Verizon sees AT&T 'sponsored data' billing scheme, says 'me too!'

Verizon is reportedly looking to roll out a controversial data plan some believe violates net neutrality principles.

An executive with the US telco giant said earlier this week that Verizon would soon begin tests of a "sponsored data" plan in which carriers can offset user data costs.

Under sponsored data plans, service providers cover the costs of transmitting data over a telco's network in exchange for the data not being counted against a user's monthly allocation. The result is a setup where users can access certain streaming services for "free" without having their content charged against their personal data plans.

According to Verizon executive VP Marni Walden, the company will in the first quarter of 2016 begin testing a system to analyze the source of content and give carriers the option of covering users' data allocation from their own pockets.

Critics charge that the sponsored data programs violate net neutrality laws because they allow larger service providers to purchase a sort of "preferred" status among users that startups and smaller companies cannot afford and thus can't hope to compete with.

Verizon is not the first company to float a "preferred" data plan for mobile users. AT&T has been testing such a program since 2014, though the plans have thus far been limited to trials and have not been rolled out to the general public.

Other carriers such as T-Mobile have taken the idea one step further and simply declared that many streaming music and media services can stream on their networks without counting against user data caps. The carrier's "Music Freedom" plan covers 11 streaming music services whose songs will not be tallied into LTE data plans.

This as US carriers are also being criticized for how they handle customers who pay extra for unlimited data. The US Federal Trade Commission has filed complaints against carriers who have touted unlimited data options, yet deliberately throttled speeds for users who exceeded a preset data limit in a single month. ®