Despite data caps and throttling, industry says mobile can replace home Internet

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AT&T and Verizon are trying to convince the Federal Communications Commission that mobile broadband is good enough for Internet users who don't have access to fiber or cable services, in filings they submitted for the FCC's annual review of broadband deployment. The carriers made this claim despite the data usage and speed limitations of mobile services. In the mobile market, even "unlimited" plans can be throttled to unusable speeds after a customer uses just 25GB or so a month. Mobile carriers impose even stricter limits on phone hotspots, making it difficult to use mobile services across multiple devices in the home.

In Jan 2018, the FCC concluded that broadband deployment is happening quickly enough for the first time since the Bush administration. But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stopped short of declaring mobile access a full substitute for fixed broadband services such as fiber and cable. AT&T and Verizon want that to change when the FCC releases the next version of the report, likely early 2019. Pai's FCC previously "refused to acknowledge mobile broadband as a substitute for fixed," AT&T complained in an FCC filing this week. Verizon told the FCC that its annual analysis should be "broad enough to account for broadband deployment overall... including how consumers may use mobile broadband to supplement or substitute for fixed broadband."


Despite data caps and throttling, industry says mobile can replace home Internet