BlackBerry CEO John Chen laid out a net neutrality plan of his own yesterday in a letter to US lawmakers and in a post on the Canadian company's blog. One part of his proposal in particular has garnered attention: Chen thinks net neutrality rules in the US should force Apple and Netflix to make apps for BlackBerry hardware.

Net neutrality proposals generally focus on Internet service providers, banning discrimination against Internet content and applications. Chen wants makers of software to have to follow neutrality rules as well.

While BlackBerry makes its own messaging service available for multiple platforms, Apple has not returned the favor. Netflix has also "discriminated against BlackBerry customers" by not releasing a BlackBerry app. Chen wrote:

Key to BlackBerry’s turnaround has been a strategy of application and content neutrality. For example, we opened up our proprietary BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service in 2013, making it available for download on our competitors’ devices. Tens of millions of iPhone and Android customers around the world have since downloaded BBM and are enjoying the service free of charge. Last year we introduced our secure BES12 mobile device management software, once again designed to manage not just BlackBerry phones but also available for enterprises and government agencies whose employees use iPhone and Android devices. Unfortunately, not all content and applications providers have embraced openness and neutrality. Unlike BlackBerry, which allows iPhone users to download and use our BBM service, Apple does not allow BlackBerry or Android users to download Apple’s iMessage messaging service. Netflix, which has forcefully advocated for carrier neutrality, has discriminated against BlackBerry customers by refusing to make its streaming movie service available to them. Many other applications providers similarly offer service only to iPhone and Android users. This dynamic has created a two-tiered wireless broadband ecosystem, in which iPhone and Android users are able to access far more content and applications than customers using devices running other operating systems. These are precisely the sort of discriminatory practices that neutrality advocates have criticized at the carrier level. Therefore, neutrality must be mandated at the application and content layer if we truly want a free, open, and non-discriminatory Internet. All wireless broadband customers must have the ability to access any lawful applications and content they choose, and applications/content providers must be prohibited from discriminating based on the customer’s mobile operating system.

Apple generally makes software only for its own hardware, with exceptions such as iTunes and iCloud for Windows. Netflix said in 2013 that it would not build an app for BlackBerry because of the platform's low market share. Netflix does have apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, and it is possible to run Netflix on BlackBerry because of a partnership with Amazon to bring Android apps to BlackBerry users (with some complications depending on what device you own).

Chen's argument is not totally unprecedented; small cable companies argued as far back as 2009 that online video providers such as ESPN violate the spirit of net neutrality by charging discriminatory rates to Internet providers and preventing users from accessing video when their Internet provider doesn't pay up.

Chen wrote that "policymakers should focus on more than just the carriers, who play only one role in the overall broadband Internet ecosystem. The carriers are like the railways of the last century, building the tracks to carry traffic to all points throughout the country. But the railway cars travelling on those tracks are, in today’s Internet world, controlled not by the carriers but by content and applications providers."

Wireless carriers should be required to follow rules similar to those applied to 700MHz C block spectrum licenses purchased by Verizon, he wrote. Those rules prohibit Verizon "from restricting customers from using devices and accessing applications or any other lawful content of their choice on the C Block network" or "disabling features on mobile devices they sell to customers, or rigging those devices to prohibit their use on competitors’ networks," Chen wrote.

"Verizon won the entire C block in the 2008 auction and has lived under those rules ever since," Chen wrote. "The rules have withstood the test of time and have functioned well. There is no evidence the rules have failed to achieve their purpose or have failed to protect the principle of an open wireless Internet. With that positive experience to guide us, why not extend the C-Block rules to all mobile broadband spectrum and all carriers?"

The Federal Communications Commission is on the verge of issuing new net neutrality rules that may apply both to fixed Internet providers and wireless carriers. The FCC is likely to reclassify broadband as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act in order to enforce those rules—but Chen argued that applying Title II to mobile broadband "seems excessive to us." He believes the open access requirements on Verizon's spectrum should be applied to other carriers without using Title II.

But Chen didn't explain what authority the FCC should use to enforce those rules beyond the special case of the C Block. The FCC's previous attempt to enforce net neutrality rules without reclassifying broadband providers was thrown out in court after a Verizon challenge.