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Group Asks FCC To Specify That Net Neutrality Applies To Wireless

Restrictions on Skype's new free calling application for iPhones have spurred advocacy group Free Press to press the Federal Communications Commission to confirm that net neutrality principles apply to wireless broadband carriers.

"Wireless networks demonstrate numerous anti-consumer practices that may be violations of the Commission's Internet Policy Statement," the group stated in a Friday letter to the FCC. The FCC Internet Policy Statement provides that consumers have the right to run any lawful applications on their broadband connections.

Free Press specifically called the FCC's attention to Skype's new free telephone service for Apple's iPhone, which only works on a Wi-Fi network, and not AT&T's 3G network. Apple imposed the limit, but AT&T clearly wanted Apple to do so. An AT&T senior executive was quoted in USA Today as saying the company has "every right" to decline to promote rivals' services.

AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel told Online Media Daily: "We think it's reasonable for vendors not to facilitate the inclusion of competitors' products and services on the products that we sell."

Free Press alleges in its letter that AT&T might be violating net neutrality principles by using its partnership with Apple to "hinder consumer choice for anticompetitive purposes."

The group also warns that restrictions such as the limits on Skype's iPhone app show that "the future of wireless innovation will be determined first and foremost not by developers of the devices, but by wireless carriers through restrictive language used to control consumers' use of applications and services on their networks."