MetroPCS Will Ask D.C. Circuit to Overturn Net Neutrality Order
MetroPCS will file a legal challenge to the FCC’s Dec. 21 net neutrality order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the carrier said. The lawsuit is patterned on Verizon’s challenge filed last week in the same court (CD Jan 21 p1). The company filed a notice of appeal through its law firm Paul, Hastings.
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Two weeks ago, five public interest groups asked the FCC to investigate MetroPCS’s recently announced low-cost data plan, which would apparently preclude users from using Skype, Netflix and other popular services (CD Jan 12 p3).
"MetroPCS is committed to promoting competition and an open Internet by giving consumers choices for wireless Internet access services at prices they can afford,” said MetroPCS CEO Roger Linquist. “MetroPCS’ concerns regarding the jurisdictional basis for the Net Neutrality rules, the recent appeal filed by Verizon, and challenges raised by some proponents of Net Neutrality to MetroPCS’ recent 4G rate plans, have caused MetroPCS to appeal the FCC’s Net Neutrality Order to ensure that the concerns of competitive wireless carriers, like MetroPCS, are addressed."
Free Press was sharply critical of MetroPCS’s challenge of the net neutrality rules. “Instead of responding to the public outcry over its walled-garden practices by offering open Internet access services, MetroPCS has chosen to follow the lead of Verizon Wireless and sue the FCC to strike down the Commission’s weak, loophole-ridden rules,” said Policy Counsel Chris Riley. “Like a thief caught red-handed, MetroPCS -- rather than change its ways -- is now trying to legalize stealing. … What we're seeing are the early signs of a full scale assault on the open Internet."
MetroPCS’s notice is “lifted almost verbatim from Verizon’s,” said Andrew Schwartzman, senior vice president of the Media Access Project.
The net neutrality order hasn’t been published in the Federal Register. Once it is published “we believe net neutrality advocates may file challenges in several other circuits in order to trigger a court lottery that would reduce the chances the D.C. Circuit hears the case,” Stifel Nicolaus said in a research note.
MetroPCS argues, as did Verizon, that the D.C. Circuit should hear the appeal. “MetroPCS actively participated in the proceeding from which the Order resulted, is a provider of wireless broadband Internet access services which will be subject to the regulations adopted in this Order if they become effective, and holds Commission licenses that purportedly are to be modified by the Order when effective,” the carrier said in its notice of appeal. The net neutrality order exceeds FCC authority, is “arbitrary and capricious” and an “abuse of discretion” within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act, violates the company’s constitutional rights and is “otherwise contrary to law,” MetroPCS said.