Communications Companies Sue The FCC Over Net Neutrality Rules

In theory net neutrality is a good thing. It basically means that carriers and ISPs are not allowed to give preferential treatment to companies who are willing to pay more for higher bandwidth or faster connections, for example if a company wanted to display video ads on a faster lane than what regular consumers use, the net neutrality rules would prevent that.

Seems fair, doesn’t it? Perhaps it does for the end-user, but as far as companies are concerned, they don’t seem particularly thrilled about it, and recently internet service providers have launched a lawsuit against the FCC, claiming that the net neutrality rules imposed by the body has exceeded the government’s authority and has given them too much power.

According to the lawsuit, the order “violates federal law, including, but not limited to, the Constitution, the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and FCC regulations promulgated thereunder.” The lawsuits are taking place in both Washington and New Orleans with the United States Telecom Association and Alamo Broadband asking the courts to void the rules set out by the FCC.

According to Mark Wigfield, an FCC spokesman, “We believe that the petitions for review filed today are premature and subject to dismissal.” Wigfield does have a point as the FCC’s rules have yet to be published in the Federal Register and will only go into effect 60 days after publication.

However according to US Telecoms, they claim 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).”

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: FCC, Legal