Phone companies Verizon Communications Inc. and MetroPCS Communications Inc. suffered embarrassment when a US appeals court dismissed the lawsuits filed by them to challenge the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC)'s net neutrality rules.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the lawsuits filed by the two companies were premature. The court added that the companies couldn't challenge the net neutrality rules until they were published in the Federal Register.

Welcoming the court's ruling, the FCC said, "We are pleased the D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed with the commission that Verizon and MetroPCS were premature in challenging the Open Internet framework."

In December last year, the FCC introduced new net neutrality rules that prohibit ISPs from intentionally blocking or slowing down Web traffic.

However, the new rules have not so far been published officially. It is expected that the agency would publish them sometime in May or June this year.

The House of Representatives, where Republicans are in majority, is expected to pass a resolution to topple the new FCC rules. But, the Senate as well as President Obama has been supportive of the new rules. The White house has already announced that President Obama would veto the resolution.

On the other hand, Verizon and MetroPCS have been arguing that the FCC does not own the power to implement traffic management rules on them.