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One day ago, the FCC announced that it would be hitting AT&T with a $100 million fine for throttling the data of its grandfathered unlimited data subscribers, and not being perfectly clear in those practices.
Sprint has decided to go a different route altogether, following the new net neutrality rules enacted by the FCC which went into effect last week. At that time, Sprint decided to stop throttling the data of its heaviest data users while in congested areas. Sprint opened up to the Wall Street Journal recently, stating that while it believes its throttling practices would have been accepted under the new net neutrality rules, it wanted to be safe than sorry.
Sprint made it known to its subscribers in May of last year that it would begin throttling the top 5% of its subscribers while in congested areas and/or “during heavy usage times.” Back then, Sprint said this throttling would help more customers than hinder, but it appears that Sprint would rather just play it safe against the new rules set in place, which is good news across the board for subscribers.On top of that, Sprint’s policy to prioritize data traffic based on a customer’s plan has also been rescinded.
It’s a good first step in the right direction in light of the new net neutrality rules.