In his final days as FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler accuses AT&T and Verizon of violating net neutrality with paid data cap exemptions
Paid zero-rating in crosshairs, but it won't matter once Trump is president. — With just over a week left as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission …
Context & Ripple Effects
Tom Wheeler is spending his last week in office settling scores. The FCC had already reached a [[a:878734|preliminary conclusion that AT&T's DirecTV data cap exemption violated the open internet rules]] in December, and this accusation extends the same zero-rating theory to Verizon's sponsored-data plans.
The timing is deliberate: Wheeler announced he would resign on January 20, handing the commission a Republican majority that has signaled it will unwind Obama-era regulations, and Donald Trump has publicly opposed the rules themselves. The accusation lands as enforcement power leaves the building.
First-order effects
- AT&T and Verizon are formally on record as accused net neutrality violators, with AT&T's DirecTV exemption already at the preliminary-violation stage inside the FCC.
Second-order effects
- With Wheeler departing and a Republican majority taking over, both carriers can keep paid zero-rating in market without facing a finalized penalty — and rivals without sponsored-data programs face pressure to adopt similar cap-exemption schemes to stay competitive on price perception.
Third-order effects
- If the incoming commission declines to act, the zero-rating question shifts from an enforcement matter to a test of whether the next set of rules addresses data-cap exemptions at all — Wheeler used his final public speech to argue the case for keeping the framework intact.
The trend: Net neutrality enforcement is moving from active FCC policing under Wheeler to a political fight over whether the rules survive the Trump-era commission at all.