After a net neutrality win, it’s lawsuit season
Sound the alarms, the Open Internet Rule is finally entering the Federal Register and lawsuit season is officially upon us. Now that the season is open, trade groups representing all the big ISPs will be able to act on their promises to sue by asking the court to stop this net neutrality/Open Internet thing before it even gets off the ground.
In case you missed it, the net neutrality win means that whether you’re browsing eBay, or streaming the latest Stallone movie, your internet service provider has to load each site with equal speed. It kills the idea of an internet ‘fast lane,’ that would allow customers to pay more to receive preferential, faster, service.
Years of battling come to a head
The ruling came after a year long war between telecom companies and net neutrality advocates. The FCC received more than four million comments, as well as a call from President Obama, urging to adopt the strongest rules possible.
Lawsuits are now expected from the industry, which contends new regulations will burden their investments, prevent innovation, and harm consumers. Former FCC chairman, Michael Powell warned that customers would undoubtedly and nearly instantaneously “bear the burden of new taxes and increased costs.”
If you’ve been following the net neutrality battle at all, then you’ll know the agitation of the big ISPs is nothing new. After a public statement from the White House in Novemer, regarding Tittle II classification, ISPs began to worry it could really happen and by the end of February their fears were confirmed.
So who opposes this? You’ll be shocked. (JK, you won’t be)
As soon as the Federal Register printed the new rule, which will not be effective until June 12, a 10-day window was opened. This allows opposing parties to try and stop it. Opposers include: NCTA, CTIA, USTelecom, and the American Cable Association.
As the Consumerist states, “the trade groups are attacking on basically every possible front at once: procedure, authority, and substance. That is, they claim that the FCC did it wrong; that even if the FCC didn’t do it wrong, that they didn’t have the authority to do it; and that even if they did have the authority to do it and didn’t do it wrong, that the details are all rubbish and need to be thrown out.”
That’s pretty much the fight in a nutshell: trade groups are mad and they are coming from every side possible to try and get this decision reversed or amended.
