The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to begin receiving public comment on three proposals defining how broadband service should be regulated.

The move comes two months after a US appeals court dealt a major setback to the FCC's efforts to force Internet service providers (ISPs) to treat all Web traffic equally.

A US appeals court ruled in favor of broadband provider Comcast Corp. in April in a case seen as a test of the FCC's authority to enforce "net neutrality" -- the principle that ISPs provide the same speed and level of service to all Web users, regardless of size.

Net neutrality would prevent ISPs, for example, from blocking or slowing bandwidth-hogging Web traffic such as streaming video or other applications that put a strain on their networks or from charging different rates to users.

The court ruled unanimously in the Comcast case that the FCC had not been granted the legal authority by Congress to regulate the network management practices of ISPs.

The process launched on Thursday is aimed at reasserting some FCC authority over broadband and allowing it to push ahead with its National Broadband Plan, an ambitious effort to bring high-speed Internet to the entire United States.

One of the three proposals put forward has been promoted by FCC chairman Julius Genachowski and calls for broadband Internet service to be reclassified as a telecommunications service.

That would force ISPs to adhere to the same strict fairness rules for consumer access as apply to telephone companies.

Genachowski said he was advocating a "light-touch approach to broadband access policy."

"It's not hard to understand why companies subject to an agency's oversight would prefer no oversight at all if they had the chance," he said. "But a system of checks and balances in the communications sector has served our country well for many decades."

The FCC gave the public until July 15 to submit comments on the proposals but telecom heavyweight AT&T weighed in immediately.

"Today's decision by the FCC is troubling and, in many respects, unsettling," AT&T senior executive vice president Jim Cicconi said.

"A better and more proper approach is for the FCC to defer the question of its legal authority to the US Congress," Cicconi said in a statement.

"The FCC has argued that it is not seeking to regulate the Internet," he added. "The facts -- indeed the very words of the proposal voted on today -- tell a different story.

"The FCC proposes to regulate broadband networks virtually end to end under a regulatory structure devised in 1934 for monopoly telephone networks," he said.

"This is impossible to justify on either a policy or legal basis, and we remain confident that if the FCC persists in its course -- and we truly hope it does not -- the courts will surely overturn their action," he said.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association welcomed the FCC move.

"Without deliberate FCC action, consumers, entrepreneurs, small businesses and nonprofits will be left completely powerless against the corporate commercial interests of their unregulated Internet access providers," CCIA president and chief executive Ed Black said.

Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association, said "the FCC must ensure that consumers can enjoy unfettered access to broadband networks and content without overly regulating the Internet."

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