It was to be expected that the FCC be hit with a plethora of lawsuits following its vote to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, but the number of lawsuits and strength behind them is intimidating nonetheless. Even so, Chairman Tom Wheeler feels confident that the FCC will beat these legal challenges in the name of protecting net neutrality.
Now that the FCC is the subject of several lawsuits, and its leader, Chairman Tom Wheeler, was dragged in front of Congress repeatedly to answer the same battery of inanity, it’s worth checking in to see how the agency is feeling. Is it confident that its recent vote to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Telecommunications Act will hold? Yes, unsurprisingly. Recently, Wheeler gave a speech at Ohio State University, laying out his larger philosophy regarding the open Internet. His second to last paragraph is worth reading: “One final prediction: the FCC’s new rules will be upheld by the courts. The DC Circuit sent the previous Open Internet Order back to us and basically said, “You’re trying to impose common carrier-like regulation without stepping up and saying, ‘these are common carriers.’” We have addressed that issue, which is the underlying issue in all of the debates we’ve had so far. That gives me great confidence going forward that we will prevail.”