ISP lawsuit: Net neutrality rules aren't strong enough

30.09.2011
A North Carolina ISP has filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, with the ISP arguing the regulations aren't strong enough for wireless and mobile broadband providers like itself.

The net neutrality rules, passed by the FCC in December, create stronger net neutrality rules for landline broadband providers than for mobile broadband providers, said the lawsuit, filed earlier this week by the Mountain Area Informational Network (MAIN), a nonprofit based in Asheville, North Carolina. MAIN, which serves parts of western North Carolina through Wi-Fi and other wireless broadband services, would be treated as a mobile broadband provider under the FCC's rules.

MAIN's lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, is similar to Free Press Wednesday in Boston. The two lawsuits are comparable, "except ours is specific to the challenges we face in a predominantly rural and mountainous region," said Wally Bowen, MAIN's founder and executive director.

The FCC's rules are unenforceable and will not protect consumers' Internet freedoms, Bowen said Friday, the day MAIN announced the lawsuit. The ISP's lawsuit asks the court to overturn the FCC's so-called open Internet rules and force the agency to revisit the regulations.

"Our goal is to have the FCC strengthen these open Internet rules to make them meaningful and enforceable in order to preserve the Internet as an open platform for grassroots innovation," Bowen said. "We really want our grassroots innovators to have a level playing field and an open canvas to work with."

The regulations bar wireline broadband providers from "unreasonable discrimination" against Web traffic, but don't have the same prohibition for mobile broadband providers. The rules prohibit mobile providers from blocking voice and other applications that compete with their services, but don't prohibit them from blocking other applications.