• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, June 2, 2015

In an about-face, AT&T will promise to follow some of the new net neutrality rules as a condition of its $49 billion merger with DirecTV, according to a report in today's Washington Post.

The current regulations prohibit broadband providers from blocking or degrading traffic and from charging companies for prioritized delivery of their material. The rules also broadly ban providers from interfering with consumers' attempts to access content or services.

AT&T -- which is suing to vacate the recent net neutrality order -- is now prepared to agree to refrain from blocking or degrading traffic and from forging paid prioritization deals, according to the Post.

But the company apparently wants to be able to engage in some practices that are more ambiguous under the new rules. Among others, AT&T still wants to be able to exempt its own video services from consumers' data caps, according to a recent Federal Communications Commission filing.

It's not clear whether that type of exemption -- also called “zero-rating” -- will violate net neutrality regulations. The FCC so far has said only that it intends to take a case-by-case approach to zero-rating deals.

But advocacy groups and some online video distributors criticize zero-rating deals, arguing that they give consumers an incentive to avoid streaming video through Netflix, Amazon or other services that aren't affiliated with Internet service providers.

Still, AT&T's reported promise to follow at least some of the key net neutrality conditions seems like a step forward for open Internet principles. At the same time, it's worth pointing out that broadband carriers haven't always followed their merger conditions in the past.

For instance, Comcast reportedly didn't follow all of the conditions of its 2011 merger with NBC Universal. Among others, the FCC fined the company $800,000 in 2012 for failing to clearly advertise a $50 a month broadband tier, Techdirt reports.

More recently, reports surfaced that Comcast also violated its promise to refrain from managing Hulu. Specifically, Comcast allegedly discouraged Hulu co-owners Disney and Fox from selling the online video company in 2013 -- when it could have fetched as much as $1 billion, according to The New York Times. For its part, Comcast denied interfering in the decision by Disney and Fox.