By Brett A. Shumate, Michael B. Hazzard and Bruce A. Olcott
In the latest development in the Federal Communications Commission's ("FCC") decade-long approach to net neutrality, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the FCC's 2018 order preempting state net neutrality regulations and remanded three discrete issues to the FCC, but otherwise affirmed the FCC's latest net neutrality policy.
The FCC's 2018 "Restoring Internet Freedom Order" classified broadband internet access service as an information service under Title I of the Communications Act, repealed and replaced the net neutrality rules adopted in the FCC's 2015 "Open Internet Order," and preempted state net neutrality regulations that are inconsistent with the FCC's deregulatory approach.