There's another strong argument coming, surprisingly, from Comcast. It's not an explicit call for reclassification, but it shows that Comcast is being heavily pressured by public opinion. The company has released a statement boasting that "we are the only Internet Service Provider to agree to be legally bound by full Net Neutrality rules." Of course, as the LA Times' Michael Hiltzik points out in this story, Comcast doesn't mention the fact that they were forced to agree to be bound to the rules as a condition of its buyout of NBCUniversal in 2011. Nor does Comcast mention the fact that they're only bound by the rule until January 2018.
But this gives the FCC even more leeway on reclassification. Right now, Comcast is doing everything in its power to appear consumer friendly to try to diffuse opposition from consumer advocates on its potential deal to merge with Time Warner Cable. It has to position itself as a friend of net neutrality, despite its history.
In 2007, for example, Comcast was caught deliberately interfering with its customers' legal traffic on peer-to-peer services such as BitTorrent.First, Comcast can't be trusted to continue to abide by net neutrality rules after 2018, unless the FCC has the strongest possible authority to enforce them. Second, Comcast can't publicly fight a reclassification by the FCC. They can quietly lobby against it, and probably are, but it will damage them significantly politically and with the public right now to fight it hard.The FCC also found in 2012 that Comcast hadn't fully lived up to all the commitments it made to secure approval of the NBCUniversal deal.
President Obama is a key ally in this fight. Sign and send the petition to the White House thanking him for his support of net neutrality and encouraging him to support a plan that would restore the FCC’s authority to regulate the internet as an essential public utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.