Commissioners at US telecommunications regulator Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have voted by a 3-2 majority in support of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s proposal to re-introduce nationwide net neutrality.

Net neutrality, which the FCC repealed in 2017 only two years after it had introduced it, requires ISPs to treat all lawful Internet traffic equally, regardless of content, users, platforms, applications, or devices.

But there has been no bipartisan support for the rule at federal level, leaving it to each state to adopt the rule or not. And so far, only a few states have passed legislation mandating net neutrality.

In effect, the proposal is to re-classify – once again – broadband internet as a ‘telecommunications’ service in order to bring it under the oversight of the FCC.

The vote means FCC can now call for public comments to its ‘open internet’ proposal, the next step in the regulator’s rulemaking process. This consultation will allow FCC to either proceed with the rulemaking as proposed, issue a new or modified proposal, or drop the proposal.

If adopted, the new proposal will likely face legal challenges by supporters of the current framework.