AT&T is talking up the benefits of paid prioritization schemes in preparation for the death of net neutrality rules while claiming that charging certain content providers for priority access won’t create “fast lanes and slow lanes.”

“[T]he issue of paid prioritization has always been hazy and theoretical,” AT&T Senior VP Bob Quinn wrote in a blog post today. But that’s about to change, because “business models for services that would require end-to-end management” have begun to come into focus, he wrote.

“The rhetoric of this debate has centered on the concept of prohibiting fast lanes and slow lanes on the Internet,” he wrote. “Let me clear about this—AT&T is not interested in creating fast lanes and slow lanes on anyone’s Internet.”

But AT&T does care about “enabling innovative new technologies like autonomous cars, remote surgery, enhanced first responder communications, and virtual reality services,” he wrote.

These “are real-time interactive services that require end-to-end management in order to make those services work for consumers and public safety,” he wrote. Paid prioritization is necessary because Internet traffic “directing autonomous cars, robotic surgeries, or public safety communications must not drop.”

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