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posted by janrinok on Tuesday June 14 2016, @09:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the net-for-all dept.

In a bit of good news for the Obama administration (and most Americans), the U.S. D.C Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the FCC's Open Internet Order rules:

High-speed internet service can be defined as a utility, a federal court has ruled, a decision clearing the way for more rigorous policing of broadband providers and greater protections for web users.

The court's decision upholds the F.C.C. on the declaration of broadband as a utility, the most significant aspect of the rules. That has broad-reaching implications for web and telecommunications companies and signals a shift in the government's view of broadband as a service that should be equally accessible to all Americans, rather than a luxury that does not need close government supervision.

The court's opinion can be found here.

takyon: Also at Tom's Hardware. Alternate link for the Appeals Court decision.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @10:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2016, @10:30PM (#360211)

    > If memory serves

    No. The telcos wanted to be "information services" so they would not be required to lease their lines to other ISPs. That ruling killed off all ISPs that did not directly own their cable plants. Companies like Mindspring and Earthlink and a thousand regional mom&pop ISPs that relied on the telcos being required to sell them access to the phone lines were cut off from 99.9% of customers. It was the end of competition in the ISP business.

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