A growing chorus claims that Apple’s questionable approval policy for its iPhone app store raises issues with net neutrality. The latest is Free Press, which “alleges that Apple crippled SlingPlayer, a TV-streaming application for iPhone, so that it would only work on a Wi-Fi connection,” according to Wired. However, Apple has approved live streaming for a Major League Baseball app.

According to AT&T, the problem is that it doesn’t have enough network capacity. Wired reports:
“We’re certainly not crippling any apps,” an AT&T spokesman said. “This is an issue of fairness…. While we would like to support all video services across our network, the reality is that wireless networks simply lack the capacity to support customers streaming hours of cable, satellite or IPTV video programming to individual users.”

However, Ken Biba, founder of wireless consulting firm Novarum, says “SlingPlayer is clear evidence that AT&T’s network is overloaded” and he interprets that the new iPhone 3GS video recording and uploading option will clog the network even more and he added that even when carriers roll out the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution cellular network, AT&T’s network capacity will still be insufficient because by then, smartphones will be even more sophisticated and affordable, creating even more congestion. He suggests,
“An even better solution would be if more cities deployed free Wi-Fi coverage to offload the stress from carrier networks.”

At this juncture it is a mandatory to oversee the statement of Aneesh Chopra the US CTO, said at a consumer electronics show held in June 2009 at New York :

“If you were to ask investors how satisfied were you with your data wireless network investments pre-iPhone, my gut instinct tells me, they were not delivering the revenues that one would’ve expected to justify the investments they were making,”

Chopra noted that faster Internet speeds create business opportunities and that the government aims to create incentives for such investment. “We can lead with public policy in this area the way that the consumer has led in the device world”. Already $7.3 billion has been allocated to hand out for broadband build-out in the President Obama’s economic stimulus package.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission plans to draw up a strategy to bring high-speed Internet to nearly half of the U.S. population that does not get it, many in low-income and rural areas.

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