Comcast says net neutrality supporters “create hysteria”

Broadband providers made it clear this week: they wholeheartedly support net neutrality... but they want to overturn those pesky net neutrality rules and replace them with something that isn't so strict.

In fact, the way to truly protect net neutrality is to keep the Internet free of regulations, Internet provider CenturyLink wrote. Comcast, meanwhile, accused net neutrality supporters of "creat[ing] hysteria." Comcast, which helped kick off the decade-long net neutrality saga by throttling BitTorrent traffic, also pushed for Congress to replace the current net neutrality rules with something weaker. Congress should write "legally enforceable net neutrality rules" in order to "end the game of regulatory ping pong," Comcast wrote. Verizon has also claimed that it just wants new rules that are legally "enforceable," but the current rules are already legally enforceable. A federal appeals court confirmed that when it rejected a lawsuit filed by industry lobby groups. Comcast said that "the Internet was fine before Title II regulation," without mentioning its history of throttling and a lawsuit Comcast filed in order to prevent the FCC from punishing it in the BitTorrent case. Comcast did eventually agree to follow net neutrality guidelines in exchange for US government approval of its purchase of NBCUniversal in 2011, but that merger condition is scheduled to expire in 2018.