Well, that complaint just dropped. In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission on Monday, Commercial Network Services (CNS) claims that it’s being charged unjust rates to deliver its streaming Web cam video to consumers.
CNS wants Time Warner Cable to carry its traffic for free. But TWC is telling CNS’s chief executive, Barry Bahrami, that his company doesn’t qualify for what’s called a “settlement-free” deal.
“TWC is acting as gatekeeper and degrading our ability to exercise free expression,” Bahrami writes in the complaint. “TWC’s management policy is restricting the open exchange of Internet traffic.”
TWC has said that its behavior is consistent with industry standards and that it’s confident the FCC will reject Bahrami’s claims.
It’s unclear how much traction Bahrami will get with the commission. His argument is that Time Warner Cable has violated the FCC’s rules against paid prioritization, or the tactic where Internet providers charge a fee to selectively speed up certain Web sites. That behavior was labeled illegal under the FCC’s net neutrality rules.
But that part of the FCC’s rules only cover the so-called “last mile” between a consumer’s device and his Internet provider. It doesn’t address the part of the Internet where Time Warner Cable and Bahrami are having their dispute. So the FCC could find that, in fact, TWC hasn’t broken any rules after all.
While the Federal Communications Commission passed its net neutrality rules on February 26, they weren’t published in the Federal Register until today.
Internet providers are now common carriers, and they’re ready to sue.
The publication means a couple of things: the rules go into effect 60 days from today, and parties that oppose the rules have 10 days to file lawsuits against the FCC. Almost immediately after publication, a trade group representing ISPs called USTelecom filed suit in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
USTelecom’s petition said the FCC’s ruling is “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion” and “violates federal law, including, but not limited to, the Constitution, the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and FCC regulations promulgated thereunder.”
You may recall that this same group sued the FCCover the net neutrality rules last month. That was done just in case the 10-day deadline could be applied after the rules were posted to the FCC’s website, which happened before publication to the Federal Register. In either case, the initial challenge is mostly a procedural matter; detailed briefs laying out a legal argument against the FCC’s rules will probably come this summer.
The FCC’s vote reclassified fixed and mobile broadband providers as common carriers and imposed rules against blocking or throttling Internet content and a ban on prioritizing content in exchange for payment.
USTelecom represents both large and small service providers and suppliers for the telecom industry. AT&T, Verizon, and numerous other companies serve on its board of directors.
While Verizon sued the FCC over its 2010 net neutrality rules (and ultimately won), this time the legal challenges are expected to be led by consortiums rather than individual companies.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the top group representing cable companies, declined to comment today on whether it plans a lawsuit.
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