AT&T's new HBO Max streaming service is exempt from the carrier's mobile data caps, even though competing services such as Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ count against the monthly data limits. This news was reported today in an article by The Verge, which said that AT&T "confirmed to The Verge that HBO Max will be excused from the company's traditional data caps and the soft data caps on unlimited plans.".

The traditional data caps limit customers to a certain amount of data each month before they have to pay overage fees or face extreme slowdowns for the rest of the month.

"According to an AT&T executive familiar with the matter, HBO Max is using AT&T's 'sponsored data' system, which technically allows any company to pay to excuse its services from data caps," The Verge wrote.

We asked AT&T whether HBO Max will also be exempt from AT&T home-Internet data caps and will update this article if we get an answer.

(Update: AT&T told us the new streaming service is not exempt from home-Internet caps, so "HBO Max would count toward your home data allotment.") AT&T home and mobile data caps are suspended during the coronavirus pandemic until at least June 30, but AT&T will presumably bring them back sometime after that.

When Democrat Tom Wheeler chaired the Federal Communications Commission, the agency ruled that AT&T and Verizon Wireless violated net neutrality rules by letting their own video services stream without counting against customers' mobile data caps while charging other video providers for the same data cap exemptions.

In July 2015, when AT&T bought DirecTV, the Wheeler FCC imposed a merger condition that barred AT&T from exempting its own online video services from home-Internet data caps.