Seventh lawsuit challenging FCC’s net neutrality rules filed

Broadband provider CenturyLink on Friday lengthened the list of ISPs and trade groups suing the US Federal Communications Commission over its net neutrality rules.

The broadband provider has become seventh in the list of ISPs and trade groups to sue the US telecom regulator over its net neutrality rules.

The rules were published in the Federal Register, the official publication for US agency rules, which led to the round of lawsuits.

CenturyLink has raised objections to the reclassification of broadband from a lightly-regulated information service to a more heavily-regulated common-carrier service.

It says it spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to "build, maintain and update an open Internet network and does not block or degrade lawful content," it said in a statement.

The common-carrier regulations, dating back to the 1930s, "not only have no place in the 21st century economy, but will chill innovation and investment," the company added.

The FCC is confident it would prevail in the lawsuits, chairman Tom Wheeler said Friday.

Monroe, Louisiana-based CenturyLink, is the third-largest telecom carrier in the US. The company acquired Qwest in 2011, and counts about 5 million broadband customers, with its presence the strongest in the US South, Mountain West and parts of the Midwest.

After the FCC officially published the latest Open Internet order on 15 April, the telecom industry has wasted no time in  mounting a legal challenge to the new rules (See: Verizon, AT&T take net neutrality battle to US court).

In order to ensure ''net neutrality' under the latest order, the FCC had reclassified broadband services as common carriers under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, where the FCC has broad powers to regulate and enforce business conduct.

Analysts say the petitions for review are likely to take one of three routes - the FCC had no authority to reclassify ISPs as common carriers; the FCC did not provide proper notice that it might reclassify ISPs under Title II; attack specific elements of the new rules, like the ban on ''fast lanes''

Commentators say the first argument was risky as the FCC's authority to declare broadband providers as common carriers seemed unassailable. In a challenge to the FCC in 2002, which went all the way to the US Supreme Court, the court ruled the FCC has the power to reclassify at its discretion.

Commentators say that challenges to the FCC's authority were aimed at buying time than a genuine hope to get the rules thrown out.