AT&T CEO Calls For National Net Neutrality Law, Slams State Regs

The CEO of internet and telecommunications giant AT&T, a company that once sued to block Obama-era net neutrality regulations from taking effect, called this week for Congress to pass nationwide net neutrality legislation. At the same time, Randall L. Stephenson, 58, (pictured above) condemned state-level net neutrality laws such as the bill passed in August by the California legislature as a “total disaster.”  The Obama-era regulations that guaranteed equal treatment by internet service providers for all online traffic were ditched by the Republican-controlled FCC this year, after being in place only since 2015. Since the regulations were repealed effective June 11, several states instituted their own net neutrality measures—most notably, a California law that passed on August 31 and was seen as offering the strongest open internet protections in the country. But as soon as the bill was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, the Donald Trump administration sued to stop it, and at the end of October, California’s attorney general Xavier Becerra agreed to delay implementation of the net neutrality law until a court decision comes down in a similar case, brought by open-source web-browser maker Mozilla. That process could take another year. "There are a number of states that are now passing their own legislation around privacy and, by the way, net neutrality," Stephenson said at a tech conference this week. "What would be a total disaster for the technology and innovation you see happening in Silicon Valley and elsewhere is to pick our head up and have 50 different sets of rules for companies trying to operate in the United States." Stephenson added that he wants to see "legislation, not regulation," but critics say that may be because a congressional bill would give AT&T and its powerful lobbyists the opportunity to shape the law to their own benefit. When AT&T supported a national pro-net neutrality “day of action” protest last year, according to the news site The Verge, AT&T hid the fact that it opposed the very regulations that the protest aimed to support—the same regulations that were repealed by the FCC under Trump-appointed chair Ajit Pai this year. “Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T want Congress to make a net neutrality law because they will write it,” The Verge wrote at the time. “Internet service providers are coincidentally united today in calling for Congress to act—and that’s because they’ve paid handsomely to control what Congress does.” Photo By Robert Scoble/Wikmedia Commons