Court case

The US Supreme court has declined to overturn two lower court rulings that MN was preempted from regulating Charter Communications’s interconnected voice-over-internet protocol telephone service because the courts were convinced the operator had made the case for why it was an information service, not a telecommunications service, even though the Federal Communications Commission has yet to classify interconnected VoIP either way. That sounds like it would buttress the FCC’s assertion it can pre-empt state efforts to reregulate internet access, which the agency has definitely classified as

House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr.

The D.C. Circuit issued its long-awaited decision in Mozilla v. Federal Communications Commission.  The court affirmed the Federal Communications Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom (RIF) Order, identifying some flaws in the agency’s reasoning but finding the agency could likely correct those errors on remand without vacatur. Though largely expected given the Supreme Court’s precedent in Brand X, the decision is nonetheless a sweeping victory for the FCC and judicial validation of Chairman Ajit Pai’s light-touch regulatory framework for the broadband industry.

Opponents of the T-Mobile-Sprint merger are piling on the deal in the hopes of convincing a judge the Justice Department’s settlement isn’t good enough. The DOJ’s agreement with the wireless companies has to receive final sign-off from Judge Timothy Kelly of the DC District Court, and critics want to make it a tough decision. Historically, the federal court review of a merger settlement has been an uneventful affair.

In a new filing, a group of seven economists and antitrust experts say a court should reject the Department of Justice’s proposed solution for the T-Mobile/Sprint transaction, calling it “doom[ed] ... to failure” and “a remedy that does not meet the standard of restoring the competition currently provided by Sprint.” For at least the next seven years, anyone buying service from Dish will just be getting rebranded T-Mobile service, and that’s not actual competition.

The seemingly interminable wait for the Court’s decision in Mozilla v. FCC is finally at an end. In its 186-page decision, the Court described how it considered economic concepts, arguments, and expert reports. It upheld the Federal Communications Commission’s 2018 Order but rejected its claimed preemption authority. As we have learned, the net neutrality debates will never die, but they may now change venue.

President Donald Trump and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai had lunch at the White House the day the FCC won a major legal battle over its repeal of net neutrality regulations. Apparently, the timing of the Oct. 1 lunch was a coincidence. Two people familiar with the gathering described it as a "family" event.

According to top Federal Communications Commission officials (paraphrased from a background call), these were the seven key victories for the FCC in the decision by the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit:

The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Domino’s Pizza after a federal appellate court ruled that a blind customer can sue the chain under the Americans with Disabilities Act after he couldn’t fully use its website through screen-reading software. Domino’s had asked the Supreme Court to rule that the ADA didn’t apply to websites and apps, arguing the 1990 law predated the modern internet and that there were no firm rules businesses could comply with to make their online assets accessible.

Broadband providers and virtually everyone else is calling for Congress to finally step in and clarify just what authority the Federal Communications Commission has and should use over internet access. The FCC has to come back to the court with a better justification for its assertion that its deregulatory moves would not adversely affect public safety, pole-attachment regulations and Lifeline broadband subsidies. FCC officials said they had no concerns about providing those explanations.