Wish Broadband Data Caps Would Go Away? Trump’s Incoming FCC Chair Doesn’t

President-elect Donald Trump’s appointee for chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, was on the dissenting side of a vote (PDF) to open up an inquiry into data caps last month.

Blaming the current administration for regulation overreach, Carr wrote in a dissenting opinion, “I cannot support the Biden-Harris Administration’s inexorable march towards rate regulation and because the FCC plainly does not have the legal authority to do so.” 

The FCC launched a web portal in September seeking stories about people’s experiences with data caps at fcc.gov/datacapstories. The commission sought to open up a probe into pricing practices and consumer experiences around data caps, which allow internet service providers to charge or throttle broadband service when they reach a threshold of data usage. It is still accepting reply comments on its site until Dec. 2. 

As reported by Ars Technica, over 3,000 complaints related to data caps have been submitted to the FCC, which posted 600 of them online (PDF) last month. 

There are ways to avoid data caps and some major providers don’t have data caps at all. The FCC appeared to be on a path to regulating or perhaps even banning data caps. That seems unlikely now with Carr heading up the commission.

In his dissent, Carr argued that “prohibiting customers from choosing to purchase plans with data caps — which are more affordable than unlimited ones — necessarily regulates the service rates they are paying for.”