The talk around Net Neutrality keeps on coming at the moment. While T-Mobile seem to be bearing the brunt of the talks due to their Binge On service and their general response to the likes of the EFF and their most recent response yesterday to the FCC, they are not the only company who is offering services which many are keeping a closer eye on. For instance, when it comes to the notion of zero data, both AT&T and Verizon are under the spotlight thanks to their approaches to sponsored data. This is where data from select companies can be omitted from the customer’s data plans and typically charged to the company. In fact, in terms of Verizon in particular, they did just recently announce their sponsored plan in the form of FreeBee Data.
Speaking of which, Verizon has today announced an update to their go90 app which among other aspects and the usual ‘bug fixes and performance improvements’, brings with it a FreeBee-related feature. As the Play Store changelog details, “If you’re a Verizon wireless post-paid customer, stream go90 videos over LTE without using up your data.” Needless to say, if you are a post-paid customer, you can now stream video for free. In short, they have now been zero rated.
While this is obviously good for consumers who make use of a post-paid subscription to Verizon, this is only going to add to the debate on Net Neutrality and how carriers can offer video from select providers (like T-Mobile) or to select customers (like Verizon) without breaching Net Neutrality regulations. That said, if you are a Verizon customer on a postpaid plan, then you can now make use of video content for free and without having to worry about it counting against your data plan. That is, providing the app has been updated to the most recent version, v1.4. The rest of the changes listed in the changelog include improvements to the streaming experience, improvements to the follow and unfollow feature and free previews of select NBA live games. If you don’t have the app installed, you can grab the download from the Play Store through the link below.