Telecom trade group sues FCC on net neutrality
A pair of lawsuits filed Monday are聽the first to challenge new 鈥渘et neutrality鈥� rules designed to guarantee open and equal access to the Internet.
USTelecom, a trade group that represents Internet service providers such as聽Verizon, Frontier and AT&T,聽in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., arguing that the rules set by the Federal Communications Commission are 鈥渁rbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.鈥�
And, in Texas, Alamo Broadband, a smaller Internet provider,聽. The company鈥檚 petition looks familiar, using language that calls the FCC rules 鈥渁rbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.鈥�
When the FCC approved net neutrality rules last month, lawsuits were considered a near-certainty. The new rules came after a federal appeals court threw out聽a more limited set of regulations that the FCC had approved in 2010. Verizon led the lawsuit that got those rules overturned.
Last month鈥檚 3-2 vote in favor of 聽net neutrality gave the commission the ability to regulate聽Internet service聽as a public utility, as it has done historically for services like radio, telephone and cable.
Under the rules, the service providers who control access to the Web may not ban legal content, block legal traffic or create 鈥渇ast lanes鈥� that provide faster traffic to some websites than others.
Opponents have argued that there is no need for the commission to oversee a free Internet and that service providers have the right to offer faster service for higher pay if they want to do so in a free economy.
The two petitions filed Monday are light on details as to the exact legal complaints to come. They were filed, according to the telecoms, to beat a 10-day appeal window. The FCC published the full text of the net neutrality rules on its website on March 12.
An FCC spokesperson confirmed Tuesday that the commission has been served with two challenges to the open-internet rules.
鈥淲e believe that the petitions for review 鈥� are premature and subject to dismissal,鈥� the spokesperson said via email.
Doug Gross is a staff writer covering personal finance for聽. Follow him on Twitter聽and on聽.
[Editor's note: The headline to an earlier version conveyed that the telecoms themselves, and not the trade group representing the telecoms, filed the suit.]
