New America Letter on Clarify Prioritization Practices on the NET

New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative (OTI) sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission responding to AT&T's letter of August 30th, 2010 concerning the use of traffic prioritization. OTI's letter seeks to rebut AT&T's assertions that traffic prioritization technologies are already in widespread use and any attempt to restrain the use of those technologies would be harmful to the functioning of the Internet.

"AT&T ability to create confusion over paid prioritization is exactly why the FCC needs to set clear and transparent rules," stated Sascha Meinrath, Director of OTI. "Paid prioritization targeting minority communities is deeply concerning and should immediately be investigated by the FCC." OTI's letter describes how the Internet traffic prioritization technologies cited by AT&T are currently used with enterprise-class customers to allow them to set traffic priorities for their broadband connection. These practices are distinct from a 3rd party paid prioritization model for residential broadband customers which would be used to set up a slow and fast lane for Internet content and applications that would be inconsistent with network neutrality principles and establish a completely new model fundamentally different from AT&T's claimed status quo.

"In their letter, AT&T seeks to confuse the issue by conflating good network practices currently in use with traffic prioritization techniques that could potentially be harmful to Internet users in the near future," said Josh King, Staff Technologist for OTI. "We are trying to clarify that distinction."