Today the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC ruled against the FCC in its fight to maintain net neutrality. “Net neutrality” is the concept that there should be no restrictions on information available on the internet—or, in other words, there should be no preferential treatment for any information on the internet. The court’s Ruling in Comcast v. FCC strikes at the heart of this concept.

As you likely know, the FCC is an independent federal agency, with jurisdiction across all of the US and its territories, “charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable.” In 2007 the FCC discovered that Comcast was deliberately slowing down or blocking its subscribers’ high-speed internet connections when they attempted to access media through online file exchange services such as BitTorrent. The FCC ruled that Comcast’s business practice “contravenes federal policies that protect the vibrant and open nature of the Internet” and gave the company until the end of 2008 to correct the problem. Comcast, claiming that its practices were intended to help manage limited network capacity, appealed the FCC decision to the DC Court of Appeals.

In today’s decision, the DC Court of Appeals indicated that the FCC has no “statutorily mandated” authority over Comcast’s internet service management, reversing the FCC’s order against Comcast. While this decision is a victory for Comcast and other internet service providers, the real losers here might be the public who face the possibility of continued limitation or blocking of access to certain online platforms as well as increased costs for more bandwidth access.

To read the New York Times Article on this ruling, click here.

To read the text of the DC Court of Appeals decision, click here.

To learn more about net neutrality, click here.