money they can earn from a network that could have a monopoly position in the marketplace.

 

A research report sponsored by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the nation’s largest cable lobbying group, has concluded that millions of broadband stimulus dollars are being wasted by the government on broadband projects that will ultimately serve people who supposedly already enjoy a panoply of broadband choice.

Navigant Economics, a “research group” that produces reports for its paying clients inside industry, government, and law firms, produced this one at the behest of a cable industry concerned that broadband stimulus funding will build competing broadband providers that could force better service and lower prices for consumers.

• More than 85 percent of households in the three project areas are already passed by existing cable broadband, DSL, and/or fixed wireless broadband providers. In one of the project areas, more than 98 percent of households are already passed by at least one of these modalities.

• In part because a large proportion of project funds are being used to provide duplicative service, the cost per incremental (unserved) household passed is extremely high. When existing mobile wireless broadband coverage is taken into account, the $231.7 million in RUS funding across the three projects will provide service to just 452 households that currently lack broadband service.

Navigant’s report tries to prove its contention by analyzing three broadband projects that seek funding from the federal government.  Northeastern Minnesota, northwestern Kansas, and southwestern Montana were selected for Navigant’s analysis, and unsurprisingly the researcher found the broadband unavailability problem overblown.

The evidence demonstrates that broadband service is already widely available in each of the three proposed service areas. Thus, a large proportion of each award goes to subsidize broadband deployment to households and regions where it is already available, and the taxpayer cost per unserved household is significantly higher than the taxpayer cost per household passed.

But Navigant’s findings take liberties with what defines appropriate broadband service in the 21st century.

First, Navigant argues that wireless mobile broadband is suitable to meet the definition of broadband service, despite the fact most rural areas face 3G broadband speeds that, in real terms, are below the current definition of “broadband” (a stable 768kbps or better — although the FCC supports redefining broadband to speeds at or above 3-4Mbps).  As any 3G user knows, cell site congestion, signal quality, and environmental factors can quickly reduce 3G speeds to less than 500kbps.  When was the last time your 3G wireless provider delivered 768kbps or better on a consistent basis?

Navigant also ignores the ongoing march by providers to establish tiny usage caps for wireless broadband.  With most declaring anything greater than 5GB “abusive use,” and some limiting use to less than half that amount, a real question can be raised about whether mobile broadband, even at future 4G speeds, can provide a suitable home broadband replacement.

Second, Navigant’s list of available providers assumes facts not necessarily in evidence.  For example, in Lake County, Minnesota, Navigant assumes DSL availability based on a formula that assumes the service will be available anywhere within a certain radius of the phone company’s central office.  But as our own readers have testified, companies like Qwest, Frontier, and AT&T do not necessarily provide DSL in every central office or within the radius Navigant assumes it should be available.  One Stop the Cap! reader in the area has fought Frontier Communications for more than a year to obtain DSL service, and he lives blocks from the local central office.  It is simply not available in his neighborhood.  AT&T customers have encountered similar problems because the company has deemed parts of its service area unprofitable to provide saturation DSL service.  While some multi-dwelling units can obtain 3Mbps DSL, individual homes nearby cannot.

Navigant never visited the impacted communities to inquire whether service was actually available.  Instead, it relied on this definition to assume availability:

DSL boundaries were estimated as follows: Based on the location of the dominant central office of each wirecenter, a 12,000 foot radius was generated. This radius was then truncated as necessary to encompass only the servicing wirecenter. The assumption that DSL is capable of serving areas within 12,000 is based on analysis conducted by the Omnibus Broadband Initiative for the National Broadband Plan.

Frontier advertises up to 10Mbps DSL in our neighborhood, but in reality can actually only offer speeds of 3.1Mbps in a suburb less than one mile from the Rochester, N.Y. city line.  In more rural areas, customers are lucky to get service at all.

Cable broadband boundaries were estimated based on information obtained from an industry factbook, which gathered provider-supplied general coverage information and extrapolated availability from that.  But, as we’ve reported on numerous occasions, provider-supplied coverage data has proven suspect.  We’ve found repeated instances when advertised service proved unavailable, especially in rural areas where individual homes do not meet the minimum density required to provide service.

We’ve argued repeatedly for independent broadband mapping that relies on actual on-the-ground data, if only to end the kind of generalizations legislators rely on regarding broadband service.  But if the cable industry can argue away the broadband problem with empty claims service is available even in places where it is not (or woefully inadequate), relying on voluntary data serves the industry well, even if it shortchanges rural consumers who are told they have broadband choices that do not actually exist.

