American Enterprise Institute

The Federal Communications Commission faced criticism from Capitol Hill when a bipartisan letter from the New York delegation complained that the state has been unfairly excluded from participating in the agency’s new $20 billion broadband initiative. Sens.

The problem with using speed alone in assessing the capabilities of broadband networks is that it represents only one product characteristic, and is not necessarily linked with the requirements of the applications commonly used by end consumers.

In late October, the Supreme Court quietly declined to review Lipschultz v. Charter Advanced Services, an Eighth Circuit decision that preempted state regulation of fixed Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) service. While concurring in the denial of certiorari, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to challenge the underlying theory of federal preemption, noting that “it is doubtful whether a federal policy — let alone a policy of nonregulation — is" sufficient to establish conflict preemption.