The American Cable Association has joined with ISP petitioners and other trade associations in filing a reply brief calling on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit to overturn the FCC’s decision to reclassify broadband internet access as a highly regulated telecom service. In the brief, the ACA argues that the FCC acted contrary to law and decades of precedent by relying on Title II of the Communications Act as the legal basis for its new regulations. The joint reply brief was filed with associations including the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, USTelecom, CTIA – The Wireless Association, the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) and individual ISPs such as AT&T and CenturyLink.
The brief explained that under the relevant communications statutes, internet service is not like voice telephony, which involves no data storage or processing but only pure transmission, and accordingly should not be regulated in the same manner. Further, in reclassifying broadband Internet access as a telecommunications service, the FCC overturned years of consistent decisions classifying Internet access as an information service, misread both regulatory history and controlling Supreme Court and DC Circuit precedent, and failed to show that it had given proper notice of its planned changes or complied with the Regulatory Flexibility Act's command that it take into account the impact of its actions on small entities.
