Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday he wants the agency to begin rolling back the net neutrality rule of the government's oversight of high-speed Internet providers.
The commission will have an initial vote on Pai's proposal during the FCC's May 18 meeting.
Pai has objected to the FCC's decision to classify broadband as a telecommunications service to be regulated under Title II.
Some sources say his approach this week could simply be to propose doing away with the FCC's regulatory classification of internet service providers and solicit comments on how the agency can keep the net neutrality principles without that classification. "Or do we want to embrace the light-touch approach established by President Clinton and a Republican Congress in 1996 and repeatedly reaffirmed by Democratic and Republican FCCs alike?" he said. Several internet providers said they didn't plan to do those things and Comcast said Wednesday that it supported undoing the net neutrality rules but did not "block, throttle or discriminate" against internet content.
"The elimination of clear rules protecting a free and open internet would put us in uncharted territory and would create uncertainty for ISPs, edge providers and consumers alike", the two wrote in a recent op-ed for Re/code.
Net neutrality says all traffic on the internet must be treated equally. Once approved, the proposal will remove any legal powers the FCC now has to regulate Internet providers, returning everything to the state it was before 2015. Those rules ensured that the internet would remain a level playing field for everyone, making the internet America's foundation for information and commerce and communications.
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"The debate of the last decade has never really been about 'net neutrality, ' but the FCC's sweeping claims of power over the Internet", Berin Szóka, president of TechFreedom, said in a Wednesday statement.
Pai's announcement drew immediate fire from consumer advocates and others who claimed it will allow big broadband firms such as AT&T and Verizon to choke off or slow access to competing "edge" services like video operators Netflix and Amazon.
Pai voted against net neutrality in 2015.
In his speech Pai acknowledged that he is generally supportive of the principles behind net neutrality, but thinks classifying ISPs as common carriers was a step too far. In 2014, comedian John Oliver in his HBO show owned by Time Warner Inc (TWX.N) helped galvanize support for net neutrality.
"Some have called on the FCC to reverse Title II immediately, through what is known as a Declaratory Ruling".
Markey, who recently sat down with Massachusetts-based companies, argued that net neutrality has played a key rule in how these and other businesses operate.
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