AT&T, Comcast and others sketch their support for lenient — or voluntary — net neutrality rules

The Trump administration’s attempt to scrap and replace network neutrality rules could open the door for internet providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon to charge some companies for faster delivery of their web content or services. It’s not their stated goal, but these so-called online “fast lanes” can’t be completely outlawed under the more lenient approaches to net neutrality advocated by broadband providers at the Federal Communications Commission. Some telecom companies even questioned whether the FCC should play the primary role in enforcing net neutrality at all.

One of the proposals: Telecom giants asked the FCC to consider relying on a different part of federal telecom law to safeguard the open internet. That might sound simple enough, but the portion of law they cite could open the legal door for ISPs to start charging companies like Google or Netflix for faster delivery of their content, a practice known as paid prioritization. They argue that fears of online fast and slow lanes are “baseless,” in the words of AT&T, which further explained that a full-on ban against paid prioritization actually makes it hard for them “to support autonomous cars, remote surgery, and a growing array of other unusually latency-sensitive applications.” Comcast similarly raised self-driving cars in its comment to the FCC.