USTelecom has filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) open Internet or Net neutrality order.
The net neutrality guideline is arbitrary and capricious, and violates federal law, said USTelecom.
USTelecom President Walter McCormick said: “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.”
The trade association said reclassifying broadband Internet access as a public utility reverses decades of established legal precedent at the FCC and upheld by the Supreme Court.
Carrier regulation slows innovation, chills investment, and leads to increased costs on consumers. The commission’s overreach is legally unsustainable. It is unwise given the enormous success of the commission’s Title I approach for consumers, businesses and Internet entrepreneurs.
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,” McCormick said.
