Why Ajit Pai’s “unhinged” net neutrality repeal was upheld by judges

Enlarge / FCC Chairman Ajit Pai with his oversized coffee mug in November 2017. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

The Federal Communications Commission has mostly defeated net neutrality supporters in court even though judges expressed skepticism about Chairman Ajit Pai's justification for repealing net neutrality rules.

One of the three judges who decided the case wrote that the FCC's justification for reclassifying broadband "is unhinged from the realities of modern broadband service." But all three judges who ruled on the case agreed that they had to leave the net neutrality repeal in place based on US law and a Supreme Court precedent (see ruling).

The case at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit turned on the FCC's decision to reclassify broadband as an information service instead of as a telecommunications service. Telecommunications services are regulated under common-carrier laws, which provided the legal basis for net neutrality rules. The act of reclassifying broadband as an information service deregulated the broadband industry and removed the legal underpinning for the net neutrality rules.

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