Tethering—connecting your mobile phone to some other device for broadband access—could become the next battlefront at the Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Division. That is, if the FCC listens to a new complaint from Free Press accusing Verizon of limiting consumer tethering choices on the company's LTE mobile phones.

The filing cites news reports (here and here) suggesting that, at Verizon's behest, Google is disabling Verizon customer access to third-party tethering applications on the Google Android Market app store.

Fierce Wireless recently cited a Google spokesperson explaining that the search engine giant wasn't blocking the app, just "making it unavailable for download" in response to requests from wireless carriers. Google wouldn't disclose which carriers had asked for action on this front. Verizon is being coy with reporters on the issue, suggesting that Google is responsible for what is on the Android app market.

As for Free Press, the advocacy group seems pretty sure about what's going on, and wants the FCC to launch an investigation.

"Plainly, Verizon's actions in disabling access to the tethering applications limit and restrict the ability of users to access those applications," the complaint claims. "Because users download tethering applications for the express purpose of connecting additional devices to their data connections, Verizon's actions also limit and restrict the ability of users to connect the devices of their choice to the LTE network. The Commission should immediately investigate this apparent violation of its rules and assess all appropriate penalties."

We asked Verizon for a comment on the complaint, and got a similar "see Google" response.

"It’s important to remember, Google manages what’s available in the Android Market," a Verizon spokesperson told us, "(As we work with developers on distribution in V CAST Apps). Verizon has spent the past few years paving the way for third parties to bring devices and applications to our network under the C-block rules through our Open Development and other programs."

Applications of their choice

The issue here is that there are various free or low cost tethering apps, downloadable on Android devices (and not requiring root status)—as opposed to the carrier-supported tethering services that run as high as $30 a month. A quick look on my Verizon networked Droid X shows several potential tethering downloads, but putting the kibosh on these inexpensive apps would obviously extract more money from consumer pockets.

That "applications of their choice" phrase is key to the Free Press complaint. Other carriers block tethering apps, but when Verizon bid and ultimately purchased massive amounts of spectrum in the 700MHz "C Block" auction back in 2008 in order to offer 4G services, the company promised to adhere to the Commission's "Open Access" rules. Based on the Commission's 1968 Carterfone decision, those rules forbade carriers from trying to "deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice."

This third-party tethering restriction move appears to be a violation of that pledge, Free Press contends.

"Removing the applications from the Android Market curtails, restrains, and interferes with the ability of subscribers to use the applications of their choice by making it more difficult to download and install those applications," the reform group writes:

Even if the process of downloading applications outside the market were relatively simple, Verizon clearly decided to impose limitations on access to these applications in an effort to deter consumers from using them. It makes perfect sense for Verizon to do so because these tethering applications compete with Verizon’s own tethering service. But it was for this precise reason that the Commission adopted the C Block Rules. The Commission specifically recognized that blocking applications that "compete with wireless service providers' own offerings" harms users and innovators. In sum, Verizon plainly violates the C Block rules when it seeks deliberately to limit user choice in the market for mobile applications.

"If the Commission’s openness rules are to have any meaning," the filing concludes, "the FCC must act quickly to investigate Verizon’s indiscriminate and arbitrary blocking of tethering applications."

Listing image by Photo by Alexis Nyal