Wednesday, January 24, 2018

AT&T proposes 'Internet Bill of Rights' after net neutrality's death

This might sound good on the surface, but don't get too excited just yet.

It's been over a month since the FCC voted to repeal net neutrality, and since then, we've seen some interesting developments. One GOP representative proposed a bill to restore some (but not all) net neutrality principles in late December, and now in January, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has introduced a new "Internet Bill of Rights."

Randall Stephenson

Stephenson starts out his proposal by talking about how often the stance on net neutrality has changed under different political leaders and that it can be "a bit concerning when you hear the rules have recently changed, yet again." Following this, Stephenson calls out Congress and states that it's time to "govern the internet and protect consumers."

Until an Internet Bill of Rights is established, Stephenson claims that AT&T will not block websites, censor any online content, or throttle network speeds. However, just like the bill that was introduced last month, Stephenson doesn't say anything about AT&T not creating fast lanes for customers that can spend more – one of the biggest things that net neutrality prevented.

Furthermore, while Stephenson is trying to position himself and AT&T as champions of a free and open internet, that has never been the case. AT&T spent over $16 million in 2017 to lobby against net neutrality laws, and the carrier didn't show any interest in fighting the Pai's decision to repeal net neutrality last December.

AT&T wants to create an open internet, so long as it gets to define what "open" really means.

GOP representative intros bill to restore some net neutrality principles

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