Net Neutrality Defenders Issue Alert as Telecom Giants Ready to 'Sic Army of Expensive Lawyers' on States

Underscoring the importance of protecting net neutrality at the national level rather than relying entirely on state-led efforts, Verizon, AT&T, and other massive telecom companies are threatening to “aggressively challenge” states and municipalities that attempt to establish their own open internet protections in the wake of the GOP-controlled FCC’s vote to repeal net neutrality last December.

In a blog post on Monday, Jonathan Spalter of USTelecom—a lobbying group chaired by executives of large telecom companies—argued against state-level net neutrality laws on the grounds that the U.S. needs “one consistent set of national and permanent consumer protections.”

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“State lawmakers only decided to enforce net neutrality at the local level after ISPs convinced the FCC to abandon its nationwide oversight of net neutrality.”
—Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica

But as Ars Technica‘s Jon Brodkin notes, Spalter conveniently ignores the fact that “the U.S. did have a nationwide net neutrality standard that prohibited ISPs from blocking, throttling, or prioritizing Internet content in exchange for payment,” and “that standard was bitterly opposed by USTelecom and other broadband industry groups.”