Verizon, FCC Net Neutrality Legal Fight Begins Today

[Poke]

Let the fights begin.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-FCC-Net-Neutrality-Legal-Fight-Begins-Today-125704

 

[whitewolf8214]

U.S. appeals court kills net neutrality http://news.yahoo.com/u-appeals-court-kills-net-neutrality-152413671.html

 

[dangue]

The Court's reported reasoning is just shockingly bad. I should reserve judgment until I get a copy of the entire ruling, but consumer choice is factually inaccurate across a large swath of the country. Here's hoping this spurs google to hasten its Google fiber rollout.

 

[Voyager6]

Copy of the Appeals Court ruling can be found here. Basically, if the broadband providers are NOT common carriers then the FCC cannot impose common carrier obligations on them.

As we explain in this opinion, the Commission has established that section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 vests it with affirmative authority to enact measures encouraging the deployment of broadband infrastructure. The Commission, we further hold, has reasonably interpreted section 706 to empower it to promulgate rules governing broadband providers’ treatment of Internet traffic, and its justification for the specific rules at issue here—that they will preserve and facilitate the “virtuous circle” of innovation that has driven the explosive growth of the Internet—is reasonable and supported by substantial evidence. That said, even though the Commission has general authority to regulate in this arena, it may not impose requirements that contravene express statutory mandates. Given that the Commission has chosen to classify broadband providers in a manner that exempts them from treatment as common carriers, the Communications Act expressly prohibits the Commission from nonetheless regulating them as such. Because the Commission has failed to establish that the anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules do not impose per se common carrier obligations, we vacate those portions of the Open Internet Order.

Good article on C/Net about this. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57617199-38/appeals-court-strikes-down-fccs-net-neutrality-rules/