Wireless group makes case against tough Web rules

The wireless industry’s trade group has new legal analysis explaining how its services would not be covered under new rules if regulators decided to treat the Internet like a public utility.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has “no lawful basis” for imposing utility-styles rules on people’s access to the Internet over their phones and tablets, CTIA-The Wireless Association said in a filing with the agency late on Monday. 

{mosads}The analysis provides a new wrinkle in the FCC’s efforts to write new net neutrality rules so that Internet providers are required to treat all Internet traffic equally.

President Obama and many other Democrats have urged the FCC to reclassify Internet service so that it can be regulated under Title II of the Communications Act, which would lead to stricter rules similar to those for traditional phone service. Many have also said that the rules should be extended to wireless service providers such as AT&T and Verizon, which were not covered under the commission’s previous rules.

Reclassifying Internet service, however, would prevent the FCC from applying the rules to wireless, the trade group argued.

“[O]n one point in particular, the Act is clear: Under Section 332, mobile broadband may not, under any circumstances, be subjected to common carrier treatment under Title II,” CTIA said. Title II of the Communications Act lays out rules for “common carriers” — or utility services — such as traditional phone lines.

“Congress intended only mobile offerings that mimic traditional telephone service to be subject to common carrier treatment,” it added.

Wireless companies that allow people to connect to the Internet are so much more than traditional phone service, the group argued, so the service is “immune from common carrier regulation.”

Instead, the trade group urged the FCC to write rules under a different portion of the law allowing it to support broadband deployment. The group has also said that wireless service should not be covered under the same rules as wired Internet providers.