Lawsuit Wave Challenges FCC on Net Neutrality
My take? The USTelecom argument falls flat because the companies that are actually innovating broadband services aren’t the ones that are going to sue. The companies who will sue are the reactionary business as usual ISP’s and content aggregates who feel their fiefdoms threatened.
US companies are filing lawsuits against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s recent net neutrality ruling.
The order, which has not taken effect yet, is already being challenged by firms across the United States. As reported by Reuters, the first wave of lawsuits was filed on Monday by companies under the USTelecom umbrella, which argued that the new net neutrality rules are “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.”
The filing argues that the US regulator’s rules also break federal laws, local laws, the constitution and 1934 Communications Act.
Net neutrality, proposed by FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, forces Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to grant customers equal broadband and traffic speeds with no regard to the type of traffic which flows through a network — by reclassifying Internet access as a utility in the United States. Under these terms, for example, Comcast is banned from charging Netflix more than Amazon for Internet access or “fast lanes.”