Court Invalidates FCC's Declaration that Broadband Access Via Cable Television Modems Is an "Information Service" Not Subject to Regulation as Telecommunications Common Carriage

Mondaq Business Briefing, November, 2003 by John Griffith Johnson

By John Griffith Johnson, Jr.

In a decision earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned a declaration by the Federal Communications Commission that broadband Internet access provided by cable television systems is exempt from the non-discrimination, interconnection, and other requirements imposed upon telecommunications service providers.

The court's ruling in Brand X Internet Services, et al. v. FCC 1 turned on an issue of jurisprudence more than anything else. A panel of the same circuit in an earlier case 2 had found that cable-modem-provided broadband access contains both an "information services" component (which is subject to less stringent regulation by the FCC under Title I of the...