Verizon relaunches net neutrality lawsuit against FCC

The Federal Communications Commission's new net neutrality rules, which are scheduled to go into effect in late November, are officially under fire from multiple directions. Verizon (NYSE: VZ) is again challenging the rules, filing a federal lawsuit against the FCC that echoes a lawsuit it first filed many months ago.

The Verizon lawsuit comes just a few days after the Free Press filed its own suit against the FCC, which it has said went too easy on wireless carriers, such as Verizon Wireless, in creating the new rules. Verizon, meanwhile, hasn't been happy with the new rules either, particularly after the FCC scoffed at an effort by Verizon and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to submit their own vision for new net neutrality rules.

Many proponents of net neutrality have said that while the FCC publicly rejected Verizon's vision, it actually ended up incorporating some of Verizon's desires into its new rules by leaving wireless data traffic exempt from the policy. Still, Verizon has insisted that the FCC doesn't have the right to even set new rules, and despite having gotten some of what it wanted out of the new rules, Verizon may smell enough blood at this point to contribute to the capsizing of the FCC's entire effort.

This is actually Verizon's second lawsuit against the FCC over the new rules. The telco filed a lawsuit against the FCC last spring, but that suit was thrown out of court, mostly because the new rules had not yet been published.

There are likely to be more lawsuits filed in the weeks ahead in opposition to the new rules, and also challenges mounted in Congress against the FCC effort. Several members of Congress also have spoken out against the FCC's right to set net neutrality policy.

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Free Press filed its lawsuit against the FCC last week
Verizon saw its first lawsuit rejected last April