Associations representing wireless and wired broadband carriers say they will not block or slow down internet content. Representatives for USTelecom, CTIA and NCTA told reporters yesterday they’d also support a bill to prevent “paid prioritization,” reported Broadcasting and Cable.

The action came before today’s FCC vote on rolling back the 2015 changes to Net Neutrality, which reclassified the internet as a utility. Inside Towers reported small ISPs told FCC Chairman Pai the change hampered broadband infrastructure deployment and investment.

On the Hill, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, (R-SD), and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Mike Doyle, (D-PA), offered opposing visions of net neutrality legislation on Tuesday. Thune took to the Senate floor to praise the FCC’s work and called on supporters of an open internet to support bipartisan legislation. He said the internet “flourished’ under previous “light-touch” regulation designed to exempt the internet “from the burdensome regulations” contained in portions of the Communications Act that were designed “in the Depression era for the old telephone monopolies.”

Doyle, meanwhile, promised to introduce legislation after the vote that would roll back Pai’s plan.

December 14, 2017