The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) defended its rollback of Obama era net neutrality protections on Thursday, October 11, filing a legal brief with a federal appeals court that argues the agency has the right to change its mind, reported ArsTechnica.
The Republican-led FCC said it was within its legal right to roll back the 2015 rules, citing a Supreme Court decision from a decade earlier as precedent. The agency claimed says the rules, which imposed utility style regulation on broadband networks, stifled investment by internet service providers (ISPs).
The FCC’s Chairman Ajit Pai’s FCC argued that broadband is not a “telecommunications service” as defined in federal law, and therefore it must be classified as an information service instead. As an information service, broadband cannot be subject to common carrier regulations such as net neutrality rules, Pai.
