AT&T previews lawsuit it plans to file against FCC over net neutrality

AT&T seems resigned to the near-certainty that the Federal Communications Commission will reclassify broadband as a common carrier service in order to enforce network neutrality rules. But it isn't going to let the decision stand without a legal challenge, and the company is already telling the world what it's going to argue in court.

The first of AT&T's two recent filings at the FCC concerns whether Internet service providers are information service providers, telecommunications service providers, or both. They are currently treated as lightly regulated information service providers, but they would be reclassified as telecommunications providers under the FCC's expected action. AT&T argues that the capabilities Internet service providers would use to throttle, block, or prioritize traffic must be classified as information services because of the way information services are defined under the law. AT&T's second filing contains a procedural argument, accusing the FCC of making a decision without doing a required analysis.