Clearwire’s CCO Mike Sievert has made some interesting comments in support of wireless Net Neutrality, but he seem to be contradicting some of the comments from Clearwire’s previous SEC filings, Clearwire’s current Terms of Service, and comments from Sprint.

Sievert told Network World:

“If you were told by your wireline provider that there are applications that you can’t run on their network, I don’t think customers would tolerate it,” said Sievert. “We don’t want to impose any restrictions on our own customers that we wouldn’t tolerate from our wireline service.”

Sievert goes on to say (page 2 of article):

“But unlimited offer means unlimited,” Sievert explained. “We won’t turn you off when you consume 5GB of data, we won’t slow you down or send you a large bill.”

But according to the current Clearwire ToS:

“The term “unlimited” means that we will not place a limit on how much data you upload or download during a month or other particular period, however, it does not mean that we will not take steps to reduce your data rate during periods of congestion or take other actions described in this AUP when your usage is negatively impacting other subscribers to our Service.”

Sprint which is a majority stake holder in Clearwire also has similar contractual restrictions:

“To protect our network, Services, or for other reasons, we may place restrictions on accessing certain Data Content (such as certain websites, applications, etc.), impose separate charges, limit throughput or the amount of data you can transfer, or otherwise limit or terminate Services. If we provide you storage for Data Content you have purchased, we may delete the Data Content with notice or place restrictions/limits on the use of storage areas. You may not be able to make or receive voice calls while using data Services. Data Content provided by our vendors or third parties is subject to cancellation or termination at any time without notice to you and you may not receive a refund for any unused portion of the Data Content.”

Clearwire’s 2008 SEC Report also seems to contradict Sievert’s statements:

“If the FCC or other regulatory authorities were to adopt regulations that constrain our ability to employ bandwidth management practices, excessive use of bandwidth-intensive applications would likely reduce the quality of our services for all subscribers. A decline in the quality of our services could harm our business, or even result in litigation from dissatisfied subscribers.”

Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse made the following comments late 2009:

“If some principles of network neutrality were applied to wireless networks, they could come to a standstill because there is only so much capacity. As a carrier, we want to maximize our quality of service for as many users as possible, and we need to manage capacity for all users.”

Here at Digital Society, we have put forth the position that wireless networks are substantially different from wired networks.  We feel that Sprint and Clearwire have reasonable contractual restrictions in their terms of service given the inherent limitations of wireless networks, but we seek clarification on the contradictory statements from Clearwire’s CCO Mike Sievert.