AT&T comes out strongly on paid prioritisation
Having released a plan for an Internet Bill of Rights in January, AT&T looks to be trying a new approach now. In this post on the company's public policy blog, employee Bob Quinn covers the company pushing for the Bill of Rights, which would guarantee consumer’s rights to privacy, transparency, no censorship and openness. However, he then does something new, he discusses its efforts to achieve paid prioritisation.
Needless to say, talking about paid prioritisation in a post on net neutrality is going to be provocative. You can see responses by neutrality proponents here and here. Lots of name calling and pointing out some of the issues in Bob's post; very little willingness to compromise.
If I might offer one possible explanation for its approach, I would focus on AT&T's potential end objectives. If the company wants to achieve something like its Internet Bill of Rights, might it be using an approach of put-up-or-shut-up? By outlining more concrete plans for paid prioritisation, it might provoke proponents of net neutrality to be more concrete about what it is they're objecting to.
As I wrote in a recent post, Anatomy of a train wreck: 5G and net neutrality, there looks to be a wedge around defining the problem between the two sides of the debate. I'm not sure that AT&T's new approach will by itself bridge the gap that wedge creates. AT&T must be running the risk of provoking a strident response from the other side. With Republicans controlling much of the US government, perhaps it judges that risk as less of a problem.
This is one for us to keep watching. If you're interested in further following developments, please come and join us at the group Commercializing 5G.