• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, September 15, 2014

Lest there was any doubt, wireless broadband providers want to make clear that they oppose the idea that they should be subject to the same net neutrality regulations as wireline providers.

“Mobile broadband providers are competing fiercely to win and retain customers, contesting on price and network performance,” the industry group CTIA-The Wireless Association says in comments filed today with the Federal Communications Commission. “This mobile market has flourished without prescriptive Open Internet regulation, and the Commission should continue to pursue that course.”

The group's comments come several days after FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler suggested that the agency could apply net neutrality regulations to wireline and wireless providers equally.

The last time the FCC enacted open Internet regulations, the agency imposed more stringent rules on wired carriers than mobile providers. Those former rules ­-- passed in 2010, but invalidated earlier this year by an appellate court -- prohibited wired carriers from blocking or degrading sites and apps, and from engaging in unreasonable discrimination. But the rules only prohibited wireless carriers from blocking or degrading competing apps.

Many net neutrality advocates were disappointed that those rules didn't do more to rein in wireless carriers.

Wheeler said last week at a CTIA conference that numerous commenters have pointed out that “consumers increasingly rely on mobile broadband as an important pathway to access the Internet.”

“The basic issue that is raised is whether the old assumptions upon which the 2010 rules were based match new realities,” he added.

For its part, the CTIA says that technical differences between wired and wireline networks justify different rules.

“Commenters claiming that there is just 'one Internet' and that one set of rules should govern both fixed and mobile broadband miss the point -- mobile is different than fixed,” the group says. “A single fiber strand can carry 1,000 times more bits per second than a 10 GHz radio channel; whereas fixed communications channels are relatively clean and stable, mobile channels are anything but.”

The industry group also argues that wireless carriers face more competition than those offered wireline service. “While 85 percent of U.S. homes have at most two wired broadband providers, 82 percent of Americans are served by four or more mobile broadband providers (and 92 percent are served by three or more),” CTIA says.