Navigant’s report seeks to apply the brakes to broadband improvement programs that can deliver consistent coverage and 21st century broadband speeds that other carriers simply don’t provide or don’t offer throughout the proposed service areas.  The cable industry doesn’t welcome the competition, especially in areas stuck with lesser-quality service from low-rated providers.

After a firestorm of protests from customers across western Canada, Shaw Communications this week unveiled new Internet packages and pricing that dramatically increases usage allowances and introduces unlimited use plans.  Stop the Cap! reader Mark shares the good news that consumer pushback can make a difference:

Today we are excited to share our new direction on Internet pricing and packaging with you, our customers. With your help, we’ve created a model that we hope you’ll agree is fair, flexible and offers a variety of options for customers today and into the future.

We’d like to thank the hundreds of customers who took time to come out to the 34 sessions and those who shared their ideas online. Many of those who participated are the technology innovators who told us they wanted an Internet experience that worked not only today, but for the needs of tomorrow. We also heard that our customers wanted transparency, more choice of internet speed and data options, increased flexibility to meet their varied needs, and above all, fairness.

The decisions we have made coming out of those sessions are far reaching. We went into the session thinking it was a discussion about pricing and packaging, and came out with a new vision for the future. Put an end to your struggles, as the perfect packaging solution to enhance your product is available at https://www.andex.net/blister-cards/.

One of the biggest decisions we have made is to undertake a major upgrade of our network by converting our television analog tiers to digital. In making this move we will triple the capacity of our network, freeing up space for more Internet, HD and On Demand programming. This conversion will start in June and will take sixteen months to complete. As a result of this upgrade, it will open up opportunities for Shaw to offer industry leading broadband performance.

While it is unlikely many Shaw customers clamored to see the cable company convert to an all-digital system (which requires a set top box on every connected television), the aggressive move to expand DOCSIS 3 technology will provide Shaw the option of pitching faster Internet speeds to customers — exactly what they intend to offer:

1. Increased Data Consumption with our Existing Model: Customers can choose to stay with their existing packaging and pricing except with much higher data levels. Our existing acceptable use policy will remain the same as it is today.
   

   Package	Speed	Current Data	New Data	Bundle Price	Standalone Price	With Personal TV (SPP)
   Shaw Lite Speed	1 Mbps	15 GB	30 GB	$27	$37	$64.90
   Shaw High Speed	7.5 Mbps	60 GB	125 GB	$39	$49	$74.90
   Shaw Extreme	25 Mbps	100 GB	250 GB	$49	$59	$84.90

2. New Broadband Packages: We have created new packages featuring industry leading performance and greater value. These broadband packages will come bundled with TV and will roll out in two phases. Phase 1 will be available in June, 2011 and Phase 2 will become available as the network upgrade occurs. Our advanced digital network will be activated neighbourhood by neighbourhood over the next 16 months starting in August, 2011.Customers who choose one of the new packages will enter into an automatic upgrade program. Those who go over their data consumption will be placed in the next higher package for the remainder of the month. The following month’s data will be reset and customers will return to their original package unless they choose to stay at the higher level.We have also created unlimited data options for our customers, an Unlimited Lite and Unlimited 100. As the new network becomes available, we will also offer Unlimited 250.
3. Phase 1 Broadband Packages (Available June, 2011)
   

   Package	Download Speed	Upload Speed	Data	With Legacy TV	With Personal TV (SPP)
   Unlimited Lite	1 Mbps	256 kbps	Unlimited	Add $59.00	$84.90
   Broadband 50	50 Mbps	3 Mbps	400 GB	Add $59.00	$84.90
   Broadband 100	100 Mbps	5 Mbps	500 GB	Add $69.00	$94.90
   Broadband 100+	100 Mbps	5 Mbps	750 GB	Add $79.00	$104.90
   Unlimited 100	100 Mbps	5 Mbps	Unlimited	Add $119.00	$144.90

   Phase 2 Broadband Packages (Rolling Launch Starting August, 2011)

   Package	Download Speed	Upload Speed	Data	With Legacy TV	With Personal TV (SPP)
   Unlimited Lite	1 Mbps	256 kbps	Unlimited	Add $59.00	$84.90
   Broadband 50	50 Mbps	5 Mbps	400 GB	Add $59.00	$84.90
   Broadband 100	100 Mbps	10 Mbps	500 GB	Add $69.00	$94.90
   Broadband 100+	100 Mbps	10 Mbps	750 GB	Add $79.00	$104.90
   Broadband 250	250 Mbps	15 Mbps	1 TB	Add $99.00	$124.90
   Unlimited 250	250 Mbps	15 Mbps	Unlimited	Add $119.00	$144.90

While this represents a welcome change for Canadians long weary of stingy usage allowances, the pricing for the company’s unlimited use options is on the high side, and is not an available option for the most popular lower speed tiers, with the exception of the company’s 1Mbps “Lite” plan, where it carries a ludicrous monthly fee of $59, the exact same price customers will pay for a 50Mbps plan with a 400GB monthly limit.

