It's hard to find the silver linings during a pandemic,Do Clothes Make the Woman?: Gender, Performance Theory and Lesbian Eroticism but the coronavirus outbreak has forced big internet providers like AT&T and Comcast to suspend some anti-consumer policies.
FCC chairman Ajit Pai launched the "Keep Americans Connected Pledge" on Friday, per an FCC press release. The FCC asked telecoms to sign the pledge, which guarantees that services will not be shut off if bills aren't paid, any incurred late fees will be waived, and WiFi hotspots will be open to the public for the next 60 days. This is in explicit anticipation of people not being able to pay bills because they can't work due to COVID-19, the official term for the disease caused by the virus.
Just about every major telecom in the U.S. has apparently agreed to sign the pledge — including AlticeUSA, Cox, AT&T, Comcast, and many more. (You can see the full list in the FCC's news release.) So, hopefully, nobody who uses those services will be unfairly charged or disconnected over the next two months.
“As the coronavirus outbreak spreads and causes a series of disruptions to the economic, educational, medical, and civic life of our country, it is imperative that Americans stay connected," Pai said in a statement. "Broadband will enable them to communicate with their loved ones and doctors, telework, ensure their children can engage in remote learning, and — importantly — take part in the ‘social distancing’ that will be so critical to limiting the spread of this novel coronavirus."
Interestingly, Pai also wants ISPs to "relax" their data cap policies, per the announcement, even though that wasn't part of the pledge itself. Many ISPs in the U.S. impose artificial monthly limits on how much data customers can use. If you go over, you don't necessarily lose service, but you do have to pay extra.
So far, AT&T is the biggest domino to fall in that regard. Motherboard reported on Thursday that AT&T would suspend data cap overage fees during the pandemic. Mediacom also told Motherboard in a separate piece that it would give its customers some extra data for the month of March. Comcast doesn't appear to be suspending data cap fees right now, but it is offering internet to low-income families.
Cox, meanwhile, announced Friday it would upgrade customers on Starter, StraightUp, and Connect2Compete packages to 50Mbps download speeds for the next 60 days. Those same customers will also get remote desktop support from Cox for no charge during that timespan, should they need it.
It's obviously a net good that ISPs are signing this pledge not to overcharge customers, but the detail about data caps is just one example of how all of this could be handled a little better by everyone involved. If there are any other helpful internet policy changes made in response to coronavirus, we'll let you know.
UPDATE: March 13, 2020, 4:20 p.m. PDT: T-Mobile announced it is taking a series of steps in light of the coronavirus, which perhaps most notably include "removing smartphone data caps for all customers."
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Comcast took a similar step, announcing that "While the vast majority of our customers do not come close to using 1TB of data in a month, we are pausing our data plans for 60 days giving all customers Unlimited data for no additional charge."
UPDATE: March 13, 2020, 5:09 p.m. PDT: Sprint joined the unlimited-data party Friday afternoon, announcing that "By next Thursday: Customers with metered data plans will receive unlimited data per month for 60 days (a minimum of two bill cycles) at no extra cost."
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Topics FCC COVID-19
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