In short: Groups that is representing ISP’s AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Charter, are suing the state of California over its Net Neutrality rules. There are four groups that are representing these ISPs, and have filed suite on Wednesday saying that this new law is “complex, burdensome and harmful to innovation.” This new lawsuit comes just days after Justice Department announced that it was going to sue California over its new Net Neutrality rules as well.
Background: Earlier this year, the FCC had voted to repeal Net Neutrality, a set of rules that were put in place under the Obama Administration that keeps ISPs from treating certain data differently. For instance, it would keep ISPs like Comcast from throttling video streaming and not throttling regular web browsing. With Trump taking office, he installed a FCC chairman that wanted to get rid of Net Neutrality, to help Trump rollback everything that Obama did while President. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, was pretty quick to repeal Net Neutrality. However, California decided to create its own Net Neutrality rules for the state, and ISPs are not too happy with that.
Impact: The groups that files this lawsuit are the American Cable Association, The Wireless Association, The Internet & Television Association and the Broadband Association. It is attempting to block these rules before they go into effect on January 1. The groups called this new law “a classic example of unconstitutional state regulation.” It’s to early to say what might happen with this case, but one thing is for sure is that this is unprecedented and may lead to more states attempting to do its own Net Neutrality laws, or it could force states to stay away from that and force more people to urge the FCC to bring Net Neutrality back. Either way, it’s going to be an interesting few months leading up to January 1, 2019.