The next step in the net neutrality fight has arrived: litigation.
Two lawsuits against the FCC’s new net neutrality rules dropped Monday: one from USTelecom, a telecom trade association headed by companies like AT&T and Verizon, and another from Alamo Broadband, a small Texas internet provider. The FCC’s rules, passed last month, would regulate the internet like a utility for the first time, under Title II of the Communications Act.
Both lawsuits call this regulation “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion,” with USTelecom arguing that it “violates federal law, including, but not limited to, the Consitution, the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and FCC regulations promulgated thereunder.”
USTelecom maintains that they are specifically protesting the regulation of the internet as a utility, rather than the end-goals of the “net neutrality” movement like banning blocking and throttling.
“The focus of our legal appeal will be on the FCC’s decision to reclassify broadband Internet access service as a public utility service after a decade of amazing innovation and investment under the FCC’s previous light-touch approach,” USTelecom Senior Vice President Jon Banks said in a statement. “As our industry has said many times, we do not block or throttle traffic and FCC rules prohibiting blocking or throttling will not be the focus of our appeal.”
The rules still have some time before they take effect, and the FCC has already called both suits “premature and subject to dismissal.” But USTelecom writes that they are “filing this protective petition for review out of an abundance of caution… in case the FCC’s Order (or the Declaratory Ruling part of that Order) is construed to be final on the date it was issued (as opposed to after Federal Register publication, which USTelecom believes is the better view).”
Meanwhile, industry lobbyists are holding out hope for a congressional compromise that would replace the rules with legislation.
