Advocacy groups already nervous about Xohm WiMAX policies

Sprint's Xohm WiMAX network barely got its feet on the ground before neutrality advocates began to tear apart the service's acceptable use and network management policy.

Sprint's terms of service include the passage: "XOHM may provide various Service plans with different characteristics, including different speeds and usage limitations.  You agree to comply with these limitations.  In addition, your use of the Service may not result in an excessive burden of system or network resources, may not weaken network performance, and may not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other user's use of the Service.  To ensure a high-quality experience for its entire subscriber base, XOHM may use various tools and techniques designed to limit the bandwidth available for certain bandwidth intensive applications or protocols, such as file sharing."

The advocacy group Free Press issued a statement yesterday afternoon highlighting this passage, and expressed its hope that Sprint will disclose the exact tools and techniques that it will use, so as to "demonstrate why it is necessary to maintain a closed network when consumers demand an open Internet."

The Open Internet Business Model, however, has been frequently mentioned by Sprint in its discussion of WiMAX, and in an effort to live by its principles, it's never been secretive about the Quality of Service controls it considers necessary.

Last year, for example, Sprint's Barry West spoke at NXTcomm about the model, and how it allows data plans to be sold that allow a user to connect all of his devices to WiMAX at any time and in any fashion, while the network provider balances the maximum level of throughput for each.

Though the new policy does cite file sharing programs directly, these "throttling" stipulations are not necessarily carte blanche for Sprint to squash the bandwidth of file sharers, but could rather be looking forward to a network where subscribers are connecting all of their devices at the same time. Unfortunately, though, it does boil down to interpretation until Sprint discloses its planned methods.

The major concern here should not have been the potential limits placed upon users of the service, but rather that in its announcement of the service yesterday morning, Sprint prominently used the phrase "without usage limitations."