Case Study And Pending Lawsuits In Net Neutrality

National Cable & Telecommunications Ass. v Brand X Internet Services

The FCC declared internet access as an ‘information service’ in 2002 which meant that telephone companies could give their own internet pricing at a discount over a competitor ISP who would be charged double the rate to have access to the high-speed internet access services on the same line.
Telephone companies such as AT&T also required that customers of third-party ISPs purchase AT&Tbranded landline services in order to provide DSL.
Cable companies, on the other hand, offered no access at all to their data lines

A lot of countries have implemented laws, rules or guidelines towards net neutrality

Ultimately, the courts decided via appeals that, yes, the FCC can classify internet service as either an information service or a telecommunications service. As a result, cable companies are free to refuse to share their networks with competing ISPs. This case was key case law in the debate of net neutrality in the USA. It established that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had the authority to classify Internet service as either an ”information service or a ‘telecommunications service’.

Open Internet Order The FCC’s 2010 Open Internet Order created principles of net neutrality that applied to Internet services, without reclassifying Internet services as ‘common carriers’, this was challenged by ISPs. In 2014, Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC had little power to regulate ISPs while they were still classified as information services.
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