This was one of the channels in which Comcast discussed that the Federal Communications Commission should not reclassify broadband providers as general carriers, a selection that forces ISPs to treat customers fairly in other ways. The Title II common carrier arrangement that makes net neutrality rules enforceable isn’t certain because ISPs won’t violate net neutrality principles anyway, Comcast and other ISPs have claimed.
But with Republican Ajit Pai now in a speech at the Federal Communications Commission, Comcast’s stance has switched. While the company still says it won’t block or throttle Internet content, it has abandoned its promise about not instituting paid prioritization.
Instead, Comcast now vaguely says that it won’t “separate against lawful content” or impose “anti-competitive paid prioritization.” The difference in wording suggests that Comcast may offer paid fast lanes to websites or other online services, such as video streaming providers after Pai’s FCC eliminates the net neutrality rules next period. With no FCC rules against paid fast lanes, it would be up to Comcast to determine whether any specific prioritization deal is “anti-competitive.”
Comcast is the open home Internet provider in the US, with more than 23.5 million domestic Internet subscribers. In May 2014, Comcast Senior Executive VP David Cohen wrote the following:
To be clear, Comcast has never offered paid prioritization, we are not proposing it today, and we’re not considering joining into any paid prioritization creating fast lane deals with content owners.
Six months later, Comcast made the commitment again, saying, “We don’t prioritize Internet traffic or have paid fast lanes, and have no plans to do so.” Comcast said that it bought with then-President Obama’s stance that there should be “no paid prioritization.”
The events in 2014 were different than they are today. Back then, the FCC clearly meant to impose at least some restrictions on paid prioritization, and ISPs were trying to avoid the Title II classification. Comcast had also admitted to some limitations on paid prioritization as a limitation on its 2011 purchase of NBCUniversal.
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