Group Challenging FCC Net Neutrality Ruling

A U.S. trade group representing broadband providers said on Monday it filed a petition challenging the Federal Communications Commission's recently approved net neutrality order after the rules were officially published, according to a Reuters report.

USTelecom said in its filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that its petition "supplements" the lawsuit it had filed in the same court on March 23.

That was a placeholder till the rules were officially published in the Federal Register, which marks the beginning of a 60-day period after which the order takes effect. USTelecom had said in its previous lawsuit that it filed the challenge in case the rules are construed to be final on the date they were issued in March.

The court has twice rejected the net neutrality regulations. The new rules prevent broadband providers from blocking or slowing any Internet traffic and from striking deals with content companies for smoother delivery to consumers.

The following statement is from USTelecom President Walter McCormick:

“In challenging the legality of the FCC’s Open Internet order, USTelecom believes the FCC used the wrong approach to implementing net neutrality standards, which our industry supports and incorporates into everyday business practices. 

Our appeal is not focused on challenging the objectives articulated by the President, but instead the unjustifiable shift backward to common carrier regulation after more than a decade of significantly expanded broadband access and services for consumers under light-touch regulation. Reclassifying broadband Internet access as a public utility reverses decades of established legal precedent at the FCC and upheld by the Supreme Court. 

History has shown that common carrier regulation slows innovation, chills investment, and leads to increased costs on consumers. 

The commission’s overreach is not only legally unsustainable, it is unwise given the enormous success of the commission’s Title I approach for consumers, businesses and Internet entrepreneurs, and it is unnecessary given the fact that broadband service providers are operating in conformance with the open Internet standards advanced by the President, agree with the standards, support their adoption in regulation by the FCC under Section 706, and support their enactment into law by the United States Congress.”