Verizon, AT&T-backed groups want net neutrality review

The net neutrality fight is not taking a summer break.

Several groups including CTIA  — The Wireless Association, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and USTelecom, a trade association that counts among its members AT&T and Verizon — have filed a petition asking for a rehearing of the Federal Communication Commission's net neutrality rules.

The FCC approved the rules, officially called the Open Internet order, with the blessing of President Obama in February 2015. The main purpose of the rules was to require Internet service providers (ISPs), mainly large cable or telephone companies, to treat all net content equally and to not block or slow the transmission of content. The rules also prohibit content providers paying an ISP for faster content delivery.

What is net neutrality and what does it mean for me?

A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 last month to uphold the rules and deny a court challenge by AT&T and several other companies and groups. In the latest challenge, filed Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the petitioners say that a review by a full court is needed. "The Order, and the panel decision approving it, are seriously wrong in authorizing this power grab," said the petition filed by CTIA.

ISPs are not against net neutrality rules, but oppose the FCC's ability to regulate the net as a public utility, said USTelecom President Walter McCormick in a statement. "Reclassifying broadband access as a public utility service reverses decades of established legal precedent which has been upheld by the Supreme Court," he said.

The FCC based its authority for net neutrality rules in Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. However, the agency agreed to "forbear" — or refrain — from some provisions in the Act regarding pricing regulation, for instance.

Congress gave the FCC the power to proceed in that manner, says Chris Lewis, vice president of government affairs at consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge. "There is broad consensus support for strong net neutrality rules, making this just another doomed attempt for trade groups to ignore millions of Americans," he said in a statement. "It’s time for these trade groups to move on — net neutrality is here to stay.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said he was not surprised at the challenge. "We are confident that the full court will agree with the panel’s affirmation of the FCC’s clear authority to enact its strong Open Internet rules, the reasoned decision-making upon which they are based, and the adequacy of the record from which they were developed,” he said in a statement.

The issue of net neutrality has an extensive legal history. The agency proposed the 2015 rules, a year after a federal court tossed out an earlier set of provisions that the FCC had passed in 2010.

FCC's Wheeler confident Supreme Court will back net neutrality

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