Net Neutrality Gaining Support, AT&T Resists
Support for Net Neutrality rules gained support on Monday when 24 executives of Internet content and Telecom service companies including Twitter, Facebook, Google and Amazon sent a letter to the FCC saying, “America’s leadership in technology space has been due, in large part, to the open Internet”.
These companies are urging the FCC to move forward with new rules to prevent Internet providers from promoting one application over another.
A meeting, scheduled for Thursday, will involve rule making proposals that will include questions that are intended to draw comments from the public as well as companies involved. These questions span across the net debate including how carriers will handle managed services like premium video services over shared broadband facilities and if these services should fall under the new rules.
Some carriers, like AT&T, are moving past sending letters to the FCC in their fight against Net Neutrality, but instead are going to their employees for support. A letter issued by AT&T chief Policy Executive, Jim Ciccone, informs employees that the new guidelines would “drive up consumer prices, and burden companies like ours while exempting companies like Google”.
The letter urges AT&T employees to go to the FCC web-site using their personal e-mail accounts, as to not raise any suspicion to the agenda of AT&T, to barrage the FCC with five AT&T talking points designed to stall the issue rather than help it move forward.
These type of letters are often designed to nudge apathetic or uninformed employees to action, this letter made the next logical step that would force employees to pay attention by stating,
“The “net neutrality” rules as reported will jeopardize the very goals supported by the Obama administration that every American have access to high-speed Internet services no matter where they live or their economic circumstance. That goal can’t be met with rules that halt private investment in broadband infrastructure. And the jobs associated with that investment will be lost at a time when the country can least afford it”.
In one short paragraph AT&T has managed to ignore it’s own faults including decades of anti-competitive behavior, distort the Net Neutrality debate, which clearly states that the goal of any net neutrality rules are for an open Internet to the consumer and give the impression that they will halt network investment if things don’t go AT&T’s way.
As this debate heats up I think we can expect to see more arguments from both sides of this issue. Whether that debate gives the consumer an open Internet that will continue to initiate innovation and foster good competition still remains to be seen.
Related posts:
- Net Neutrality Gains Strong Support
- McCain Blocking Net Neutrality
- Net Neutrality Debate Split Down Party Lines
