AT&T has filed an individual lawsuit against the FCC yesterday to challenge its decision to reclassify the Internet as a telecommunications service.
The move come as a surprise as industry experts had predicted that the operator whose US$48.5bn…
AT&T has filed an individual lawsuit against the FCC yesterday to challenge its decision to reclassify the Internet as a telecommunications service.
The move come as a surprise as industry experts had predicted that the operator whose US$48.5bn acquisition of DTH operator DirecTV is still under FCC review, would let trade associations handle legal challenges to the ruling.
Yesterday, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, CTIA-The Wireless Association and American Cable Association filed similar lawsuits in the US Court of Appeals for District of Columbia.
Trade group USTelecom submitted its petition on Monday, after the publication of the net neutrality ruling in the Federal Register.
The claimants argued that the FCC order is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of authority and violates the law.
“CTIA and the wireless industry have always supported an open Internet, which is why these rules will only chill investment and innovation and increase costs for consumers,” CTIA President and CEO Meredith Attwell Baker said. “Instead of promoting greater industry investment in the connected world of tomorrow, the FCC opted to resuscitate a command-and-control regulatory regime, including a process where innovators must first seek permission from the FCC before rolling out new services,” she added.
USTelecom president Walter McCormick shares a similar view: “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 …”
However, in his speech at an industry event in Austin, Texas, yesterday, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler rebuffed criticism, saying that the Open Internet order strived to create an investment climate that is significantly better than carriers experienced during the last build-out boom. “That’s why our Open Internet Order explicitly states that there will be no retail rate regulation. The economic underpinnings for competitive infrastructure investment have never been better,” he pointed out.
The recently-approved net neutrality rules, which ban paid prioritisation, blocking, and throttling of lawful content and services by fixed and mobile providers, have been blasted by all the major telecoms and cable operators, as well as industry experts.
In an interview with TelecomFinance last month, Jack Nadler, a Washington-based partner at Squire Patton Boggs who was actively involved in the legislative proceedings leading to the adoption of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, described the ruling as “an admission of failure”.
He argued that the new regulations, which reclassify ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, fail to foster competition and open the door to years of regulatory uncertainty which could potentially put off foreign investments.
“The goal of telecom policy should be to promote a competitive internet that does not require substantial regulation. The net neutrality rules are an admission that we no longer have a competitive internet (as we did in the dial-up era) and, therefore, have to resort to substantial government regulation,” Nadler said.
The new rules are due to come into force in less than sixty days.
