More than a month after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) created new rules for the Internet, multiple Internet service providers (ISPs) have launched challenges to the rules in court, but Tom Wheeler isn’t worried.
“One final prediction: the FCC’s new rules will be upheld by the courts,” the FCC chair said on Friday at Ohio State University. “The DC Circuit [court] 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.”
The Supreme Court ruled against the FCC in 2014, after it had appealed a lower court decision that struck down its 2010 net neutrality rules. In February, the FCC adopted a different legal maneuver, granting itself the power to govern ISPs by redefining them as common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.
