Activist group demands that next FCC chairman investigate ISP bandwidth caps

Data caps for home broadband services have been one of the less popular innovations ISPs have rolled out over the past couple of years and now one activist group is demanding that the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission conduct a formal investigation into ISPs’ practice of capping how much data their customers can consume per month. The group, which is sponsored by Public Knowledge and includes representatives from the National Film Society and several online content creators, has launched a new website called “Don’t Cap That” that urges lawmakers to “insist that the next FCC Chair commit to making a detailed examination of data caps a priority during his or her tenure.” The group says that it opposes broadband data caps because they are “an easy way for existing pay television providers to make their online video competitors less attractive to viewers” and that it wants the next FCC chairman to “recognize the threat that data caps pose to the future growth of the internet, and to the growth of online video specifically.”