Internet service providers and their supporters are mad as hell at President Obama for supporting reclassification of broadband as a utility.

While consumer advocates applauded the president, ISPs, their friends in Congress, and industry consortiums issued a series of statements calling reclassification a worst case scenario that will ruin the Internet.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) got the ball rolling by tweeting “‘Net Neutrality’ is Obamacare for the Internet."

"Net Neutrality" is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government. — Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) November 10, 2014

AT&T Senior Executive VP Jim Cicconi believes treating broadband as a utility under Title II of the Communications Act, similar to the traditional telephone network, “will do tremendous harm to the Internet and to US national interests. It is a complete reversal of a bipartisan policy that has been in place since the Clinton Administration—namely, to treat Internet access as an information service subject to light-touch regulation. This classification of Internet service has been upheld by the Supreme Court and has enjoyed strong Congressional support for nearly a generation. Now, with one statement, the White House is telling the FCC to ignore this precedent and to instead impose on the entire Internet—from end to end—onerous government regulation designed in the 1930s for a Bell phone monopoly that no longer exists, not for a 21st century technology. This will have a negative impact not only on investment and innovation, but also on our economy overall.”

While Obama urged the Federal Communications Commission to reclassify broadband, the FCC is an independent agency and doesn't have to follow his advice. A decision is expected next year. AT&T threatened a lawsuit, saying it would “participate in a legal challenge” against reclassification of broadband.

TechFreedom, a libertarian think tank, called Obama’s statement “a cynical political ploy” and said that reclassification would aid Russia and China.

“Title II means the very opposite of net neutrality,” TechFreedom President Berin Szoka said. “Even under Title II, the FCC can’t legally ban all paid prioritization—only regulate it to make sure that prices are just and reasonable. In fact, Title II would authorize broadband providers to charge some price to content and service providers for carrying their traffic to users—and there’s no precedent for the FCC from ‘forbearing’ from this requirement in a market that it claims is a ‘terminating access monopoly.’ Title II would raise a host of other problems, including choking broadband competition, inviting regulation of the rest of the Internet and validating Russia and China’s push to have the International Telecommunications Union regulate the Internet as a telecom service.”

Think cable prices are already too high? The National Cable & Telecommunications Association claimed that heavier regulation "will lead to slower Internet growth, higher prices for consumers, and the threat of excessive intervention by the government in the working of the Internet."

Wireless carriers fear greater regulation, too

Obama wants rules preventing ISPs from blocking or throttling traffic and a ban on paid prioritization deals in which Web services pay for faster access to consumers. He wants these rules to apply to mobile broadband as well, leading to concerns from wireless carriers. The CTIA Wireless Association argued that "applying last century’s public utility regulation to the dynamic mobile broadband ecosystem puts at risk the investment and innovation which characterizes America’s world-leading $196 billion wireless industry."

Comcast agrees with other ISPs that the FCC should issue weaker regulations using different authority from Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, as the FCC tentatively decided to do in May before rethinking things. “To attempt to impose a full-blown Title II regime now, when the classification of cable broadband has always been as an information service, would reverse nearly a decade of precedent, including findings by the Supreme Court that this classification was proper,” Comcast Executive VP David Cohen wrote. “This would be a radical reversal that would harm investment and innovation, as today's immediate stock market reaction demonstrates. And such a radical reversal of consistent contrary precedent should be taken up by the Congress. The Internet has not just appeared by accident or gift—it has been built by companies like ours investing and building networks and infrastructure. The policy the White House is encouraging would jeopardize this engine for job creation and investment as well as the innovation cycle that the Internet has generated.”

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Charter took a hit on the stock market this morning after Obama’s announcement.

Time Warner Cable, which is attempting to merge with Comcast, echoed its potential future owner. “Time Warner Cable remains committed to an open Internet, but we disagree with the President’s statement that an open Internet can only be achieved by reclassifying broadband as a public utility,” CEO Rob Marcus said. “Regulating broadband service under Title II, as the President proposes, will create unnecessary uncertainty, lead to years of litigation, and threaten the continued growth and development of the Internet. The FCC has sufficient tools without reclassifying broadband to protect the openness of the Internet, while at the same time encouraging continued investment and innovation in the Internet ecosystem.”

Charter argued that the current, lenient regulatory environment is what led to “the extraordinary growth of broadband service in the United States, which now reaches more than 70 million households. Efforts to reclassify broadband ignore the fact that the current rules have encouraged billions of dollars of investment in our broadband infrastructure and Americans' access to open, fast, and reliable service has never been greater. Applying 1930's-era, rotary telephone legislation to a 21st century computer technology comes with significant risks to consumers.”

Broadband market isn't really that robust, FCC and consumers say

Not everyone agrees with Charter that the broadband market is so robust. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler echoed many consumer complaints when he argued that Internet speeds aren’t fast enough and that consumers don’t have enough choices.

Despite the ISPs' sunny claims about the broadband market, Verizon's fiber-to-the-home construction has stalled and cable companies usually don't bother competing against each other.

This net neutrality debate wouldn’t be happening if not for Verizon’s decision to sue the FCC over its original net neutrality rules issued in 2010. Verizon won on the grounds that the FCC can’t impose utility-style rules on ISPs without first classifying broadband as a utility, leading the FCC to consider doing just that, potentially leading to stronger net neutrality rules that are more likely to withstand court challenge. Although they haven’t criticized Verizon publicly, ISPs are reportedly “furious” at the company for not leaving well enough alone.

“Verizon supports the open Internet, and we continue to believe that the light-touch regulatory approach in place for the past two decades has been central to the Internet’s success,” Verizon said today. “Reclassification under Title II, which for the first time would apply 1930s-era utility regulation to the Internet, would be a radical reversal of course that would in and of itself threaten great harm to an open Internet, competition and innovation. That course will likely also face strong legal challenges and would likely not stand up in court. Moreover, this approach would be gratuitous. As all major broadband providers and their trade groups have conceded, the FCC already has sufficient authority under Section 706 to adopt rules that address any practices that threaten harm to consumers or competition, including authority to prohibit ‘paid prioritization.’ For effective, enforceable, legally sustainable net neutrality rules, the Commission should look to Section 706.”

The day began with some protestors blocking Wheeler's driveway, temporarily preventing him from getting to work. Though Wheeler hasn't made up his mind about whether he will follow Obama's advice, consumer advocacy groups and some politicians rejoiced after Obama's call for utility rules.

"There shouldn’t be one Internet for deep-pocketed corporations and a separate Internet for everyone else," Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) said, in comments echoed by many people who don't work for Internet service providers. “What the President is asking the FCC to do—to reclassify Internet service as a utility—is simply common sense, and it would ensure that rich corporations couldn’t pay for an Internet fast lane."