Verizon sues to halt FCC’s net neutrality rules




On Friday afternoon, Verizon filed its expected challenge to the FCC’s network neutrality rules, suing in federal court to stop them. Verizon claims that the agency has no authority to issue rules affecting the Internet.

“Verizon is fully committed to an open Internet,” said Verizon senior vice president Michael Glover in a statement. “We are deeply concerned by the FCC’s assertion of broad authority to impose potentially sweeping and unneeded regulations on broadband networks and services and on the Internet itself. We believe this assertion of authority is inconsistent with the statute and will create uncertainty for the communications industry, innovators, investors and consumers.”

Verizon’s lawsuit claims the rules, which largely exempt wireless networks, are “arbitrary” and “capricious”—the same charges recently brought by net neutrality supporters arguing that the FCC improperly let the wireless industry off the hook.

Lawyer Helgi Walker is overseeing Verizon’s challenge; she previously represented Comcast before the same court and argued that the FCC had no authority to police Comcast’s P2P throttling. She won that case by making many of the same arguments Verizon looks set to deploy.

The lawsuit against the rules is Verizon’s second in the last few months; its first was thrown out because the rules had yet to be officially issued.

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Article source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/verizon-sues-to-halt-fccs-net-neutrality-rules.ars

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