The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moved another step closer to drawing up new rules to protect the open internet Thursday as the war of words between cable giants and consumer activists intensified.

In a sometimes heated meeting in Washington protesters calling for an open internet were ejected and the two Republican members of the regulator’s five member panel strongly objected to the new proposals.

The panel voted 3-2 along party lines to advance a proposal in which content companies could pay to have their traffic prioritised by broadband providers. The new rules will be finalized after a four-month public consultation period and are expected to be once again challenged by the cable industry.

The FCC was effectively left without rules to govern the internet in January after a court defeat in a case against Verizon, which challenged the agency's powers to regulate the web.



FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said: “I strongly support an open internet. This agency supports and open internet … There is one internet, not a fast internet, not a slow internet. One internet,” he said.



The FCC had been considering two main proposals for regulating the internet. The first, which is believed to be Wheeler’s preferred option, would see the FCC monitoring any attempts to create a high speed service on a case-by-case basis under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act. Wheeler has said he would block any deals that are not “commercially reasonable”.

The second proposal, supported by consumer groups, activists and many tech companies, would treat broadband internet access as a utility, like electricity or water, as it was until 2002 when president George W Bush separated telecoms communications from “information services”. Redefining broadband as under Title II of the Communications Act would give the FCC more power over companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T, which strongly oppose such a measure.

The FCC has been bombarded with calls and received over a million emails from people concerned about the impact of the new rules, details of which were leaked weeks ago. Tech giants including Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter have also expressed concern. Wheeler said “The public response has been tremendous because the stakes are so high.”

FCC chairman Tom Wheeler during an open meeting to receive public comment on proposed open Internet notice. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

He said the regulator had twice had its rules thrown out by legal challenges from the cable companies. “Today this agency moves to surmount that opposition and to stand up for an open internet for consumers,” he said.



Wheeler denied that his proposals would create a “tiered internet” with fast lanes for companies able to pay for higher speed access. Wheeler said his proposed rules would clamp down on any cable company attempting to slow internet access for consumers of startups. He also put forward the idea of an ombudsman to represent consumers in disputes with internet service providers (ISPs).

Wheeler was backed by Democrat commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rossenworcel. Clyburn said she had been inundated with calls from educators, healthcare professionals, startups and even her mother worried about the open nature of the internet.

She said people were right to be concerned. Without rules, she said, there was nothing to stop cable companies not consumers “picking winners”. “There are dozens of examples around the globe where we have seen the dangers to society when people are not allowed to choose. Government blocking access to content and stifling free speech,” she said

“The future of the internet is the future of everything,” said Rossenworcel. “We can not have a two tiered internet that supports the privileged and leaves the rest of us lagging behind.”

But Republican commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Reilly the FCC was overreaching and its attempts at regulation were likely to be harmful and would fail. Pai said that while there was a bipartisan consensus on a free and open internet the issue was too “fundamental … for us five unelected representatives to decide”. He said two prior attempts to go it alone had ended in court defeats and “I’m not sure the third time will be the charm.”

Commissioner Michael O’Reilly said he had “serious concerns that this ill advised item” will be damaging and send the FCC down the “slippery slope of regulation”.

“Getting the internet right is more important than getting this done right now.”

Google had argued in favour of net neutrality. Photograph: Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Georges Gobet/AFP/Getty Images

In a letter to the FCC Wednesday the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NTCA) said it was “wholly unnecessary to pursue a Title II reclassification” and such a move would be “immensely destabilizing and “would discourage network investment necessary to fuel the 'virtuous cycle' of deployment, innovation and adoption that the Commission has long sought”.

Ahead of the meeting about 100 protesters demonstrated outside the regulator’s Washington headquarters with banners reading Save The Internet and Free Press Requires Free Internet. Some had been sleeping outside the building for days ahead of the meeting.

Kevin Zeese, spokesperson for political activist group Popular Resistance, spent the last week sleeping outside the FCC. He was among the protesters ejected from the meeting.

Wheeler came out to speak with Zeese and others Wednesday.

“He says he wants an open internet and equal access for all. That’s great but I judge a man by what he does not by what he says,” said Zeese.

Zeese said cable companies were lobbying hard for less regulation and that he and other protesters would redouble their efforts after the meeting. “Our goal is to overcome Comcast’s lobbying power with people power,” he said. “The FCC should act in the people’s interest. People hate Comcast, they hate Verizon. Does the FCC really want to concentrate more power in their hands?”

Evan Greer of digital rights group Fight for the Future, said: “It was a pretty clear example of the stranglehold that telecoms money has on the FCC. Despite protests from the left the right, tech companies and thousands and thousands of people that he won't just do what is necessary and reclassify internet as a utility and a public good.”



Becky Bond, vice-president and political director of Credo Mobile, an independent telecoms company, said failure to pass Tier II would be a disaster for the internet. Credo, which uses profits to fund progressive causes, has organized thousands of calls to the FCC to protest any threat to net neutrality and collected over 300,000 signatures.

“A slow moving cave in on net neutrality has been taking place for years. We now have an opportunity for a do-over of a fight that we had lost,” she said. “Now we will see if the FCC will stand up and do what the internet’s users want or whether it will stand back and do what the industry wants.”