MetroPCS: the open Internet on a budget?

It has been filing-to-filing combat between MetroPCS, Free Press, and the Consumers Union over whether the wireless carrier's current 4G offerings violate the Federal Communications Commission's new net neutrality rules. Free Press has released another statement insisting that MetroPCS plans "block and discriminate against Internet content, applications and websites," thus running afoul of key FCC open Internet provisions. "MetroPCS demands that its subscribers make a choice between a restricted Internet experience or paying extra fees to access websites, content and applications," charges Free Press' Chris Riley. "But those should not be the only options." The wireless service pushes back that those options are fine, especially for consumers on "fixed incomes or who are credit-challenged." "MetroPCS supports an open Internet," the company wrote to the FCC, "and is trying to make that a reality by offering consumers affordable broadband wireless Internet access data options that will spur broadband wireless Internet access services adoption and break through to consumers who in the past were on the wrong side of the digital divide." Irony alert: while MetroPCS defends its new plans as legal within the framework of the Commission's open Internet rules, the company, along with Verizon, has asked a Federal appeals court to block them -- even before the provisions have been officially released via the Federal register. But all contradictions aside, let us consider MetroPCS's bargain-basement view of cyberspace and the corner that the company wants to carve out in it.