We would have liked to see Shaw introduce unlimited options for all of their usage plans (or better yet simply drop the limits altogether).  As it stands, they are effectively charging an extra $20-40 a month to be free from a usage cap on some of their new highest speed tiers. For most customers, the effective result of Shaw’s changes is a more generous usage package.

Shaw’s pricing for high speed plans is aggressive.  For what Americans would pay Time Warner Cable for 50/5Mbps service, a Shaw customer will eventually get 250/15Mbps with a 1TB limit (add $20 for unlimited).

Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa law professor, suspects the looming hearings by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) over usage-based-billing has a lot to to with this week’s changes by Shaw, which just months earlier was lowering usage allowances.

“Shaw is doing this because the writing was on the wall,” Geist says. “When you’re in a position to offer such better pricing and data caps than what you were offering before, it highlights just how uncompetitive this market has been.”

Eastern Canadians in Ontario and Quebec will be waiting to see what companies like Rogers, Videotron, and Bell do in response to Shaw’s new pricing model.  As it stands, western Canadians will nearly get double the speeds and usage allowances those in the eastern half of the country endure from cable and phone companies.  That could be a political nightmare at the CRTC hearings, and would continue to call out the highly arbitrary nature of Internet Overcharging, whether it is found in Calgary, Toronto, or Montreal.

MetroPCS pitches its 4G/LTE plans to customers looking to save money over the bigger players in the marketplace.  The upstart provider, based in Richardson, Texas, serves just over a dozen major metropolitan areas with no-contract plans that deliver lower prices in return for smaller coverage areas.  As larger providers heavily sell their “next generation 4G” networks, MetroPCS has also been promoting their own “unlimited talk, text, and web” 4G/LTE plan that offers an “unlimited” experience for $60 a month.  But there is a catch, only revealed when customers click the fine print link that opens the Terms of Use.  The document is a poster child for Net Neutrality, because it allows the company to block, throttle, prioritize, alter, or inspect any web content.

Here is what MetroPCS advertises:

Here is a selection of the Terms and Conditions which tarnish a great sounding deal (underlining ours):

You acknowledge and agree that the Internet contains Data Content which, without alteration, will or may not be available, or may not be providable to you in a way to allow a meaningful experience, on a wireless handset.

You acknowledge and agree that such alteration that MetroPCS may or will perform on your behalf as your agent may include our use of Data Content traffic management or shaping techniques such as, but not limited to delaying or controlling the speeds at which Data Content is delivered, reformatting the Data Content, compressing the Data Content, prioritizing traffic on MetroPCS’ network, and placing restrictions on the amount of Data Content made available based on the Agreement. You further acknowledge that MetroPCS may not be able to alter such Data Content for you merely by reference to the Internet address and therefore acknowledge and agree that MetroPCS may examine, including, but not limited to Shallow (or Stateful) Packet Inspection and Deep Packet Inspection, the Data Content requested by you while using the MetroWEB Service to determine how best to alter such Data Content prior to providing it to you.

If we notice excessive data traffic coming from your phone, we reserve the right to suspend, reduce the speed of, or terminate your MetroWEB Service. In addition, to provide a good experience for the majority of our customers and minimize capacity issues and degradation in network performance, we may take measures including temporarily reducing data throughput for a subset of customers who use a disproportionate amount of bandwidth; if your web and data Service Plan usage is predominantly off-portal or otherwise not provided by MetroPCS during a billing cycle, we may reduce your data speed, without notice, for the remainder of that billing cycle. We may also suspend, terminate, or restrict your data session, or MetroWEB Service if you use MetroWEB Service in a manner that interferes with other customers’ service, our ability to allocate network capacity among customers, or that otherwise may degrade service quality for other customers.

MetroPCS also wants customers to know their service is not intended as a home broadband replacement, and states it is only to be used for basic web services, including e-mail and web browsing and downloading of legitimate audio content.  Video streaming is naughty.