• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, September 8, 2014

Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi is calling on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to scrap his controversial proposal to allow broadband providers to create paid online fast lanes.

“Innovators prefer bright line rules and worry the proposed rules would force them into commercial arrangements that require payment of tolls in cash or equity to get their ideas on the Internet,” the representative from California says today in a letter to Wheeler. “I oppose special Internet fast lanes, open only to those firms large enough to pay big money or fraught enough to give up big stakes in their company.”

Pelosi's letter comes in response to Wheeler's proposed net neutrality rules, which would allow broadband providers to enter into “commercially reasonable” arrangements to charge content creators for prioritized delivery.

Like other net neutrality supporters -- Pelosi is urging Wheeler to not only scrap that proposal, but also reclassify broadband access as a Title II “telecommunications” service. If that happens, broadband providers would have to follow the same common carrier rules that require telephone companies to avoid discrimination when putting through phone calls.

“Importantly,” she writes, “Title II designation also gives the FCC the certainty to protect consumers from fraudulent billing practices and privacy infringements while maintaining the guarantee that Voice-over-Internet-Protocol calls and other data will reach their destination without interference.”

Pelosi's letter comes one week before the FCC will stop accepting comments on its proposed net neutrality regulations. By July, the FCC received more than 1 million comments -- setting a new record for the agency. More than 99% of those comments were in favor of strong open Internet protections, according to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation.

Digital rights advocates are planning campaigns aimed at spurring even more people to weigh in. On Wednesday, some of the Web's most popular sites -- including Netflix -- will participate in a symbolic “slowdown” by displaying icons that indicate a page is loading. (The pages won't actually load more slowly.) The sites also will direct people to the site Battle for the Net, which will ask users to contact their representatives and urge them to protect open Internet principles.