Verizon has filed a suit challenging the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, claiming the watchdog has gone too far.

Verizon, Mountain Area Information Network, Free Press and others are questioning rules passed by the FCC in December that established guidelines for Internet traffic. While the rules were passed in December, they were not published in the Federal Register until Sept. 23, which is what opened them up to all the recent lawsuits.

?MAIN, like a number of other groups that we work with around the country, is unhappy that the FCC did not extend net neutrality rules to wireless services,? said Andrew J. Schwartzman, senior vice president of Media Access Project, Washington, which is representing MAIN in its lawsuit. ?We think that it is irrational to apply the rules to wireline services and not to wireless because they present the same policy and legal problems.

?While you have Verizon and others that are going to say that the FCC went too far and that it lacked the authority to do this, MAIN is saying that the FCC did not go far enough,? he said.

Wireline versus wireless
Verizon Wireless and MetroPCS challenged the rules earlier this year but were rejected because the lawsuits appeared before the rules had been published in the Federal Register.

In its suit filed last week, Verizon wants to invalidate the FCC?s net neutrality rules. The suit is based on Verizon?s argument that the FCC does not have the authority to regulate broadband traffic. 

The rules are scheduled to go into effect at the end of November.

At issue in the MAIN suit as well as several others is the fact that the guidelines are different for wireline versus wireless providers.

MAIN is a nonprofit based in Asheville, NC, that provides Wi-Fi and other wireless broadband services.

The FCC?s net neutrality guidelines prohibit wireline broadband providers from giving priority to certain Web traffic over other. However, while mobile broadband providers are prohibited from blocking voice and other applications that compete with their services, they are not prohibited from blocking other applications and have more power to dictate what users can do on the Internet.

The implications are that wireless carriers will be able to block certain apps and slow down or degrade some Web sites.

?This gives mobile wireless users less than full access to all of the Internet,? Mr. Schwartzman said.

?Amazon may be delivered faster than your local independent book seller?s Web site and that interferes with the utility of the Internet as a platform for commerce and for entrepreneurship and innovation,? he said.

There are several possible outcomes given that there are so many lawsuits and they are seeking different outcomes.

?These suits have been filed across the country and will likely be consolidated into one appellate court review,? said Jason Koslofsky, an attorney with ArentFox LLP, Washington.

?If the public interest groups prevail, the FCC would probably try to strengthen the rules to apply equally to wired and mobile Internet,? he said.

?If the carriers prevail, the FCC is not likely to give up on Open Internet principles and would likely try to figure out another way to put into place some form of the rules."

Interested parties have 60 days from the date of publication of the rules in the Federal Register to file a lawsuit. A decision is not likely until next spring.

?Since there are  50 more days for people to file, it is entirely possible you will get additional filings,? Mr. Schwartzman said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York