Not wanting to let net neutrality proponents define the debate, AT&T addressed the issue directly in its public comment filed with the FCC this week. AT&T spent nearly 30 pages attacking proposals to implement strict net neutrality rules and urged the FCC to continue its policy of implementing rules against discrimination on a case-by-case basis. The FCC has very rarely gotten itself involved in network discrimination cases, as its most high-profile case came last year when it for "invasive" traffic-shaping practices.

Verizon aired similar sentiments in its comments and called net neutrality a "backward-looking, heavy-handed regulation" that "would undermine consumer choice and inhibit innovation and investment in broadband."

Verizon's alternative to network neutrality was fairly vague, as it recommended that the FCC require "that network management practices be reasonable, and not unreasonably discriminatory, but not otherwise tying the hands of the network managers." The company also said that these practices were best defined by carriers' own network engineers "who must respond to real world concerns."

Big telecom carriers aren't alone in opposing net neutrality regulations, of course. Brett Glass, the owner and founder of the Wyoming-based ISP Lariat Networks and a longtime net neutrality critic, also thinks that implementing net neutrality rules would restrict ISPs' ability to effectively manage their networks and maintain their service levels.

"The simple fact is that networks need to be managed, and that means the ability to recognize traffic and treat it appropriately," he says. "In other words, the network absolutely must "discriminate" … to work well. The Internet protocols were designed, from the very beginning, with provisions for quality of service and policy routing for this very reason."