Comcast agrees with President Obama on network neutrality, except for the legal bit

A day after President Barack Obama jolted the telecom industry with a bold announcement on network neutrality, Comcast declared that it agrees with him – on every point. Comcast says it is totally against “blocking,” “throttling,” “paid prioritization” and the other types of mischief that net neutrality is intended to prevent. In response to Obama’s various policy positions, Comcast stated over and over again “We agree and that is our practice.”

But there is one caveat: “There is one important technical legal difference of opinion between the President and Comcast: we do not support reclassification of broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II.” In other words, Comcast likes Obama’s ideas just fine in theory, but not in practice. And while the company frames the disagreement as a “technical legal difference,” the distinction between Title II (what President Obama wants) and the Section 706 (what Comcast wants) is in fact totally monumental. Also, why Comcast is quick to say that “no blocking” and “no throttling” is its practice, the company might have added that it is currently under a legal order to abide by net neutrality until 2018 -- which was a promise it had to make when it swallowed content giant NBC.