With the Federal Communications Commission’s new net neutrality rules in place, Sprint is already feeling the effects: it’s no longer throttling the speeds of its wireless internet connections.
The carrier has been limiting the speeds of data connections for years now, reducing the flow of data for the heaviest users when its networks were particularly busy. But the Wall Street Journal reports that it ended the practice on Friday, when the FCC’s rules went into full effect.
Sprint says that the practice would still have been legitimate under the new FCC net neutrality rules, which covers wireless networks as well as those plumbed into your home. But it clearly isn’t 100 percent confident of that claim. “Sprint doesn’t expect users to notice any significant difference in their services now that we no longer engage in the process,” a Sprint spokesman told the newspaper.
Sprint had in the past also held the rights to prioritize its traffic depending on the plan a customer had taken out. It never used the ability, but it’s now scrapped it anyway.
The news comes after yesterday’s revelation from the FCC that AT&T is to pay $100 million in fines for slowing unlimited data plans. Finally, it appears that consumers may be getting abetter deal out the telecom giants.
[WSJ]