Developments in telecommunications policy being made in the legal system.
Court case
Free Press Weighs in on Harms of FCC's Net Neutrality Repeal in Response to Appeals-Court Remand
Free Press condemned the Federal Communications Commission’s abandonment of its authority to safeguard internet users and promote universal access to an open and affordable internet. The filing was in response to an Oct 2019 US Court of Appeals decision to remand for further consideration by the FCC three key issues related to the agency’s 2017 network neutrality repeal, which also rolled back other vital protections under Title II of the Communications Act.
FCC Denies Further Delay in Restoring Internet Freedom Proceeding
By this Order, the Federal Communications Commission denies a further extension of time for filing comments and reply comments on the Public Notice seeking to refresh the record in the above-captioned Restoring Internet Freedom and Lifeline proceedings. On April 16, 2020, the City of Los Angeles, the County of Santa Clara, the Santa Clara
Public Knowledge Files Comments on FCC’s Net Neutrality Public Notice
The court in Mozilla required the Federal Communications Commission to address how its Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which repealed the agency’s net neutrality rules and removed FCC jurisdiction over broadband, impacted public safety, pole attachments, and the Lifeline program. Instead of opening a new rulemaking proceeding, the FCC issued a Public Notice that fails to explain how the agency ultimately intends to proceed on this matter.
FCC Seeks Supreme Court Review of Media Ownership Decision
The Solicitor General of the United States, on behalf of the Federal Communications Commission, has asked the Supreme Court to review a US Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision overturning most of the FCC's media ownership deregulation decision, hammering the circuit for what the FCC suggested was serial obstruction of what it had concluded was in the public interest. The FCC said that it has been trying to grant the ownership deregulation for 17 years, thwarted by a series of decisions by a divided panel of the Third Circuit.
Frontier Communications Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
Frontier filed for bankruptcy to implement a prearranged $10 billion debt-cutting proposal backed by the telephone and internet-service provider’s bondholders. The telecommunications company is the country’s No. 7 broadband provider by subscribers and the No. 4 incumbent telephone company after AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon Communications, a legacy of the 1984 breakup of the Ma Bell monopoly. Frontier grew quickly over the past two decades by scooping up phone networks that other companies were eager to unload.
Trump Campaign Sues Wisconsin TV Station Over Critical Ad
President Donald Trump's reelection campaign is suing a Wisconsin TV station for running an anti-Trump commercial that pieces together audio clips of the president talking about the coronavirus outbreak in a way they argue is misleading and false. The ad by the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA features a series of soundbites in which Trump downplayed the threat posed by the virus, while a chart that is splashed across the screen gradually begins to shoot upward as cases of the virus skyrocketed across the US.
Answering the DC Circuit's Remand of the Pole Attachment Question
According to the DC Circuit’s logic, the Federal Communications Commission’s jurisdiction over broadband Internet access services now resides in some sort of regulatory purgatory.
Last year, the D.C. Circuit issued its opinion in Mozilla v. Federal Communications Commission in which the court largely upheld the Commission’s 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order that reversed the Obama Administration’s 2015 decision to apply common carrier regulation to the Internet. While the court upheld the bulk of the agency’s actions as reasonable under the Supreme Court’s rulings in Chevron and Brand X, the court also found that the agency lacked plenary preemption authority over state efforts to regulate the Internet under the FCC’s theory of the case.
Senators Call on FCC to Evaluate How Net Neutrality Repeal Negatively Impacts Public Safety, Universal Access, and Broadband Competition
Twenty-eight senators wrote a letter to the Federal Communications Commission demanding that it consider how repealing net neutrality could negatively impact public safety, universal access, and broadband competition. In October 2019, the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the Trump FCC’s repeal of the Open Internet Order as lawful but also ruled that the FCC failed to adequately consider public safety, the Lifeline program for low-income consumers, and competitive broadband providers’ access to poles needed to deploy their networks.