Two lawsuits were filed this week challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules, under which internet service providers will be regulated in the same manner as traditional telephone companies, which were adopted last month amid questions about the circumstances surrounding their consideration.
USTelecom, a telecom industry trade group, and Alamo Broadband, Inc., a Texas-based internet service provider, filed separate lawsuits against the agency nearly a month after it ruled that providers treat all Internet traffic equally.
USTelecom filed its suit with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which has rejected the FCC’s two previous attempts at net neutrality regulations over the past decade.
Jon Banks, USTelecom’s senior vice president, said Monday the group’s blog that his organization’s lawsuit would not focus on the FCC’s rules prohibiting blocking or throttling traffic.
"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," Bank said.
Alamo Broadband said that it is "aggrieved" and "possesses standing to challenge" the agency’s order, according to the Washington Post’s copy of the petition the company filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.
Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, a free market think tank, said in a media statement that the lawsuits are "only the opening salvo in what could be a decade of litigation."
Two other industry trade groups, CTIA-The Wireless Association and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, are also expected to file lawsuits challenging the FCC’s order.
The order, made public on March 12, reclassified broadband providers as telecommunications services under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, and placed the agency in the crosshairs of both net neutrality supporters and critics alike.
"Lawsuits were inevitable from the moment Chairman Wheeler moved toward heavy-handed regulation of the Internet under Title II," said TechFreedom’s Szoka.
"That’s great news for telecom lawyers; it means full employment for years to come. But for many consumers, it means delays in investment and broadband upgrades," he said.
Daniel Berninger, founder of the Voice Communication Exchange Commission, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., and a pioneer of the Voice over Internet Protocol, said that the FCC has repeatedly decided that it does not regulate computing.
"The FCC is reversing itself, and so the legal question," said Berninger, "is, ‘Can the FCC reverse itself?’"
Berninger has assembled a coalition of fellow Internet pioneers, which includes billionaire Mark Cuban, to oppose the reclassification under Title II.
Last month a report in the Wall Street Journal alleged that the White House had attempted to influence the outcome of the agency’s net neutrality proceedings, leading Tom Wheeler, the FCC’s chairman, to take credit for the new rules.
According to Wheeler’s office and net neutrality advocates, the chairman’s decision to reclassify broadband providers under Title II was influenced by public input, not the White House.
Supporters of the net neutrality rules argued that it is not uncommon for presidents to weigh in on policy matters and that President Barack Obama was simply one of 4 million Americans who commented on the proceedings during the course of 2014.
In the lead-up to the FCC’s vote, a top adviser to Wheeler said that the chairman was "not a lapdog" for the president.
Wheeler denied the Wall Street Journal’s report before Congress last week during a series of hearings at which members questioned the five FCC commissioners about the regulations.
However, Wheeler’s denial came a day after the White House announced that it would be exempting its Office of Administration from requests made under the Freedom of Information Act.
Emails uncovered in a FOIA request made by Vice revealed that White House officials were communicating with Wheeler and his senior staff about the FCC’s net neutrality proposal "as far back as last May."
As the Washington Free Beacon previously reported, the FCC waited for clearance from the White House before releasing the emails.