Legal challenges to the FCC's net neutrality rules are inevitable, and they will likely come from all sides of the debate.

“Some of the legal challenges won't be about the substance of the order but whether the FCC has authority to regulate under Title I ancillary jurisdiction [under the Communications Act of 1934] in the first place,” says Abigail Phillips, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “That's where we've seen the Verizon challenge, for example.”

The argument is the same one Comcast succeeded in bringing before the D.C. Circuit. In the case, which addressed Comcast's ability to limit network traffic for users of BitTorrent, a file-sharing protocol, the D.C. Circuit said the FCC had failed to tie its ancillary authority to any statutory authority.

“You're going to have parties on both sides challenge this, and that's pretty common for a major order like this—the FCC finds itself in the middle,” says Steve Augustino, a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren. “And usually if both sides don't like it, the FCC will see it as meaning they must have struck a reasonable balance.”

Legal challenges to the FCC's net neutrality rules are inevitable, and they will likely come from all sides of the debate.

“Some of the legal challenges won't be about the substance of the order but whether the FCC has authority to regulate under Title I ancillary jurisdiction [under the Communications Act of 1934] in the first place,” says Abigail Phillips, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “That's where we've seen the Verizon challenge, for example.”

The argument is the same one Comcast succeeded in bringing before the D.C. Circuit. In the case, which addressed Comcast's ability to limit network traffic for users of BitTorrent, a file-sharing protocol, the D.C. Circuit said the FCC had failed to tie its ancillary authority to any statutory authority.

“You're going to have parties on both sides challenge this, and that's pretty common for a major order like this—the FCC finds itself in the middle,” says Steve Augustino, a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren. “And usually if both sides don't like it, the FCC will see it as meaning they must have struck a reasonable balance.”