The following is attributed to Gigi B.
Sohn, president and CEO of Public Knowledge:
“Millions of consumers and at least two
major publications have now discovered that the new iPads which went on sale
come with a hidden cost – the caps on data usage which wireless carriers put on
consumers.
“It’s a ridiculous situation that the
carriers sell millions of these devices specifically designed to view video on one
hand, while they restrict the usage of their networks for video on the other.
“It is simply inexcusable that the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) has not even seen fit to ask wireless and
landline carriers to explain why those caps are necessary, how they are set and
how consumers are affected by them. If
the Commission is truly interested in consumer protection, it will ask the
crucial questions and come up with some answers before consumers start getting
hit with ever-increasing bills just for using the devices they bought in good
faith.”
Here are some background resources on the
data caps issue:
1) A report Public Knowledge issued last
August warning of just the situation that is taking place now with 4G networks
and data caps.
www.publicknowledge.org/files/4GDataCapsMagicBeans.pdf (August 3, 2011)
2) The first letter from PK and the Open
Technology Initiative asking the FCC to look into the issue.
http://www.publicknowledge.org/letter-to-FCC-on-ATT-Data-Caps (May 6, 2011)
3) A second letter we sent to the FCC after
announcements of more data caps.
www.publicknowledge.org/files/docs/GenachowskiDataCapLetter.pdf (July 14, 2011)