Free Press cries foul over iPhone baseball app

AT&T Mobility continues to be the target of open access advocates. [1]This time, the advocacy group Free Press is questioning why AT&T is allowing Major League Baseball fans to stream live games onto their iPhones while restricting other video streaming services such as SlingMedia, which is only enabled via a WiFi connection. Meanwhile, the MLB At Bat live video service can be accessed via a 3G or WiFi connection.

"We are troubled that carriers like AT&T are playing gatekeeper to the next generation of wireless Internet applications," Ben Scott, policy director with Free Press, said in a statement. "No Internet service provider should be allowed to pick winners and losers online."

An AT&T spokesman didn't have a comment on this issue until the company looked into the matter, but the MLB application can cap the bit rate because it uses standards-based video streaming technology that adjusts video quality to the bandwidth available. The SlingPlayer doesn't have that capability, but the latest version submitted to Apple for the iPhone is supposed to. But there's also that confusing issue of services that compete with AT&T's own services. AT&T in the past has said it restricts video services that redirect TV signals to its network.

For more:
- see Cnet [2]

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AT&T chief: Operators aren't prepared for onslaught of data traffic
[3]SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone denied 3G support [4]
AT&T's mobile broadband house of cards [5]
AT&T [6] revises data usage rules