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AT&T Calls For Net Neutrality Laws After Fighting To End FCC Rules (engadget.com)

Posted by msmash on from the not-the-onion dept.

Few people would call AT&T a champion of net neutrality, but that isn't stopping it from trying to claim the title. From a report: CEO Randall Stephenson has posted an open letter calling on Congress to write an "Internet Bill of Rights" that enforces "neutrality, transparency, openness, non-discrimination and privacy protection" for American internet users. They would not only defend consumer rights, Stephenson argues, but establish "consistent rules of the road" that give internet companies and telecoms an idea of what they can expect. The company chief also insisted that AT&T honored an open internet and doesn't block, throttle or otherwise hinder access to content.

The problem, as you might suspect, is what the company isn't saying. The US already had protections for net neutrality that do what it's asking for, but AT&T and other telecoms have spent years fighting net neutrality regulation whenever it comes up. The carrier spent over $16 million in lobbying just in 2017, and it maintained its anti-regulatory stance throughout the FCC's repeal process.

6 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. It's a TRAP!!!!! by bongey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    AT&T just wants its merger to go through.

    1. Re:It's a TRAP!!!!! by jwhyche · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That and AT&T has probably seen the writing on the wall. They fought to end net neutrality at the federal level and now they are looking at a lot of state and local laws getting passed. So instead of one set of rules they might end up with hundreds of rules.

      Well boo fucking ho. They crawled in bed with this crap. No sympathies.

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      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  2. All part of the master plan. by derinax · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure, encode the "new" net neutrality as a law drafted by AT&T lobbyists. Set things in stone and neuter any future liberal FCCs.

  3. Slashdot is a trap... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    AT&T opposes net neutrality... Slashdot whines incessantly.
    AT&T supports net neutrality... Slashdot whines incessantly.

    Let's be honest. This isn't about net neutrality at all. It's about Slashdot looking for an excuse to whine about anything and everything.

  4. Re:FCC vs Congress by Daemonik · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, no they should not. The whole reason regulatory agencies exist is because Congress works at glacial speeds and is simply not nimble enough, or focused enough, to regulate industries that change the rules every other year. Getting Congress to enact a law can take years and huge public effort, and then it is next to impossible to have that law effectively updated once it's on the books and precedents have been set around it. By then the industry it was aimed at will have changed so much it's just a paper tiger.

  5. Re:This is just so they can override the States by dryeo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or they prefer Congress to pass a toothless law rather then effective laws passed by the various States.

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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism