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Does Verizon realize it made a huge net neutrality mistake?

Published Nov 25th, 2014 10:30PM EST
Verizon FCC Net Neutrality Lawsuit

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Both AT&T and Comcast — two companies that are not exactly fond of net neutrality regulations — reportedly tried to warn Verizon against suing the Federal Communications Commission over its 2010 net neutrality rules. The carrier went through with it anyway and now there are signs it’s feeling regret.

RELATED: Verizon’s greed may have finally gone too far

Ars Technica notices that Verizon now says that it won’t sue the FCC again if it simply tries to reinstate its 2010 rules, despite the fact that Verizon successfully got them tossed out of court for being built on shaky legal ground.

It’s rather amusing that Verizon thinks that the FCC will just go back to its old regulations by promising to not sue again. After all, now that the precedent has been set by Verizon’s last suit, the carrier wouldn’t even need to sue to get the FCC’s regulations overturned — it could rely on outside parties to do the work for it.

Of course, the reason that Verizon is now OK with the FCC’s 2010 net neutrality rules is because public backlash against ISPs this year has put pressure on the FCC to enact even tougher regulations than the ones it first approved four years ago.

The bottom line is that Verizon really thought that the government, tech companies and consumers would let it get away with doing whatever it wanted after defeating the FCC’s previous net neutrality rules. For the time being, that’s looking like a bad miscalculation.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.