There is a fair bit of disagreement whether Julius Genachowski is going to make the Internet more open, but it’s clear already that he is moving to open up the arcane ways of the Federal Communications Commission, of which he is chairman.

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On Thursday morning, the commission voted unanimously to begin a formal discussion of Mr. Genachowski’s proposed rules for what is called network neutrality, a concept that would require telecommunications companies not to favor certain services or devices over others.

Mr. Genachowski and the two other Democratic commissioners voted for the proposal. The two Republican commissioners voted to support moving forward with the inquiry, but they did not support the text of the proposal.

Unlike past commission chairmen, Mr. Genachowski has issued a draft of his proposed rules rather than simply asking questions. He is allowing three months for comments, longer than usual. And he directed the commission staff to examine the technical issues that underlie the debate.

“For too long the commission has fallen into the habit of obscuring from public view the text of proposed rules,” said Robert M. McDowell, one of the Republican commissioners.

Mr. McDowell praised the “persistent eagerness” of the chairman to find a way to engage the Republicans in the discussion.

Mr. Genachowski also sought to address the heavy criticism his proposal has received from telecommunications companies that his plan would lead to gridlock on the Internet because they would not be allowed to act as traffic cops.

His plan included an extensive list of “reasonable network management practices” that would be permitted.

These included reducing the effect of network congestion, guaranteeing customers a certain quality of service, giving priority to communications by public safety agencies and preventing illegal uses of the network, like the unauthorized transmission of copyrighted works.

Mr. Genachowski, however, offered more questions than answers on what may be the biggest philosophical debate: whether a telecommunications company can give preference to services it offers over those of rivals. Communications companies want to offer services that take advantage of some of the capacity or features of their networks. This might be offering Internet video services, improved voice mail or text-messaging, or faster connections to Internet sites that pay for speedy service.

The commission simply asked for comment on how to define what it calls “managed services” and what rules should apply to them.

On this issue, Michael J. Copps, one of the Democratic commissioners, argued that Internet service providers should not be able to favor their own products over others.

“The Internet must never be about powerful gatekeepers and walled gardens,” he said. “It must always be about the smoothest possible flow of communications among people.”

But Mr. McDowell said that such rules would deny consumers the benefits of better services.

“Consumers are telling the marketplace that they don’t want networks that operate merely as ‘dumb pipes,’” he said. “Sometimes they want the added value and efficiency that comes from intelligence inside networks as well.”

As expected, the proposal would explicitly extend the commission’s informal network neutrality policy to wireless as well as wired networks.

The commission has not yet released the text of its proposal. (That’s another of its arcane procedures.) A live blog of the meeting is on its site, OpenInternet.gov, where presumably it will post the full proposal soon. According to a news release from the agency, the proposal says that providers of broadband Internet service:

1. Would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from sending or receiving the lawful content of the user’s choice over the Internet;

2. Would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from running the lawful applications or using the lawful services of the user’s choice;

3. Would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from connecting to and using on its network the user’s choice of lawful devices that do not harm the network;

4. Would not be allowed to deprive any of its users of the user’s entitlement to competition among network providers, application providers, service providers and content providers;

5. Would be required to treat lawful content, applications and services in a nondiscriminatory manner; and

6. Would be required to disclose such information concerning network management and other practices as is reasonably required for users and content, application, and service providers to enjoy the protections specified in this rule-making.

Comments are due Jan. 14, with replies to comments due MarCH 5. The commission has as long as it wants after that to decide what to do.

Since President Obama campaigned on a promise of network neutrality, it is not at all clear that any amount of persistent eagerness on all sides will be able to create rules that will accommodate the concerns of the telecommunications companies and the commission Republicans.