Inside Verizon’s attack on network neutrality

Verizon is taking aim at network neutrality regulations enacted by the Federal Communications Commission with an outsized legal appeal. The company’s 116-page tome filed on Monday evening has a glossary, 53 pages of legal argument, inflammatory prose on regulating the Internet and even a claim that the FCC is trampling the First Amendment rights of ISPs. It’s all a bit much but Verizon may prevail.

That’s because, underneath all the bluster, Verizon has a strong core argument that the FCC overstepped its bounds in enacting these net neutrality rules. The FCC, you see, can regulate the physical pipes over which packets travel on the network pretty stringently, but less so the actual service or content those packets are meant to deliver. Consider that the FCC can regulate roads but not the mail delivery using those roads.

» via GigaOM