• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, March 30, 2015

Verizon is calling on lawmakers to pass new net neutrality rules, but “in a way that avoids the collateral damage” that the telecom believes will flow from the Federal Communications Commission's recent open Internet order.

“It is time for Congress to return to its rightful place and set policy,” the telecom said late last week in a letter to lawmakers.

Verizon is urging the lawmakers to pass a bill that was proposed by Republicans earlier this year. That measure would have imposed some net neutrality restrictions on providers, but wouldn't have reclassified broadband as a common-carrier service. That bill also would have stripped the FCC of authority to pass new regulations related to broadband.

The FCC voted last month to reclassify broadband as a utility, and to subject Internet service providers to same common carrier rules that telephone companies must follow. Specifically, the FCC prohibited carriers from blocking or degrading service and from discriminating among content providers by charging higher fees for faster delivery.

Verizon calls the FCC's move “a radical and risky experiment to change the very policy that resulted in the United States leading the world in the Internet economy.”

The telecom adds that a future FCC might back away from the rules, or the courts could overturn them.

“Congress will have to address this issue one way or another, sooner or later,” the company writes. “It is better to do so now, proactively.”